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Ventral tegmental area (VTA) is the link of the brain’s reward circuit.
It has many neurons connected to certain parts of the brain,
playing a key role in motivation, desires, pleasure and emotional evaluation.
They are also the target for antipsychotic and antiparkinsonian drugs
such as cocaine and ecstasy.
Researchers from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
have presented a description of the cellular anatomy of VTA neurons,
finding different types of dopaminergic neurons,
which are connected to different regions of the brain.
The authors of the Anatomy, Histology and Neuroscience department
of the Faculty of Medicine suggest that the effects of the different drugs
could affect each neuronal type in a different way.
Due to the release of dopamine,
the cerebral cortex and other brain parts would innervate.
In this study published in "Frontiers & Neuroanatomy Journal",
scientists used a modern technique of transfixion in vivo of single neurons.
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A recent article published in "Science" shows
how the measles vaccine can avoid other diseases.
Since it was introduced in the 1970s and 1980s,
the measles vaccine has saved millions of lives, far more than expected
because the measles virus, apart from its own disease,
provoked "immune amnesia",
that is, the immunologic memory of some lymphocytes disappeared,
generating an immunosuppression effect
and making the organism more susceptible to opportunistic infections.
The vaccine would avoid immune amnesia
and it would protect us from the measles virus.
The consequence of the vaccine programme was the decline of child mortality.
However, the eradication of measles still seems distant;
16 children die of this every hour, mainly in developing countries.
It is a matter of common sense to vaccine your loved ones.
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Scientists from Cold Spring Harbour, New York,
analyse in "Nature Genetics" the, sometimes magnified, size of fruits
from the newly America, conquered by the Spaniards.
The search for the molecular bases that could explain these sizes,
has allowed the discovery of the genetics behind these huge fruits.
Studying mutant tomatoes with several apical branches,
it was detected that they produced a lot of fruit.
The size of the fruit depended on the characteristics of these parts
with cells that are actively divided, the meristems.
These cells in the meristem, as stem cells, divide themselves in similar cells
and, in more specific ones such as reproductive structures.
It seems there are two genes involved.
The one that stimulates cell production,
and the one that controls the process.
If the second gen, known as Clavata3, mutates and modifies its activity,
it would affect fruit's shape and size.
By modifying the size of this gen,
we can freely modify the size of our food.
For Madri+d and UNED television, José Antonio López Guerrero.