Posts tagged ‘neuroscience’

Genetics

  1. Zu Y, Tong X, Wang Z, Liu D, Pan R, Li Z, Hu Y, Luo Z, Huang P, Wu Q, Zhu Z, Zhang B, Lin S. TALEN-mediated precise genome modification by homologous recombination in zebrafish. Nat Methods. 2013 Feb 24. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.2374. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23435258.
  2. Chang N, Sun C, Gao L, Zhu D, Xu X, Zhu X, Xiong JW, Xi JJ. Genome editing with RNA-guided Cas9 nuclease in Zebrafish embryos. Cell Res. 2013 Apr;23(4):465-72. doi: 10.1038/cr.2013.45. Epub 2013 Mar 26. PubMed PMID: 23528705; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3616424.

Retinal development

  1. Chiodini F, Matter-Sadzinski L, Rodrigues T, Skowronska-Krawczyk D, Brodier L, Schaad O, Bauer C, Ballivet M, Matter JM. A Positive Feedback Loop between ATOH7 and a Notch Effector Regulates Cell-Cycle Progression and Neurogenesis in the Retina. Cell Rep. 2013 Mar 28;3(3):796-807. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2013.01.035. Epub 2013 Feb 21. PubMed PMID: 23434507.

Eye diseases

  1. From the Telegraph: Eye drops could treat macular degeneration. Original article in Cell Metabolism: Impaired Cholesterol Efflux in Senescent Macrophages Promotes Age-Related Macular Degeneration.
  2. From the Washington Post: First U.S. artificial retina approved; device could restore some sight to blind. FDA’s news release.

Neuroscience

  1. Blackiston DJ, Levin M. Ectopic eyes outside the head in Xenopus tadpoles provide sensory data for light-mediated learning. J Exp Biol. 2013 Mar 15;216(Pt 6):1031-40. doi: 10.1242/jeb.074963. PubMed PMID: 23447666.
    • Commentary: Tadpoles See with Extra Eyes
    • Very interesting article. It demonstrates how tadpole can sense light by the innervation from an ectopic eye.

 

Gene Therapy/Retinal degeneration

  1. Cideciyan AV, Jacobson SG, Beltran WA, Sumaroka A, Swider M, Iwabe S, Roman AJ, Olivares MB, Schwartz SB, Komáromy AM, Hauswirth WW, Aguirre GD. Human retinal gene therapy for Leber congenital amaurosis shows advancing retinal degeneration despite enduring visual improvement. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Jan 22. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23341635.

Neuroscience

  1. Muto A, Ohkura M, Abe G, Nakai J, Kawakami K. Real-Time Visualization of Neuronal Activity during Perception. Curr Biol. 2013 Jan 29. doi:pii: S0960-9822(13)00002-X. 10.1016/j.cub.2012.12.040. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23375894.

Genetics

  1. Hwang WY, Fu Y, Reyon D, Maeder ML, Tsai SQ, Sander JD, Peterson RT, Yeh JR, Joung JK. Efficient genome editing in zebrafish using a CRISPR-Cas system. Nat Biotechnol. 2013 Jan 29. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2501. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23360964.
  2. Bedell VM, Wang Y, Campbell JM, Poshusta TL, Starker CG, Krug RG 2nd, Tan W, Penheiter SG, Ma AC, Leung AY, Fahrenkrug SC, Carlson DF, Voytas DF, Clark KJ, Essner JJ, Ekker SC. In vivo genome editing using a high-efficiency TALEN system. Nature. 2012 Nov 1;491(7422):114-8. doi: 10.1038/nature11537. Epub 2012 Sep 23. PubMed PMID: 23000899; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3491146.

Development

  1. Nancy P, Tagliani E, Tay CS, Asp P, Levy DE, Erlebacher A.  Chemokine gene silencing in decidual stromal cells limits T cell access to the maternal-fetal interface. Science. 2012 Jun 8;336(6086):1317-21. PubMed PMID: 22679098.

Behaviour

  1. Polverino G, Abaid N, Kopman V, Macrì S, Porfiri M. Zebrafish response to robotic fish: preference experiments on isolated individuals and small shoals. Bioinspir Biomim. 2012 Jun 8;7(3):036019. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22677608.

