Imperial researchers have discovered a hidden mechanism within hair follicles that allow us to feel touch. The findings have been published in Science Advances.
Cell & Microbiology
Oct 27, 2023
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People who carry three gene variants inherited from Neanderthals are more sensitive to some types of pain, according to a new study co-led by UCL researchers.
Evolution
Oct 10, 2023
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170
University of Queensland researchers have shown for the first time that some of the world's most painful ant stings target nerves, like snake and scorpion venom. This research is published in Nature Communications.
Plants & Animals
Jun 6, 2023
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803
Mother's Day is coming up in Australia and that means a surge in perfume sales. Of course, scents are purchased year-round and not just for mothers. Fragrance sales in Australia will amount to over A$1 billion this year.
Analytical Chemistry
May 9, 2023
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11
A new U of T Scarborough study finds that climate change is causing a commercially significant marine crab to lose its sense of smell, which could partially explain why their populations are thinning.
Plants & Animals
May 9, 2023
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132
Bioengineers and tissue engineers intend to reconstruct skin equivalents with physiologically relevant cellular and matrix architectures for basic research and industrial applications. Skin pathophysiology depends on skin-nerve ...
Whether or not animals can taste basic or alkaline food and how they do it has remained a mystery until now. A research group led by Yali Zhang, Ph.D., principal investigator at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, recently ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Mar 20, 2023
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8
It's almost Valentine's Day, and love is in the air. Or in the waxy coating on your skin, if you are a vinegar fly. That's where flies encounter pheromones that play an important role in regulating sexual attraction.
Evolution
Jan 31, 2023
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55
The transient receptor potential vanilloid (TRPV1) ion channel is a polymodal nociceptor broadly expressed in sensory neurons involved in pain sensation, thereby playing an essential role in analgesia. The outer pore domain ...
Biochemistry
Jan 16, 2023
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41
The living worm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) has ~60% gene similarity to humans. This similarity has been studied to develop therapies for age-induced diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ...
Biotechnology
Nov 23, 2022
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73
Sensory neurons are neurons that are activated by sensory input (vision, touch, hearing, etc.), and send projections into the central nervous system that convey sensory information to the brain or spinal cord. Unlike neurons of the central nervous system, whose inputs come from other neurons, sensory neurons are activated by physical modalities such as light, sound, temperature, chemical stimulation, etc.
In complex organisms, sensory neurons relay their information to the central nervous system or in less complex organisms, such as the hydra, directly to motor neurons and sensory neurons also transmit information (electrical impulses) to the brain, where it can be further processed and acted upon. For example, olfactory sensory neurons make synapses with neurons of the olfactory bulb, where the sense of olfaction (smell) is processed.
At the molecular level, sensory receptors located on the cell membrane of sensory neurons are responsible for the conversion of stimuli into electrical impulses. The type of receptor employed by a given sensory neuron determines the type of stimulus it will be sensitive to. For example, neurons containing mechanoreceptors are sensitive to tactile stimuli, while olfactory receptors make a cell sensitive to odors.
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