Publications from Primary Faculty Members - August 2015 Ahmed I, Sbodio JI, Harraz MM, Tyagi R, Grima JC, Albacarys LK, Hubbi ME, Xu R, Kim S, Paul BD, Snyder SH. Huntington's disease: Neural dysfunction linked to inositol polyphosphate multikinase. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Aug 4;112(31):9751-6. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1511810112. Epub 2015 Jul 20. Fu C, Xu J, Li RJ, Crawford JA, Khan AB, Ma TM, Cha JY, Snowman AM, Pletnikov MV, Snyder SH. Inositol Hexakisphosphate Kinase-3 Regu...

Plugged pores may underlie some ALS, dementia cases It is famous for robbing Lou Gehrig of his life and Stephen Hawking of his mobility and voice, but just how amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) destroys motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord remains a mystery. Now, scientists are converging on an explanation, at least for a fraction of the ALS cases caused by a specific mutation. In cells with the mutation, the new work shows, pores in the membrane separating the nucleus and cytoplasm bec...

Mystery solved: Baltimore 'dancing girl' reveals identity (Click on link to see if you recognize her.) A mysterious dancing woman has captivated Baltimore for weeks. Prancing through the streets, jamming out to various radio stations on her iPod, Betsy Mills captured the attention of the city recently when her moves brought a smile to the faces of passersby in Mount Vernon, Canton and the Inner Harbor. Little did Mills know a YouTube video of her dancing in Canton (unintenti...

Experiments show neurons firing as rats plan their next move Fast Facts: Specialized nerve cells in the brain help animals navigate by “remembering” specific places, and they fire each time the animal encounters that place. Scientists monitored the activity of these so-called place cells to see how rats reconstructed memories as they planned their route from one place to another. Their results suggest that memories are more like separate but connected “snapshots” in the...

Place cells in hippocampus help construct cognitive map, study suggests (Johns Hopkins Researcher Probe Mysteries of the Brain - 60 second video with James Knierim) By tracking brain activity when an animal stops to look around its environment, neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins University believe they can mark the birth of a memory. Using lab rats on a circular track, James Knierim, professor of neuroscience in the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins, and a team of b...

Two parts of hippocampus work together to determine whether stimulus is completely new or related to something familiar Jill Rosen / August 19 Tagged brain science, mind/brain institute, alzheimer's Johns Hopkins researchers have determined that CA3, a region of the hippocampus, plays a crucial role in helping us determine whether a stimulus is completely new or an altered version of something familiar. Image: Johns Hopkins University You see a man at the grocery store. Is that the guy yo...