Systems Biology

  1. Ku CJ, Wang Y, Weiner OD, Altschuler SJ, Wu LF. Network Crosstalk Dynamically Changes during Neutrophil Polarization. Cell. 2012 May 25;149(5):1073-83. PubMed PMID: 22632971.

Human Microbiome

  1. Human Microbiome Project Consortium. Structure, function and diversity of the healthy human microbiome. Nature. 2012 Jun 13;486(7402):207-14. doi:10.1038/nature11234. PubMed PMID: 22699609.
  2. Human Microbiome Project Consortium. A framework for human microbiome research. Nature. 2012 Jun 13;486(7402):215-21. doi: 10.1038/nature11209. PubMed PMID: 22699610.
    • Commentary: Relman DA. Microbiology: Learning about who we are. Nature. 2012 Jun 13;486(7402):194-5. doi: 10.1038/486194a. PubMed PMID: 22699602.

Retinal degeneration

  1. Taylor S, Chen J, Luo J, Hitchcock P. Light-induced photoreceptor degeneration in the retina of the zebrafish. Methods Mol Biol. 2012;884:247-54. PubMed PMID: 22688711.

Neuroscience

  1. Cyranoski D. Neuroscience: The mind reader. Nature. 2012 Jun 13;486(7402):178-80. doi: 10.1038/486178a. PubMed PMID: 22699592.
  2. Van Horn JD, Irimia A, Torgerson CM, Chambers MC, Kikinis R, Toga AW. Mapping connectivity damage in the case of phineas gage. PLoS One. 2012;7(5):e37454. Epub 2012 May 16. PubMed PMID: 22616011; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3353935.

Retinal development

  1. Stacher Hörndli C, Chien CB. Sonic hedgehog is indirectly required for intraretinal axon pathfinding by regulating chemokine expression in the optic stalk. Development. 2012 Jun 13. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22696293.

 


				

Neuroimaging/ Connectomics

  1. Wedeen VJ, Rosene DL, Wang R, Dai G, Mortazavi F, Hagmann P, Kaas JH, Tseng WY. The geometric structure of the brain fiber pathways. Science. 2012 Mar 30;335(6076):1628-34. PubMed PMID: 22461612.

Neuroscience

  1. Rogulja D, Young MW. Control of sleep by cyclin A and its regulator. Science. 2012 Mar 30;335(6076):1617-21. PubMed PMID: 22461610.
  2. Koch C. Newsmaker interview: Christof Koch. A vision of how mouse vision can reveal consciousness’ secrets. Interview by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee. Science. 2012 Mar 23;335(6075):1426-7. PubMed PMID: 22442452.
  3. Morris RG, Takeuchi T. Neuroscience. The imaginary mind of a mouse. Science. 2012 Mar 23;335(6075):1455-6. PubMed PMID: 22442473.
  4. Bardin J. Neuroscience: Making connections. Nature. 2012 Mar 21;483(7390):394-6. doi: 10.1038/483394a. PubMed PMID: 22437591.

Behaviour

  1. Shohat-Ophir G, Kaun KR, Azanchi R, Heberlein U. Sexual deprivation increases ethanol intake in Drosophila. Science. 2012 Mar 16;335(6074):1351-5. PubMed PMID:22422983.
    • Commentary: Zars T. Physiology. She said no, pass me a beer. Science. 2012 Mar 16;335(6074):1309-10. PubMed PMID: 22422968.

Philosophy of Science

  1. Bodemer N, Ruggeri A. Finding a good research question, in theory. Science. 2012 Mar 23;335(6075):1439. PubMed PMID: 22442459.

Ethics, Social and Legel Issues

  1. Must try harder. Nature. 2012 Mar 28;483(7391):509. doi: 10.1038/483509a.PubMed PMID: 22460859.
  2. Begley CG, Ellis LM. Drug development: Raise standards for preclinical cancer research. Nature. 2012 Mar 28;483(7391):531-3. doi: 10.1038/483531a. PubMed PMID: 22460880.
  3. Incidental benefits. Nature. 2012 Mar 21;483(7390):373. doi: 10.1038/483373a. PubMed PMID: 22437569.
  4. Hayden EC. DNA donor rights affirmed. Nature. 2012 Mar 21;483(7390):387. doi: 10.1038/483387a. PubMed PMID: 22437587.

