Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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Amielle Moreno

Brain circuitry linked to social connection and desire to cuddle

Guest post from Neuroscience graduate student Amielle Moreno.

Why do scientists know more about the brain during fear than love? Behaviors such as startling and freezing in response to a fearful stimulus are rapid, vary little between subjects, and are easy to interpret. Things get messy when individuals show variability. Social behavior, like intimate partner selection and mating, has a lot of variability. To researchers willing to explore the neuroscience of love and mating, the stage is set for major discoveries.

A recent research study published in Nature from the Liu and Young laboratories at Emory and Yerkes uncovered a dynamic conversation between two brain regions during intimate behavior. The new findings in prairie voles explore the brain connections behind social connections. Read more

Posted on July 13, 2017 by Quinn Eastman in Neuro Leave a comment

Blood versus the crypts

Amielle Moreno

For Halloween, Lab Land welcomes a guest post from Neuroscience graduate student Amielle Moreno, former editor of the Central Sulcus newsletter.

While recent studies have found evidence for the healing properties of blood from younger individuals, the fascination with “young blood” has been a part of the human condition for centuries.

In ancient Greece, Hippocrates introduced the concept that our health and temperament was controlled by the four humors, proposing that blood was the one responsible for courage, playfulness as well as hope. From the 16th century story of Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed of Hungary, the idea of “blood baths” acquired decidedly more sinister connotations.

The “Blood Countess” holds the Guinness World Record as the most prolific female murderer. With 80 confirmed kills, Báthory might have lured up to 650 peasant girls to her castle with the promise of work as maidservants or courtly training. Instead of etiquette lessons, they were burned, beaten, frozen or starved for the Countess’ sadistic pleasure. Folk stories told how she would bathe in the blood of virgins to preserve her youth and beauty.

Portrait if Elizabeth Bathory, via Wikimedia

Portrait if Elizabeth Bathory, via Wikimedia

Humors remained a staple of traditional western medicine until the 1800s when medical research and our modern concept of medicine emerged. In this more enlightened age, people started sewing animals together to see what would happen.

In the mid-1800s, a French zoologist named Paul Bert first experimented with the creation of parabionts: the surgical joining of two animals, usually two rodents of the same species, in order to study the effect of one’s blood on the other. Read more

Posted on October 30, 2016 by Quinn Eastman in Heart, Immunology, Neuro Leave a comment