A team of biomedical engineering researchers at the University of Arkansas have identified a cause of fluid swelling of the brain, or cellular edema, that occurs during a concussion.
A breathing-based meditation practice known as Sudarshan Kriya yoga helped alleviate severe depression in people who did not fully respond to antidepressant treatments, reports a new study published today in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry from researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Genetic variations that increase schizophrenia risk are rare, making it difficult to study their role. To overcome this, the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, an international team led by Jonathan Sebat, PhD, at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, analyzed the genomes of more than 41,000 people in the largest study of its kind to date. Their study, published November 21 in Nature Genetics, reveals regions of the genome where mutations increase schizophrenia risk.
A woman had a cold virus injected into her brain tumor in an effort to eradicate it, making her the first person in the United States to participate in a clinical trial using this method, which incorporates immunotherapy, and was performed by doctors at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).
New technologies are giving researchers unprecedented opportunities to explore how the brain processes, utilizes, stores and retrieves information. But without a coherent strategy to analyze, manage and understand the data generated by these new tools, advancements in the field will be limited. Berkeley Lab researchers and their collaborators offer a plan to overcome these big data challenges.
Studying how gut bacteria affect behavior in zebrafish could lead to a better understanding of how probiotics may affect the central nervous system in humans.
Men who see themselves as playboys or as having power over women are more likely to have psychological problems than men who conform less to traditionally masculine norms, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
In a hopeful sign for the health of the nation’s brains, the percentage of American seniors with dementia is dropping, a new study finds.
The downward trend has emerged despite something else the study shows: a rising tide of three factors that are thought to raise dementia risk by interfering with brain blood flow, namely diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.
Exercise is key for Parkinson’s patients but it can be difficult to get them motivated and excited about treadmills, weights, and stationary bikes. At Rock Steady NYIT, health care professionals, as well as student physicians and physical therapy students, lead participants through classes with group activities, games, and boxing exercises designed to improve their physical and mental stamina.
Study Highlights
• Designed a smart drug that only targets and kills GBM brain cancer cells.
• Validated a compound that sensitizes GBM tumors to chemotherapy and results in a significant extension of life in an animal model.
Working memory, the ability to process information, may play an important role in coping with negative life events, according to a new study by Dr. Tracy Alloway, associate professor of psychology at the University of North Florida.
Scientists have identified a naturally occurring molecule that has the potential for preserving sites of communication between nerves and muscles in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) — as well as a molecule that interferes with this helpful process.
Often called the suicide headache because of the excruciating intensity of the pain, cluster headaches are three times more likely to strike men than women.
For most of his life, Kevin Hughes has felt like an outsider. A loner as a child, the 65-year-old comedian struggled socially as a teenager and lacked friends as an adult, often offending people without knowing why. That changed one night when a physician told him he had autism after one of his comedy shows sending him on a painful three-year journey of self-diagnosis experienced by millions of Americans with ASD
A study using Barbies and Transformers finds that men are better at recognizing Transformer faces while women are better at recognizing Barbie faces, supporting the theory that experience plays an important role in facial recognition.
A Connecticut law enacted in 1999 to allow police to temporarily remove guns from potentially violent or suicidal people likely prevented dozens of suicides, according to a study by researchers at Duke and Yale universities and the University of Connecticut.
A new study in rats could begin to explain why allergies during pregnancy are linked to higher risks for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism in children.
New Northwestern Medicine research on the brains of individuals 90 years and older who had superior memories until their deaths revealed widespread and dense Alzheimer’s plaques and tangles in some cases, considered full-blown Alzheimer’s pathology.
Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Dean for Academic and Scientific Affairs, Director of the Friedman Brain Institute (FBI) and Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, began his term as President of the Society for Neuroscience (SFN) at the 2016 annual meeting last evening.
A new animal model developed at Penn Medicine using tau tangles isolated from the brains of Alzheimer’s patients rather than synthetic tau tangles paints a closer picture of the tau pathology in the AD brain
Florida State University researcher Joseph Franklin made a startling discovery during an exhaustive examination of hundreds of suicide prediction studies conducted over the past 50 years: Science is still not very good at predicting who will kill themselves.
The holidays are a time when families get together -- sometimes after long periods apart.
But sometimes seldom-seen elderly family members show signs of worrisome mental decline. When should family members be concerned about the possibility of Alzheimer's?
Experts’ ability to predict if someone will attempt to take his or her own life is no better than chance and has not significantly improved over the last 50 years, according to a comprehensive review of suicide research published by the American Psychological Association.
