A team of researchers from Inserm ("Toxicology, pharmacology and cell signaling" JRU 1124) and the universities of Paris Descartes and Paris Diderot have recently discovered that flunarizine – a drug already used to treat migraine and epilepsy – enables the repair of a molecular defect related to spinal muscular atrophy, a severe and incurable disease. This discovery is the culmination of research efforts ongoing since 1995, when the Inserm...
The rapidly-developing medical imaging field could well have found a novel technique in which multiple facets of a living being can be observed in real time and non-invasively. Teams from the Langevin Institute (ESPCI Paris - PSL University / CNRS), the biomedical ultrasound Technology Research Accelerator (Inserm A.R.T.) and the Paris-Cardiovascular Research Center (Inserm / Paris Descartes University) have developed a new medical imaging instrument which combines positron emission...
Physicians from Inserm Unit 979 “Wave Physics for Medicine” at the ESPCI Paris together with clinician researchers from the neonatal intensive care unit of Robert-Debré AP-HP pediatric hospital and Inserm Unit 1141 have just made a scientific and medical breakthrough: the non-invasive imaging of brain activity in newborns using ultrasound. This will open up new avenues for bedside neurological diagnosis in full-term and premature babies. The details of their...
Researchers from Généthon, the AFM-Téléthon laboratory, Inserm (UMR 1089, Nantes) and the University of London (Royal Holloway) demonstrated the efficacy of an innovative gene therapy in the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Indeed, after injecting microdystrophin (a “shortened” version of the dystrophin gene) via a drug vector, the researchers managed to restore muscle strength and stabilise the clinical symptoms in dogs naturally affected by Duchenne muscular dystrophy. A first....
Major prenatal stress reduces the lifespan of adult offspring by over 2 years. Inserm researchers have obtained these results by studying a cohort of children born between 1914 and 1916, some of whom lost their father in combat before they were even born. Stress suffered by the mother seems to weaken the fetus, at a developmental stage characterized by a high level of plasticity. These results were published in...
The existence of new “social” neurons has just been demonstrated by scientists from the Institut de neurosciences des systèmes (Aix-Marseille University / INSERM), the Laboratoire de psychologie sociale et cognitive (Université Clermont Auvergne / CNRS), and the Institut de neurosciences de la Timone (Aix-Marseille University / CNRS). Their research on monkeys has shown that when these animals are made to perform a task, the presence or absence of a...
An international collaborative study coordinated by Frédéric Laumonnier (Unit 930 “Imaging and Brain” Inserm/University of Tours) and Yann Hérault of the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology (Inserm/ CNRS/ University of Strasbourg) provides new and original findings on the pathophysiological role of the contact areas between neurons in certain brain disorders. The study reveals that mutation of one of the genes involved in intellectual disability and autism...
The involvement of the immune system in neurological diseases suggests that immunotherapy, which has shown its effectiveness in the area of cancer and autoimmune diseases, is also of major interest in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. The researchers have proven that a molecule called interleukin-2 (IL-2), from the immune system, is able to control inflammation in the brain cells, which is implicated in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease,...
Ten days after astronaut Thomas Pesquet take-off into space on the Proxima mission, many questions remain about human adaptation to gravity.
Inserm is launching its first accelerator of technological research according to the objective that is part of the Institute's strategic plan 2016-2020. This first “Biomedical Ultrasound” ART will be dedicated to research and the use of ultrasound in medicine, particularly in the field of cancer diagnosis and treatment, as well as cardiovascular and neurological diseases.
