Blocking a nerve-cell receptor in part of the brain that coordinates movement could improve the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, dyskinesia and other movement disorders, researchers at Vanderbilt University have reported.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to starve a tumor and stop its growth with a newly discovered small compound that blocks uptake of the vital nutrient glutamine.

Vanderbilt investigators have discovered that functional MRI detects neural activity in both gray and white matter in the brain, suggesting new ways to investigate diseases such as Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has signed a five-year cooperative agreement worth up to $28 million with Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) to develop methods for preventing the global spread of viruses like chikungunya and Zika.

Under the terms of the licensing agreement, Lundbeck has exclusively licensed rights to compounds developed at Vanderbilt that act on a receptor in the brain that has been implicated in schizophrenia.

Microtubules are the “railroad tracks” essential for moving intracellular “freight” around in the cell. They’re also part of the spindle that pulls the two centrosomes apart during cell division.