Neurodegeneration

According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, there are more than 600 neurologic disorders 1. Neurodegeneration is one of the main contributors to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Multiple Sclerosis. Neurodegeneration is the debilitating condition along with those diseases, which results in the healthy, functioning nerve cells to deteriorate and slowly die off. Deterioration gradually leads to the loss of cognitive skills, motor skills, and eventually death of the nerve cell itself. Neurodegeneration can and will gradually get worse over time with the medicine today only slightly slowing down this horrible process. The Alzheimer’s Association approximates that there are 5.4 million people in the U.S. alone with Alzheimer’s,…

In recent years, I have focused my research on neurodegeneration, specifically Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Physiologically, AD involves damage to brain cells and their eventual death. It is a progressive and irreversible disorder with no identifiable treatment or real understanding of the mechanisms and molecular determinants involved in the disease process. A majority of the destruction that occurs in AD takes place in parts of the brain that are vital for memory, such as the cortex. In addition,…

magine yourself getting reading for school in the morning and all the tasks that go into preparing yourself for the day ahead of you. You take a shower, fix your hair, maybe do your makeup, brush your teeth, put your school materials in your backpack, and slip your shoes on and head out the door. What do all of these tasks have in common? All of these everyday activities involve holding onto things and moving from one point to another. Now, imagine that you have Charcot Marie Tooth disease, a…

Summary: Neurodegeneration is a collective term characterized by structural and functional loss of neurons which is a gradual and progressive process. Various neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, etc. have been described by many biomarkers that are unusual in comparison to their baseline levels in the brain regions. Out of all the diseases, Alzheimer’s disease is the most prevailing disease in older patients with an average age greater…

Table 1Summarizes E3 ubiquitin ligases involved in process of neurodevelopment and promising molecules that have been shown to modulate their activity and retain possible therapeutic potential. Figure1 An illustration of orchestration of factors involved in neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration: The upper part of the figure represents how stepwise modifications occur during prenatal period of brain development. As described in respective sections of the text, few crucially important genes,…

Introduction: Langerhan’s cell histiocytosis is a malignancy caused by uncontrolled proliferation of the Langheran’s cell line with associated granulomatous deposition. The disease exists in a wide spectrum of clinical presentations ranging from localized skin manifestation to diffuse disease with neurological involvement. Typically, diabetes insipidus occurs when the hypothalamic-pituitary axis is affected by histiocytic infiltration. Langheran’s cell histiocytosis can be confirmed by…

exposure to the HIV virus and its neurotoxic properties may lead to prevalence of HAND among that population. (Robertson et al., 2007) Since the availability of HAART, minor cognitive motor disorder (MCMD), has become more common than ADC, and some researchers suggest that HAART may be able to control neurodegeneration (Ferrando et al., 1998; “HIV Encephalopathy and AIDS Dementia Complex,” 2015; McCutchan et al., 2007) However, the general consensus seems to be that is does not. Several studies…

CTE is a form of neurodegeneration that is believed to result from repeated head injuries. The concept of CTE was first introduced by Martland in 1928, and was long recognized as dementia pugilistica due to its association with boxing. CTE has several symptoms. There are psychological changes, which include “disordered memory and executive function, behavioral and personality disturbances, and parkinsonism” (Gavett et al., 2011), and speech and gait abnormalities (McKee et al., 2009). CTE…

increase in conductivity by demyelinated nerve fibers5. Visual impairment is one of the consequences patients suffer with MS. Another alternative for monitoring MS is a non-invasive technique called optical coherence tomography (OCT). OCT works by analyzing high-resolution cross-sectional images of the internal retinal structures. As stated by Frohman et al. 2008, these images are produced by an “optical beam being scanned across the retina and the magnitude and echo time delay of backscattered…

As canonical Wnt signaling regulates NPC heterogeneity and regional identity, we suspect that neuronopathic GD mutations will accordingly affect other neuronal lineages in a Wnt-dependent manner. In order to understand the functional relation between Wnt downregulation and neurodegeneration, we analyzed GD NPCs for the presence of regional markers characteristic of forebrain (FoxG1, TBR1, OTX2), midbrain (NURR1, LMX1A) and hindbrain (HoxB4, MNX1). This was done by a combination of…