Systems Biology

  1. Weinstein JN. Drug discovery: Cell lines battle cancer. Nature. 2012 Mar 28;483(7391):544-5. doi: 10.1038/483544a. PubMed PMID: 22460893.
  2. Barretina J, Caponigro G, Stransky N, Venkatesan K, Margolin AA, Kim S, Wilson CJ, Lehár J, Kryukov GV, Sonkin D, Reddy A, Liu M, Murray L, Berger MF, Monahan JE, Morais P, Meltzer J, Korejwa A, Jané-Valbuena J, Mapa FA, Thibault J, Bric-Furlong E, Raman P, Shipway A, Engels IH, Cheng J, Yu GK, Yu J, Aspesi P Jr, de Silva M, Jagtap K, Jones MD, Wang L, Hatton C, Palescandolo E, Gupta S, Mahan S, Sougnez C, Onofrio RC, Liefeld T, MacConaill L, Winckler W, Reich M, Li N, Mesirov JP, Gabriel SB, Getz G, Ardlie K, Chan V, Myer VE, Weber BL, Porter J, Warmuth M, Finan P, Harris JL, Meyerson M, Golub TR, Morrissey MP, Sellers WR, Schlegel R, Garraway LA. The Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia enables predictive modelling of anticancer drug sensitivity. Nature. 2012 Mar 28;483(7391):603-7. doi: 10.1038/nature11003. PubMed PMID: 22460905.
  3. Garnett MJ, Edelman EJ, Heidorn SJ, Greenman CD, Dastur A, Lau KW, Greninger P, Thompson IR, Luo X, Soares J, Liu Q, Iorio F, Surdez D, Chen L, Milano RJ, Bignell GR, Tam AT, Davies H, Stevenson JA, Barthorpe S, Lutz SR, Kogera F, Lawrence K, McLaren-Douglas A, Mitropoulos X, Mironenko T, Thi H, Richardson L, Zhou W, Jewitt F, Zhang T, O’Brien P, Boisvert JL, Price S, Hur W, Yang W, Deng X, Butler A, Choi HG, Chang JW, Baselga J, Stamenkovic I, Engelman JA, Sharma SV, Delattre O, Saez-Rodriguez J, Gray NS, Settleman J, Futreal PA, Haber DA, Stratton MR, Ramaswamy S, McDermott U, Benes CH. Systematic identification of genomic markers of drug sensitivity in cancer cells. Nature. 2012 Mar 28;483(7391):570-5. doi: 10.1038/nature11005. PubMed PMID: 22460902.
  4. Pujadas E, Feinberg AP. Regulated noise in the epigenetic landscape of development and disease. Cell. 2012 Mar 16;148(6):1123-31. PubMed PMID: 22424224.

Eye disease

  1. Zhang J, Benavente CA, McEvoy J, Flores-Otero J, Ding L, Chen X, Ulyanov A, Wu G, Wilson M, Wang J, Brennan R, Rusch M, Manning AL, Ma J, Easton J, Shurtleff S, Mullighan C, Pounds S, Mukatira S, Gupta P, Neale G, Zhao D, Lu C, Fulton RS, Fulton LL, Hong X, Dooling DJ, Ochoa K, Naeve C, Dyson NJ, Mardis ER, Bahrami A, Ellison D, Wilson RK, Downing JR, Dyer MA. A novel retinoblastoma therapy from genomic and epigenetic analyses. Nature. 2012 Jan 11;481(7381):329-34. doi: 10.1038/nature10733. PubMed PMID: 22237022; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3289956.

Medicine

  1. Vaidyanathan G. Redefining clinical trials: the age of personalized medicine.  Cell. 2012 Mar 16;148(6):1079-80. PubMed PMID: 22424218.

Stem cells

  1. Cherry AB, Daley GQ. Reprogramming Cellular Identity for Regenerative Medicine. Cell. 2012 Mar 16;148(6):1110-1122. Epub 2012 Mar 15. PubMed PMID: 22424223.

Career

  1. Perkel JM Ph D. Run your lab on dollars a day! Biotechniques. 2012 Mar;52(3):141-143. PubMed PMID: 22401545.
  2. Blow N Ph D. Reflections on the modern lab. Biotechniques. 2012 Mar;52(3):145-147. PubMed PMID: 22401546.

