Pain sensation and the emotional experience of pain are not the same, and now, in mice, scientists at Stanford have found the neurons responsible for the latter.

Study shows where brain transforms seeing into acting

Johns Hopkins researchers say they have developed an experimental drug, similar to compounds used to treat diabetes, that slows the progression of Parkinson’s disease itself — as well as its symptoms — in mice. In experiments performed with cultures of human brain cells and live mouse models, they report the drug blocked the degradation of brain cells that is the hallmark of Parkinson’s disease. The drug is expected to move to clinical trials this year.

A new study by researchers from Drexel University College of Medicine may reverse the popular scientific dogma that the protein tau stabilizes microtubules within brain cells. The scientists’ new research, published this week in Current Biology, suggests just the opposite: Tau’s actual role in the neuron is to allow microtubules to grow and remain dynamic.