University of California San Francisco
Give to UCSFA documentary debuting today shows how UCSF researchers are using innovative multidisciplinary treatment strategies for patients living with Parkinson’s disease.
Parkinson’s disease researcher Robert Nussbaum, a human geneticist and neuroscientist at UCSF, has been named to receive the prestigious Klaus Joachim Zülch Neuroscience Prize for 2011.
For patients with glioma, the most common primary brain tumor, new findings may explain why current therapies fail to eradicate the cancer. A UCSF-led team of scientists has identified for the first time that progenitor rather than neural stem cells underly a type of glioma called oligodendroglioma.
UCSF Nobel laureate Stanley Prusiner, MD, and colleagues have called for Congress to more than quadruple annual federal funding for Alzheimer’s research, saying that with a dedicated effort, there is a chance for a breakthrough against the disease by 2020.
Rapamycin, an FDA-approved drug prescribed to prevent the rejection of transplanted organs, has been shown for the first time to decrease excessive alcohol consumption, binge drinking, and alcohol-seeking behavior in rodents.
UCSF scientists have received two grants from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to refine their human embryonic stem cell-based strategies for treating neurological diseases and liver failure.
UCSF Nobel laureate Stanley B. Prusiner, professor of neurology and director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, today (Oct. 15, 2010) was named to receive the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor for science and technology.
Synuclein is a protein that can cause Parkinson’s disease, although it is not clear how. UCSF researcher Robert Edwards, MD, now has discovered that synuclein can affect signal transmission between nerve cells long before disease symptoms arise.
An inexpensive, hundred-year-old therapy for pain – aspirin – is effective in high doses for the treatment of severe headache and migraine caused by drug withdrawal, according to a new study by researchers with the UCSF Headache Center.
In neurodegenerative diseases, clumps of insoluble proteins appear in patients’ brains. These aggregates contain proteins that are unique to each disease, such as amyloid beta in Alzheimer’s disease, but they are intertwined with small amounts of many other insoluble proteins that are normally present in a soluble form in healthy young individuals.
A commercial brain fitness program has been shown to improve memory in older adults, at least in the period soon after training. The findings are the first to show that practicing simple visual tasks can improve the accuracy of short-term, or “working” visual memory.
The Veterans Health Research Institute or NCIRE will present “The Brain at War: Neurocognitive Consequences of Combat” today (June 17).
UCSF Children’s Hospital ranks among the nation’s best children’s hospitals in eight specialties and is one of the top-ranked facilities in California, according to the new 2010-11 “America’s Best Children’s Hospitals” survey conducted by <i>U.S. News & World Report</i>.
UCSF researchers have created the first transgenic mouse to display the earliest signs of Parkinson’s disease using the genetic mutation that is known to accompany human forms of the disease.
A UCSF-led study examining the impact of statins on the progression of multiple sclerosis found a lower incidence of new brain lesions in patients taking the cholesterol-lowering drug in the early stages of the disease as compared to a placebo.
A new report by the Institute of Medicine has found that military service in the Persian Gulf War is a cause of post-traumatic stress disorder in some veterans.
UCSF scientists have used a novel cell-based strategy to treat motor symptoms in rats with a disease designed to mimic Parkinson’s disease. The strategy suggests a promising approach, the scientists say, for treating symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases and disorders, including epilepsy.
People are paying close attention to pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig’s message that the obesity epidemic can be blamed on a marked increase in the consumption of a type of sugar called fructose.
A panel of experts appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom recently presented an action plan as the approaching “age wave may bring a potential crisis in Alzheimer’s and dementia care” to San Francisco.
A specific region of the hippocampus, a brain structure that is essential to memory, is significantly smaller in veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder than in those without the condition, according to a study by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and UCSF.
Low vitamin D blood levels are associated with a significantly higher risk of relapse attacks in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) who develop the disease during childhood, according to a study conducted by researchers from UCSF.
Scientists have long thought that processes occurring during sleep were responsible for cementing the salient experiences of the day into long-term memories. Now, however, a study of scampering rats suggests that the mechanisms at work during sleep are also active while the animals are awake -- and that they encode events more accurately.
University of California, San Francisco researchers are reporting direct evidence that sleep in early life may play a crucial role in brain development.
Stanley B. Prusiner, MD, 55, today was named to receive the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering and characterizing an entirely new class of proteins, called prions, which cause several rare and fatal neurodegenerative diseases.