Retinal Development

  1. Kwan KM, Otsuna H, Kidokoro H, Carney KR, Saijoh Y, Chien CB. A complex choreography of cell movements shapes the vertebrate eye. Development. 2012 Jan;139(2):359-72. PubMed PMID: 22186726.
  2. Morgan JL, Soto F, Wong RO, Kerschensteiner D. Development of cell type-specific connectivity patterns of converging excitatory axons in the retina. Neuron. 2011 Sep 22;71(6):1014-21. Epub 2011 Sep 21. PubMed PMID: 21943599; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3184549.

Stem cells

  1. Salero E, Blenkinsop TA, Corneo B, Harris A, Rabin D, Stern JH, Temple S. Adult Human RPE Can Be Activated into a Multipotent Stem Cell that Produces Mesenchymal Derivatives. Cell Stem Cell. 2012 Jan 6;10(1):88-95. PubMed PMID: 22226358.
    • Commentary: Trounson A, Grieshammer U. Chimeric Primates: Embryonic Stem Cells Need Not Apply. Cell. 2012 Jan 4. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 22225613.
  2. Phanstiel DH, Brumbaugh J, Wenger CD, Tian S, Probasco MD, Bailey DJ, Swaney DL, Tervo MA, Bolin JM, Ruotti V, Stewart R, Thomson JA, Coon JJ. Proteomic and phosphoproteomic comparison of human ES and iPS cells. Nat Methods. 2011 Sep 11;8(10):821-7. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1699. PubMed PMID: 21983960.

Genetics

  1. Zhang F, Vierock J, Yizhar O, Fenno LE, Tsunoda S, Kianianmomeni A, Prigge M, Berndt A, Cushman J, Polle J, Magnuson J, Hegemann P, Deisseroth K. The microbial opsin family of optogenetic tools. Cell. 2011 Dec 23;147(7):1446-57. PubMed PMID: 22196724.
  2. McMahon MA, Rahdar M, Porteus M. Gene editing: not just for translation anymore. Nat Methods. 2011 Dec 28;9(1):28-31. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1811. PubMed PMID: 22205513.
  3. Zhao S, Ting JT, Atallah HE, Qiu L, Tan J, Gloss B, Augustine GJ, Deisseroth K, Luo M, Graybiel AM, Feng G. Cell  type–specific channelrhodopsin-2 transgenic mice for optogenetic dissection of neural circuitry function. Nat Methods. 2011 Sep;8(9):745-52. PubMed PMID: 21985008; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3191888.

Genomics

  1. Kalhor R, Tjong H, Jayathilaka N, Alber F, Chen L. Genome architectures revealed by tethered chromosome conformation capture and population-based modeling. Nat Biotechnol. 2011 Dec 25;30(1):90-8. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2057. PubMed PMID: 22198700.
    • Commentary: Misteli T. Parallel genome universes. Nat Biotechnol. 2012 Jan 9;30(1):55-6. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2085. PubMed PMID: 22231096.
  2. Lam HY, Clark MJ, Chen R, Chen R, Natsoulis G, O’Huallachain M, Dewey FE, Habegger L, Ashley EA, Gerstein MB, Butte AJ, Ji HP, Snyder M. Performance comparison of whole-genome sequencing platforms. Nat Biotechnol. 2011 Dec  18;30(1):78-82. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2065. PubMed PMID: 22178993.
  3. Mercer TR, Gerhardt DJ, Dinger ME, Crawford J, Trapnell C, Jeddeloh JA, Mattick JS, Rinn JL. Targeted RNA sequencing reveals the deep complexity of the human transcriptome. Nat Biotechnol. 2011 Nov 13;30(1):99-104. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2024. PubMed PMID: 22081020.

Systems Biology

  1. Young JW, Locke JC, Altinok A, Rosenfeld N, Bacarian T, Swain PS, Mjolsness E, Elowitz MB. Measuring single-cell gene expression dynamics in bacteria using fluorescence time-lapse microscopy. Nat Protoc. 2011 Dec 15;7(1):80-8. doi: 10.1038/nprot.2011.432. PubMed PMID: 22179594.
  2. Dutkowski J, Ideker T. Protein networks as logic functions in development and cancer. PLoS Comput Biol. 2011 Sep;7(9):e1002180. Epub 2011 Sep 29. PubMed PMID: 21980275; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3182870.

