Osteoarthritis has traditionally been thought to be an inevitable result of wear and tear. But it's now clear the immune system is playing a leading role.
Author: Bruce Goldman
Molecule on brain blood-vessel walls may contribute to aging-related forgetfulness
Old mice suffered far fewer senior moments on memory tests when Stanford investigators disabled a single molecule dotting the mice’s cerebral blood vessels.
Reservoir bugs: How one bacterial menace makes its home in the human stomach
Helicobacter pylori, a potentially nasty bacteria, somehow lives in one of every two human stomachs -- no mean feat. Here's how the bug pulls it off.
Blocking protein that impairs brain’s clean-up crew improves old mice’s smarts
Brain cells called microglia keep brains young by eliminating accumulations of protein debris. But their garbage-colllection ability fades with age.
“Free lunch” reshapes the brain’s map of space
Each time you get a reward, your brain's internal spatial map warps just a bit in a way that makes it easier for you to get back to wherever you got it.
Partners-in-crime: Bacteria sics its pet virus on our immune cells to make us sick
P. aeruginosa, a type of bacteria, is increasingly drug-resistant, and there's no vaccine against it. But it has a recently discovered Achilles heel.
Mystery novel, prophetic dream, decades of work spur breakthrough in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
One night Jim Spudich knocked off a few chapters of a murder mystery before falling asleep, to awaken with a vision that would solve a medical mystery.
Needle in a haystack: Two days after stroke, a handful of blood cells reveal risk of dementia a year later
A pattern of inflammatory activity in circulating blood cells just two days after a stroke predicts the loss of substantial mental acuity a full year later.
Stanford team cracks key immune protein’s crystal structure, separating its yin from its yang
Cracking the crystal structure of a protein complex centered around a major immune signaling protein, interferon-gamma, may speed its medical use.
To learn secrets of lab-grown “gutballs,” scientists turn them inside out
Intestinal tissue can be cultured in the form of little hollow "gutballs." To make them more useful, scientists figured out how to turn them inside out.
Modern diet may foster higher susceptibility to sepsis
You've already knew our modern high-fat, high-sugar, high-starch, minimal-fiber diet was going to be the death of us all, because you've been told a thousand times. Now, a new study in mice gives us yet another reason to watch our intake.
Rheumatoid arthritis may be triggered by a missing molecular “anchor,” but new research suggests a fix
Stanford scientists have dug up a defect at the heart of rheumatoid arthritis: a faulty "anchor" that should be tethering a key molecule to the spot inside immune cells where it has to be in order to do its job. It seems this defect can be reversed with a not yet commercially available small-molecule drug.
Nature, not nurture: New evidence in mice that recognition of a stranger’s sex is baked into the brain at birth
Male mice are hardwired to recognize the sex of other mice, a new study shows. Females' circuitry guiding that decision differs from males.
Culturing technique captures hard-to-study, critically important brain cell — the oligodendrocyte — in action
Brain cells called oligodendrocytes supply insulation by wrapping neurons in multiple layers of fatty extensions, preserving signal strength and markedly speeding up transmission. But studying these cells in culture has been virtually impossible -- until now.
The brain-circuitry clash that keeps you from diving into that plate of ribs when you’re dining with royalty
A study in Nature details a discovery with potential clinical significance for treating eating disorders such as anorexia. To make that discovery, Stanford researchers had to develop a "first-time-ever" way of teasing apart two separate but closely intertwined sets of identical-appearing neurons in the brain.
Mistaken identity: Influenza/narcolepsy autoimmunity link confirmed
New research has confirmed that an antigen in some variants of the flu virus and vaccine can, in rare cases, trigger an autoimmune response leading to narcolepsy.