The rate of adolescents reporting a recent bout of clinical depression grew by 37 percent over the decade ending in 2014, with one in six girls reporting an episode in the past year, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health-led research suggests.
Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered that mutations in PTEN affect the assembly of connections between two brain areas important for the processing of social cues: the prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain associated with complex cognitive processes such as moderating social behavior, and the amygdala, which plays a role in emotional processing.
Prenatal exposure to a mother’s stress contributes to anxiety and cognitive problems that persist into adulthood, a phenomenon that could be explained by lasting – and potentially damaging – changes in the microbiome, according to new research in mice.
Astronauts survive in space by wearing high-tech space suits. But how do brain cancer cells thrive when they migrate to inhospitable sites within the brain?
Researchers have identified a key mechanism linking the master molecular clock in the brain to changes in the external firing activity of those circadian clock neurons. It involves the GSK3 kinase enzyme, which is also the target of mood-stabilizing drugs used to treat bipolar disorder.
Depression has been known to be associated with poor cardiovascular outcomes, but if patients who are depressed attend cardiac rehabilitation after heart surgery, their risk of death is significantly reduced, according to a new study.
Scientists are uncovering clues to what might be unfolding in the relationship between the brain and immune system in those who suffer from long-term repercussions of stress. New research details those connections, specifically that an abundance of white blood cells in the spleen could be sending messages to the brain that result in behavioral changes long after mice experience repeated stress.
Sunshine matters. A lot. The idea isn’t exactly new, but according to a recent study, when it comes to your mental and emotional health, the amount of time between sunrise and sunset is the weather variable that matters most.
Research conducted at The Family Institute at Northwestern University detected clear interpersonal behavior differences between couples with and without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Brain imaging scans may one day provide useful information on the response to psychotherapy in patients with depression or anxiety, according to a review of current research in the November/December issue of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry, published by Wolters Kluwer.
Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have now for the first time identified a sub-region in the brain that works to form a particular kind of memory: fear-associated with a specific environmental cue or “contextual fear memory.”
The Houston Texans and GE are collaborating with the Houston Methodist Concussion Center to fund a two-year pilot project to bring specialized concussion care via telemedicine to athletes in rural areas.
Middle-age adults living with a combination of arthritis, heart disease or diabetes, and depression are more likely to experience disability and limited involvement in society
Research shows adults with diabetes are disproportionately prone to depression and the risk to be significantly greater for women than it is for men. A NYU study establishes various depression predictors among adult women of diverse ages, races, and ethnicities. The results enable the targeting of especially vulnerable women for screening and depression treatment, recognizing that the female-specific characteristics are not the same as those combinations of characteristics identified in mixed populations with diabetes.
The researchers discovered an important ‘on’ button in DIXDC1 protein that instructs brain cells to form mature connections called synapses with other brain cells during development.
According to a recent study published in JAMA Neurology, Northwestern Medicine scientists have examined more than a century of data of the genetic makeup of ataxias, a neurodegenerative disorder, to better understand the different forms of this devastating disease and how it affects patients. This research has the potential for scientists to have a better understanding on how to diagnose and treat the disease, which has no known cure for patients suffering from the condition.
As the world moves toward universal health coverage, the question arises: How can governments ensure equitable access to essential medicines in low- and middle-income countries? A section of The Lancet Commission on Essential Medicines Policies report, released today, finds that funding for a “basket” of these essential medicines may pose a challenge, but not necessarily an insurmountable one, for the global health community.
Scientists from Children's Health Research Institute, a program of Lawson Health Research Institute, and Western University have developed a new blood test that identifies with greater than 90 per cent certainty whether or not an adolescent athlete has suffered a concussion.
Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have identified several new biological markers to measure the progression of the inherited neurodegenerative disorder Huntington’s disease. Their findings, which will be published online November 7 ahead of issue in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, could benefit clinical trials that test new treatments for the disease.
UAB launches study to see if family caregivers for dementia patients can benefit and improve quality of life from learning strategies to alter care-resistant behavior, such as refusal to take a bath, take medicine, accept routine mouth care, abstain from alcohol or go to a medical appointment.
For millennia, philosophers have struggled to define human consciousness. Now, a team of researchers led by neurologists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has pinpointed the regions of the brain that may play a role maintaining it. Their findings, which have already garnered multiple awards from the American Academy of Neurology, were published today in that society’s journal, Neurology.