Neuroscience

  1. Kralj JM, Douglass AD, Hochbaum DR, Maclaurin D, Cohen AE. Optical recording of action potentials in mammalian neurons using a microbial rhodopsin. Nat Methods. 2011 Nov 27;9(1):90-5. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1782. PubMed PMID: 22120467; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3248630.
    • Commentary: Looger LL. Running in reverse: rhodopsins sense voltage. Nat Methods. 2011 Dec 28;9(1):43-4. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.1817. PubMed PMID: 22205516.
  2. Pan YA, Choy M, Prober DA, Schier AF. Robo2 determines subtype-specific axonal projections of trigeminal sensory neurons. Development. 2012 Feb;139(3):591-600. Epub 2011 Dec 21. PubMed PMID: 22190641; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3252355.
  3. Nishimoto S, Vu AT, Naselaris T, Benjamini Y, Yu B, Gallant JL. Reconstructing visual experiences from brain activity evoked by natural movies. Curr Biol. 2011 Oct 11;21(19):1641-6. Epub 2011 Sep 22. PubMed PMID: 21945275.
  4. Cavallari N, Frigato E, Vallone D, Fröhlich N, Lopez-Olmeda JF, Foà A, Berti R, Sánchez-Vázquez FJ, Bertolucci C, Foulkes NS. A blind circadian clock in cavefish reveals that opsins mediate peripheral clock photoreception. PLoS Biol. 2011 Sep;9(9):e1001142. Epub 2011 Sep 6. PubMed PMID: 21909239; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3167789.

Vision

  1. Kingdom FA. Binocular vision: the eyes add and subtract. Curr Biol. 2012 Jan 10;22(1):R22-4. PubMed PMID: 22240475.

Education

  1. Vanderford NL. Broadening PhD curricula. Nat Biotechnol. 2012 Jan 9;30(1):113-4. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2091. PubMed PMID: 22231111.

Medical Research

  1. Reed JC, White EL, Aubé J, Lindsley C, Li M, Sklar L, Schreiber S. The NIH’s role in accelerating translational sciences. Nat Biotechnol. 2012 Jan 9;30(1):16-9. doi: 10.1038/nbt.2087. PubMed PMID: 22231085.
  2. Hudson KL. Genomics, health care, and society. N Engl J Med. 2011 Sep 15;365(11):1033-41. Review. PubMed PMID: 21916641.
  3. Devi S. Lasker Foundation honours malaria researcher. Lancet. 2011 Sep 24;378(9797):1129. PubMed PMID: 21969956.

Zebrafish

  1. Thummel R, Bailey TJ, Hyde DR. <em>In vivo</em> Electroporation of Morpholinos into the Adult Zebrafish Retina. J Vis Exp. 2011 Dec 27;(58). pii: 3603. doi: 10.3791/3603. PubMed PMID: 22231802.
  2. Lawrence C. Advances in zebrafish husbandry and management. Methods Cell Biol. 2011;104:429-51. Review. PubMed PMID: 21924176.

Evolution

  1. Pearlman SM, Serber Z, Ferrell JE Jr. A mechanism for the evolution of phosphorylation sites. Cell. 2011 Nov 11;147(4):934-46. PubMed PMID: 22078888; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3220604.

 

A scientific research paper can start with a viral video on youtube. A while ago a cockatoo called Snowball was shown to dance to music.

Interesting questions were raised by this observation. Did the bird really dance to the music or did it mimic the human action? Dancing is a complex behaviour that requires coordination of auditory and motor responses. It has been predicted that the neural circuity evolved in vocal learning species. Motivated by this video, a group of scientists decide to test this out by observing how Snowball dances, and here is the quick result.

The short answer is Snowball can really dance to the music! The whole study was published in Current Biology.

Now the question is, why do animals and humans can both enjoy music? In other words, what is unique about music that can stimulate the nervous systems of different species the same way? What is the common neuro-architecture that underlies this behavior?

Reference

Patel AD, Iversen JR, Bregman MR, Schulz I. Experimental Evidence for Synchronization to a Musical Beat in a Nonhuman Animal. Curr Biol. 2009 Apr 29. [PubMed][Current Biology]