Kanchana Gamage

Harvard University | Harvard · Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology

Neuronal injury leads to rapid, programmed disintegration of axons distal to the site of lesion. Much like other forms of axon degeneration (e.g. developmental pruning, toxic insult from neurodegenerative disorder), Wallerian degeneration associated with injury is preceded by spheroid formation along axons. The mechanisms by which injury leads to f...

Background Neuronal injury leads to rapid, programmed disintegration of axons distal to the site of lesion. Much like other forms of axon degeneration ( e.g. developmental pruning, toxic insult from neurodegenerative disorder), Wallerian degeneration associated with injury is preceded by spheroid formation along axons. The mechanisms by which injur...

In contrast to neurons in the CNS, damaged neurons from the peripheral nervous system (PNS) regenerate, but this process can be slow and imperfect. Successful regeneration is orchestrated by cytoskeletal reorganization at the tip of the proximal axon segment and cytoskeletal disassembly of the distal segment. Collapsin response mediator protein 4 (...

The regressive events associated with trophic deprivation are critical for sculpting a functional nervous system. After nerve growth factor withdrawal, sympathetic axons derived from male and female neonatal mice maintain their structural integrity for roughly 18 hours (latent phase) followed by a rapid and near unison disassembly of axons over the...

The regressive events associated with trophic deprivation are critical for sculpting a functional nervous system. After nerve growth factor withdrawal, sympathetic axons maintain their structural integrity for roughly 18 hours (latent phase) followed by a rapid and near unison disassembly of axons over the next 3 hours (catastrophic phase). Here we...

The findings that amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients almost universally display pathological mislocalization of the RNA-binding protein TDP-43 and that mutations in its gene cause familial ALS have nominated altered RNA metabolism as a disease mechanism. However, the RNAs regulated by TDP-43 in motor neurons and their connection to neurop...

The limited number of treatment options has made Alzheimer's disease (AD) a challenging problem for clinicians and patients. Currently, there are five Food and Drug Administration-approved drugs for the management of AD. Four of these drugs are acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and the other is

Axon degeneration during development is required to sculpt a functional nervous system and is also a hallmark of pathological insult, such as injury [1, 2]. Despite similar morphological characteristics, very little overlap in molecular mechanisms has been reported between pathological and developmental degeneration [3-5]. In the peripheral nervous...

Axon degeneration is a characteristic feature of multiple neuropathologic states and is also a mechanism of physiological neurodevelopmental pruning. The vast majority of in vivo studies looking at axon degeneration have relied on the use of classical silver degeneration stains, which have many limitations including lack of molecular specificity an...

Axonal degeneration is a hallmark of both developmental and pathological events. Degenerating axons appear as either interruptions in the cytoskeletal network or aggregates along the axon. Since manual quantification of degeneration events is cumbersome and time consuming, automating this process promises to expedite drug discovery as treatment for...

First messengers are broadly defined as any extracellular factor that elicits a response within a cell. As such, first messengers are incredibly diverse, ranging from environmental factors, such as light or heat, to small molecules and peptides, up through large multivalent proteins. Although there are thousands of first messengers, there are relat...