Gut communicates with the entire brain through cross-talking neurons
URBANA, Ill. – You know that feeling in your gut? We think of it as an innate intuition that sparks deep in the belly and helps guide our actions, if we let it. It’s also a metaphor for what scientists call the “gut-brain axis,” a biological reality in which the gut and its microbial inhabitants send signals to the brain, and vice versa.
$6M grant renews center that seeks to understand science of drug abuse
With the goal of advancing the understanding of the neurochemistry of addiction, the Neuroproteomics and Neurometabolomics Center on Cell-Cell Signaling at the University of Illinois has had its funding renewed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse with a $6 million grant. Animal sciences professor Sandra Rodriguez-Zas runs the Bioinformatics, Data Analytics, and Predictive Modeling Core of the center.
ACES contributes to new animal MRI at Beckman Institute
URBANA, Ill. – The College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, along with a generous gift from the Roy J. Carver Charitable Trust and contributions from 17 other academic units at Illinois, are funding the purchase of a Bruker 9.4 Tesla preclinical animal MRI system.
Mouse study reveals how chronic stress promotes breast cancer stem cells, identifies vitamin C as effective therapy
URBANA, Ill. – Cancer: The word alone evokes dread, anxiety, and fear. Accordingly, many women living with the disease and undergoing treatment experience chronic stress and depression. Scientists have demonstrated, in studies with rodents and humans, that stress can exacerbate cancer’s progression, but it wasn’t clear how.
A new study, published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, establishes that the stress hormone epinephrine sets off a cascade of biochemical reactions that favor breast cancer growth and spread.