A new study using mice found that surviving cells compensate for cell death by sprouting extra branches to promote recovery in the visual brain system. However, female mice showed delayed or incomplete repair compared to males. This suggests a compensatory mechanism following brain injury that differs between sexes.
A team of scientists led by Professor Ivan Đikić and Christian Hübner identified the role of ubiquitin in regulating ER-phagy, a process involved in the degradation of the endoplasmic reticulum. This discovery sheds light on neurodegenerative diseases caused by defective FAM134B and ARL6IP1 proteins.
A recent study published in Neural Regeneration Research reveals that alpha-synuclein can have neuroprotective effects on dopaminergic neurons at very low concentrations. The findings suggest that extracellular alpha-synuclein may enhance neuronal survival via the Akt pathway, challenging previous views of its role in Parkinson's disease.