UCI rat brain discovery may help in humans

UCI finds possible path to treating brain disorders A dividing adult stem cell in a rat brain. Red shows the stem cells, blue shows DNA in cell nuclei, and green shows the dividing cells. There’s potentially good news for people suffering from stroke and such debilitating neurological disorders as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. A new study by UC Irvine biologists Peter Bryant and Darius Gleason says that it’s possible to “produce new brain cells to replace those lost to disease or injury” by giving the cells a bit of stimulation. Scientists made the advance by locating the exact location of adult neural stem cells, which were found to be in a different part of the brain than researchers previously thought. The discovery arose from research on rats, which serve as a model of human physiology and behavior. Adult stem... [read full story]