Stem cells for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

Stem cells offer an enormous pool of resources for the understanding of the human body. One proposed use of stem cells has been as an autologous therapy. The use of stem cells for neurodegenerative diseases has become of interest.

Involvement of notch signaling pathway in amyloid precursor protein induced glial differentiation.

The amyloid precursor protein (APP) has been mainly studied in its role in the production of amyloid β peptides (Aβ), because Aβ deposition is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. Although several studies suggest APP has physiological functions, it is still controversial. We previously reported that APP increased glial differentiation of neural progenitor cells (NPCs).

Amyloid-β precursor protein induces glial differentiation of neural progenitor cells by activation of the IL-6/gp130 signaling pathway.

Although amyloid precursor protein (APP) due to the cytotoxicity of Aβ peptides, has been intensively studied, the physiological role of APP still remains wrapped up in veil. In this article, we propose that α-cleaved ectodomain of APP (sAPPα) stimulates the IL-6/gp130 signaling pathway for induction of gliogenesis within neural progenitor cells (NPCs). In our previous study, a high dose of APP differentiated NPCs into glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) positive cells.

How to approach Alzheimer's disease therapy using stem cell technologies.

The use of stem cells for neuroreplacement therapy is no longer science fiction - it is science fact. We have succeeded in producing neural cells in the brain using both neural and mesenchymal stem cell transplantation and even systemic injection using a small molecular compound. We have seen the improvement of cognitive function in animal models following the application of these stem cell technologies.

Processing resources in timing and sequencing tasks.

Subjects performed timing and sequencing tasks under separate (single-task) and concurrent (dual-task) conditions in two experiments. The timing task required the subjects to generate a series of 5-sec temporal productions. The sequencing task in Experiment 1 involved verifying reasoning statements that described the ordering of a pair of letters.