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Staying in Touch
14 December 2017

Staying in Touch

To get things done our cells need to work together and communicate. Neurons, which fire messages around the body, interact via packages exchanged at interfaces called synapses. When this goes wrong, serious illnesses such as hereditary spastic paraplegia and Alzheimer’s can result. Researchers looking at damaged (left) and healthy (right) fruit fry nerve cords (surprisingly similar to our own spinal cord) may have found a way to reopen these lines of communication when they break down. Synapses rely on molecules made some distance away in the neuron’s centre, which are ferried over by molecular motors. When these motors break, molecules accumulate in the wrong place. To prevent this, a mechanism to stop molecule production kicks in whenever the motors fail, but that has knock-on effects on synapses. It turns out, blocking this defence mechanism restores some crucial synapse activity, which could be good news for patients around the world.

Written by Anthony Lewis

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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