You may not be able to relive your youth, but part of your brain can. Johns Hopkins researchers have found that newly made nerves in an adult brain's learning center experience a one-month period when they are just as active as the nerves in a developing child. The study, appearing this week in Neuron, suggests that new adult nerves have a deeper role than simply replacing dead ones.

Shire plc announced today the positive results of studies of the investigational medication guanfacine extended release (GXR, previously referred to as SPD503), a selective alpha-2A-adrenoceptor agonist. These data from two short-term phase III placebo-controlled studies and two long-term phase III open-label studies, presented at the 2007 American Psychiatric Association (APA) annual meeting, demonstrated that GXR significantly improved all core symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children aged 6 to 17 years.

Shire plc announced that DAYTRANATM (methylphenidate transdermal system), the first and only non-oral medication approved for treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children aged 6 to 12 years, provided significant improvement in symptom control and tolerability, according to results of a 12-month open-label study presented at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) annual meeting in San Diego.

Findings presented today at Digestive Disease Week® 2007 (DDW), from long-term extensions of the ACT trials (Active Ulcerative Colitis 1 & 2) show that subjects with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis (UC) who had responded to REMICADE® (infliximab) in the blinded phase of the trials maintained improvement in their clinical symptoms for up to two years.

New evidence indicates that small pieces of noncoding genetic material known as microRNAs (miRNAs) might influence cancer susceptibility. Differences in certain miRNAs may predispose some individuals to develop cancer, say researchers.

MiRNAs play a number of roles in biological regulation, including development and cell differentiation, helping to determine what type a cell ultimately becomes. But when damaged, they can contribute to cancer by either turning on cancer-causing genes or by inhibiting tumor-blocking genes. The ways that MiRNAs are expressed have been used to profile tumor types in humans.

Women who regularly enjoy an alcoholic drink or two have a significantly lower risk of having a non-fatal heart attack than women who are life-time abstainers, epidemiologists at the University at Buffalo have shown.

Moderation is the key, however. Women in the study who reported being intoxicated at least once a month were nearly three times more likely to suffer a heart attack than abstainers, results showed.

The genome of the organism that produces the world's most lethal toxin is revealed today. This toxin is the one real weapon in the genome of Clostridium botulinum and less than 2 kg - the weight of two bags of sugar - is enough to kill every person on the planet. Very small amounts of the same toxin are used in medical treatments, one of which is known as Botox®.

The genome sequence, reported in Genome Research, shows that C. botulinum doesn't have subtle tools to evade our human defences or tricky methods of acquiring resistance to antibiotics. It lives either as a dormant spore or as a scavenger of decaying animal materials in the soil, and doesn't interact with human or other large animal hosts for prolonged periods of time.

Next time there is a global pandemic, contaminated water caused by flooding, or questionable-looking meat in a supermarket, we may be reaching for a piece of paper.

It won’t be just any type of paper but a Canadian-invented bioactive paper that contains the ingredients to detect and ward off life-threatening bacteria and viruses like E-coli, salmonella and SARS, to name just a few.

Two genes important for human development and implicated in cancer and schizophrenia also help keep a healthy balance between excitation and inhibition of brain cells, researchers say.

Neuregulin-1 and its receptor, ErbB4, promote inhibition at the site of inhibitory synapses in the brain by increasing release of GABA, a major inhibitory neurotransmitter, Medical College of Georgia researchers led by Dr. Lin Mei report in the May 24 issue of Neuron.

Fragile X syndrome is the most common form of inherited mental retardation, occurring in 1 in 3600 males and 1 in 4000 to 6000 females.

To understand the details of the neuronal pathology of Fragile X syndrome, the researchers studied mice in which the same gene that causes the disease in humans had been knocked out. The scientists performed a detailed analysis of the electrophysiological properties of neurons in the prefrontal cortex, a region responsible for higher cognitive functions, including learning and memory, that are affected in humans with the disorder.