An international research team from Bielefeld University and the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP) has uncovered a previously unknown regulatory mechanism in human cells. For the first time, they demonstrate how a key molecular switch regulates the cell’s “recycling centers.” The findings, published in Nature Communications, provide important insights into the understanding of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.
Lysosomes are the control centers for the metabolism of cells and tissues, including the brain. They break down defective proteins and other macromolecules into their basic building blocks. At the same time, they determine whether a cell grows or switches into an energy-saving mode. In doing so, they play a key role in health and disease.
A research team led by Prof. Dr. Markus Damme of Bielefeld University and Prof. Volker Haucke, Director of the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP), has now jointly elucidated a key mechanism underlying this regulation.
A team from the Institute of Neurosciences of the University of Barcelona (UBneuro) has designed and validated in animal models an innovative compound with a pioneering mechanism of action for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Unlike current drugs, which mainly remove beta-amyloid plaques that accumulate in the brain, this new experimental drug reprogrammes the neuronal epigenome by correcting alterations in gene expression that contribute to the progression of the disease. The results of this study, published in Molecular Therapy, open the door to an epigenetic-based therapeutic strategy to fight Alzheimer’s disease.
“The compound FLAV-27 represents an innovative and promising approach to Alzheimer’s disease, with the potential to modify the disease process, as it acts not only on its symptoms or a single pathological biomarker, but directly on its underlying molecular mechanisms,” says Aina Bellver, a researcher at the UB Institute of Neurosciences (UBneuro) and first author of the paper.
The study was led by Christian Griñán and Mercè Pallàs, UBneuro researchers and Professors from the Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences. Th work was performed with the participation of researchers from the CIBER Area for Neurodegenerative Diseases (CIBERNED), as well as the UB Institute of Biomedicine (IBUB), the Institute of Nutrition and Food Safety (INSA-UB), the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS) and other national and international institutions.
Humans excel at transmitting ideas, skills, and knowledge across generations, and at building on those competencies in a cumulative manner. James Rilling, Professor of Psychology at Emory University, explores how the transmission of our cumulative culture is assumed to depend on both language and mental perspective-taking, or theory of mind. If humans have specialized abilities in these domains, we must have neurobiological specializations to support them. Our research has used comparative primate neuroimaging to attempt to identify such specializations. The arcuate fasciculus is a white matter fiber tract that links Wernicke’s and Broca’s language areas. It is known to be involved in multiple, high level linguistic functions such as lexical semantics, complex syntax, and speech fluency. Using diffusion weighted imaging and tractography, we have demonstrated human specializations in the size and trajectory of the arcuate fasciculus that may partially explain human linguistic abilities. Theory of Mind depends on a set of cortical regions that belong to a neural network known as the default mode network that is functionally connected, highly active at rest, and deactivated by attention-demanding cognitive tasks. We and others have used functional neuroimaging to show that chimpanzees and other primates appear to have a default mode network that is similar to that of humans. However, the non-human primate default mode network seems to have weaker connectivity between certain key nodes, suggesting that these connections could play a role in human theory of mind specializations. Recorded on 02/27/2026. [3/2026] [Show ID: 41329]
Explore More Science & Technology on UCTV (https://www.uctv.tv/science) Science and technology continue to change our lives. University of California scientists are tackling the important questions like climate change, evolution, oceanography, neuroscience and the potential of stem cells.
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Genetic switches near the FTO locus may enable hibernators’ extreme metabolic resilience and could inspire future treatments for human metabolic and age-related diseases.
In an observational cohort study based on the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities-Neurocognitive Study (ARIC-NCS), the presence of lobar and mixed CMBs was associated with incident dementia. stroke.
BACKGROUND: Cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) are associated with dementia, but the impact of specific microbleed patterns (with distinct pathophysiologies) is unclear. Lobar CMBs commonly result from cerebral amyloid angiopathy (sometimes with cortical superficial siderosis [cSS]), while subcortical microbleeds indicate a hypertensive cause. This study investigates the association of CMB presence, patterns, and frequency with dementia risk. METHODS: Participants from the ARIC-NCS (Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities-Neurocognitive Study), a community-based longitudinal cohort, with a 3T research magnetic resonance imaging at visit 5 (2011–2013) without prior intracerebral hemorrhage or dementia, were included. CMB and cSS presence and location were evaluated using a T2 gradient-recalled echo sequence.
In this Research article, Benjamin D. Philpot & team establish a multimodal dual-reporter mouse that accelerates AngelmanSyndrome therapeutic development through scalable cell-based screening, high-resolution whole-brain mapping, non-invasive live imaging, and sorting neurons with unsilenced paternal Ube3a.
2Animal Models Core.
3Department of Genetics, and.
4Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA.
Wyler, S.C. et al. identify a critical neuronal population that is required for GPR75 to exert its obesogenic effects using targeted deletion and reactivation of Gpr75 in glutamatergic neurons.
This study reveals the neural circuit mechanisms through which stress and itch interact in the brain. Neurons in the lateral hypothalamus play a critical role in the suppression of itch by stress.
Appeals to representation are widespread, despite neuroscientists’ uncertainty about what kind of findings count as evidence for such claims. In this Perspective, Pohl and colleagues develop a unified framework that distinguishes four conceptual dimensions relevant to representation, illustrating them in information-theoretic terms to explicitly characterize representation in neuroscience.
