Multiple pathologies have been linked to abnormalities in typical astrocyte function. Where would you find an astrocyte in the body? Astrocytes are found in the central nervous system. Fibrous astrocytes are found in white matter, and protoplasmic astrocytes are found in gray matter. What is an ...
Long thought of as "brain glue," the star-shaped cells called astrocytes—members of a family of cells found in the central nervous system called glial that help regulate blood flow, synaptic activity, keep neurons healthy, and play an important role in breathing. Despite this growing appreciati...
Researchers at Washington State University (WSU) have been conducting studies investigating the role of astrocytes, a subtype of glial cells known to regulate different brain and bodily functions, in sleep and wakefulness. Their most recent paper, published in theJournal of Neuroscience, shows that t...
Amyloid-β (Aβ) pathology is known to promote chronic inflammatory responses in the brain. It was thought previously that Aβ is only associated with Alzheimer's disease and Down syndrome. However, studies have shown its involvement in many other neurological disorders. The role of astrocytes in...
Brain is considered the most complex organ in the human body, containing many types of neural cells with astrocytes playing crucial roles in monitoring normal functions of the central nervous system. Astrocytes are mostly quiescent under normal physiological conditions in the adult brain but become ...
Glial cells make up the largest part of the cells in the nervous system. Also known as glia (from the Greek word for glue), these cells have been evolutionarily conserved. The proportion of these cells in each different nervous system seems to correlate with the size of the animal: for ex...
The functional role of genetic variants in glia in the pathogenesis of psychiatric disorders remains poorly studied. Disrupted-In-Schizophrenia 1 (DISC1), a genetic risk factor implicated in major mental disorders, has been implicated in regulation of as
With the advent of improved tools to examine the astrocytes, which have been believed to play a supportive role in the central nervous system (CNS) for years, their participation in the operation of the CNS and drug addiction was unveiled. Assisting the formation and function of the CNS, astr...
We investigated the occurrence and distribution of tuft-shaped astrocytes (TuSAs) in 60 brains from patients with Lewy body disease (LBD), which were clinically diagnosed as Parkinson's disease (PD) or dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), and 85 brains from control subjects. TuSAs have been docu...
Based on recent studies, astrocytes can be considered to have a variety of functions, including supporting, regenerating, protecting, and repairing neurons, etc. Sleep also has its own unique properties and is involved in the regulation of circadian rhythm, the homeostasis system, and the autonomic...