The winners of the first Kavli Prize were announced a couple of weeks ago. One of the three recipients of the prize for neuroscience was Pasko Rakic, a professor of neurobiology and neurology at the Yale School of Medicine.Rakic has...
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Posted on June 17, 2008 7:42 AM • 3 Comments •
The word "wOOt" - spelt with zeros instead of the letter 'o' - has just been voted as Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary's Word of the Year. Coined by internet users, and defined as an interjection "expressing joy", it's quite apt today,...
Posted on December 13, 2007 3:07 PM • 5 Comments •
[Introduction|Part 2|Part 3] The three studies discussed here make important contributions to our understanding of axon guidance. Lopez-Bendito et al describe a novel guidance mechanism involving tangentially migrating GABAergic interneurons. These cells migrate ventrally from the LGE to form a...
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Posted on November 22, 2007 12:00 PM • 2 Comments •
[Introduction|Part 2|Discussion] Tojima et al (2007) find that the growth cone's response to attractive guidance cues requires asymmetrical vesicle transport and exocytosis. They cultured dorsal root ganglion (DRG) cells from embryonic chicks, and produced localized elevations in calcium ion concentration...
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Posted on November 21, 2007 12:00 PM • 1 Comments •
[Introduction|Part 3|Part 4]Lopez-Bendito et al (2006) show that pathfinding of thalamocortical axons (TCAs) requires the formation of a permissive corridor through non-permissive territory, and that this corridor is generated by cells which undergo a tangential migration from the lateral ganglionic...
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Posted on November 20, 2007 12:00 PM • 0 Comments •
This fluorescence microscopy image off a growth cone, by Dylan T. Burnette of New Haven, Connecticut, received honorable mention in the 2004 Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition. The remarkable specificity of neuronal connectivity depends on accurate axon pathfinding during development....
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Posted on November 19, 2007 12:00 PM • 2 Comments •
Below is the PowerPoint I presented in the journal club this morning. It's a summary of a recent paper about laterality in the nematode worm: Poole, R. J. & Hobert, O. (2006). Early embryonic programming of neuronal left/right asymmetry in...
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Posted on October 5, 2007 12:15 PM • 0 Comments •
