Feature Channels: Neuro

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A subtle change to the amyloid beta protein affects its aggregation behavior and stabilizes an intermediate form with enhanced toxicity.

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A new study found that the NFL, NBA and NHL teams traveling from west to east had a higher winning percentage compared to teams traveling in the opposite direction.

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A team of sleep researchers at the University of California, Riverside, led by psychology professor Sara C. Mednick, has found that the autonomic nervous system, which is responsible for control of bodily functions not consciously directed (such as breathing, heartbeat, and digestive processes) plays a role in promoting memory consolidation – the process of converting information from short-term to long-term memory – during sleep.

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Although brains—even adult brains—are far more malleable than we used to think, they are eventually subject to age-related illnesses, like dementia, and loss of cognitive function. Someday, though, we may actually be able to replace brain cells and restore memory.

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Dennis W. Dickson, M.D., a neuropathologist at Mayo Clinic’s campus in Florida, will receive the highest honor bestowed by the American Association of Neuropathologists (AANP), an international society of physicians and scientists who study, diagnose and treat diseases related to the brain, nerves and muscles.

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The first study to systematically measure the number of neurons in the brains of birds has found that they have significantly more neurons packed into their small brains than are stuffed into mammalian and even primate brains of the same mass.

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For the first time, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) has released official consensus recommendations for the amount of sleep needed to promote optimal health in children and teenagers to avoid the health risks of insufficient sleep.

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The Botox toxin has a sweet tooth, and it’s this craving for sugars – glycans, to be exact – that underlies its extreme ability target neuron cells in the body … while giving researchers an approach to neutralize it.

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A new nano-fabricated platform for observing brain cancer cells provides a much more detailed look at how the cells migrate and a more accurate post-surgery prognosis for brain cancer (glioblastoma) patients.

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Washington, DC (June 13, 2016) —More than 20 million Americans live with kidney diseases. About 650,000 have end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and need dialysis or a transplant to live. Kidney diseases disproportionately affects minority populations; African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are four times more likely to develop kidney failure, and African Americans in low income neighborhoods are 57 percent less likely to make the transplant list.

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The Salk Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of Sung Han as an assistant professor in the Clayton Foundation Peptide Biology Laboratories. Han will study small molecules, called neuropeptides, which affect the brain’s defense response and contribute to sensory hypersensitivity in neuropsychiatric disorders such as anxiety and autism.

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Simon Fraser University research aimed at helping people get to sleep will be highlighted at an international sleep conference next week. Luc Beaudoin, an adjunct professor in cognitive science and education, created the mySleepButton® app two years ago (a new version with the world's first configurable "body scan" will be released shortly).

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Scientists have discovered a unique pattern of scarring in the brains of deceased service members who were exposed to blast injury that differs from those exposed to other types of head injury. This new research was published online June 9 in Lancet Neurology, “Characterisation of Interface Astroglial Scarring in the Human Brain after Blast Exposure: a Post-mortem Case Series.”

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Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report they have developed an experimental laboratory test that accurately clocks the “speed” of human brain tumor cell movement along a small glass “track.” The assay, so far tested on the cells of 14 glioblastoma patients, has the potential, they say, to predict how quickly and aggressively a given cancer might lethally spread.

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Paul A. Northcott, Ph.D., selected for support as a promising early-career scientist focused on cancer research.

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Researchers, led by Michael Lipton, M.D., Ph.D., at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System, using an advanced imaging technique, have been able to predict which patients who’d recently suffered concussions were likely to fully recover.

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Montefiore and Einstein researchers leverage social media to yield important insights on migraine associated-smells and hallucinations.

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Skilled readers can quickly recognize words when they read because the word has been placed in a visual dictionary of sorts which functions separately from an area that processes the sounds of written words, say Georgetown University Medical Center neuroscientists. The visual dictionary idea rebuts a common theory that our brain needs to “sound out” words each time we see them.

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A new drug to prevent migraine was associated with fewer headache hours for people with chronic migraine within three to seven days after the first injection, according to a study published in the June 8, 2016, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Chronic migraine is defined as headaches occurring at least 15 days per month. Study participants had migraine attacks for an average of 20 years prior to treatment.

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Click here to go directly to the Food Science News Source

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New research from Umeå University in Sweden indicates that dispensed medication for psychiatric diagnosis can be related to air pollution concentrations. The study covers a large part of the Swedish population and has been published in the journal BMJ Open.

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Chronic marijuana use disrupts the brain's natural reward processes, according to researchers at the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas.

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Researchers at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke have discovered that boosting the transport of mitochondria along neuronal axons enhances the ability of mouse nerve cells to repair themselves after injury. The study, “Facilitation of axon regeneration by enhancing mitochondrial transport and rescuing energy deficits,” which has been published in The Journal of Cell Biology, suggests potential new strategies to stimulate the regrowth of human neurons damaged by injury or disease.

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Adding to previous evidence, a study based on a statewide cancer database shows no increase in cancer risk in patients undergoing spinal fusion surgery with the bone-promoting growth factor recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein (rhBMP). The study appears in Spine, published by Wolters Kluwer.

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Mental stress could put heart disease patients at increased risk of a dangerous event, such as a heart attack, according to research presented at the British Cardiovascular Society (BCS) Conference in Manchester, UK.

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Researchers have identified a pair of tarantula toxins that target a previously unknown pain pathway in sensory nerves.

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People with serious mental illnesses who use guns to commit suicide are often legally eligible to purchase guns, despite having a past record of an involuntary mental health examination and brief hospitalization, according to a new Duke Health analysis.

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People disabled by a stroke demonstrated substantial recovery long after the event when modified adult stem cells were injected into their brains.

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Connection established between anxiety control, inflammation, Type 2 diabetes

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Women are almost twice as likely to experience anxiety as men, according to a review of existing scientific literature, led by the University of Cambridge. The study also found that people from Western Europe and North America are more likely to suffer from anxiety than people from other cultures.

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Treating head and neck cancer patients with recurrent or metastatic disease with the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab resulted in significant clinical responses in a fifth of the patients from a phase II clinical trial.

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Research has already shown that taking anabolic steroids is associated with high blood pressure and an increased risk of developing heart conditions such as left ventricular hypertrophy. Now research, part-funded by the British Heart Foundation and being presented on 6th June at this year's British Cardiovascular Society conference, has shown that for some people misusing steroids can be particularly dangerous.

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Scientists at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health have proven that multiple sclerosis (MS) can be caused by a single genetic mutation – a rare alteration in DNA that makes it very likely a person will develop the more devastating form of the neurological disease.

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Click here to go directly to the Cell Biology News Source

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Moffitt Cancer Center will present results of the phase 3 NETTER-1 study, showing clinically meaningful and significant results for Lutathera (77Lu-DOTA0-Tyr3-Octreotate) in patients with metastatic midgut neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). The data will be presented Monday, June 6, during the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Chicago.

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The mosquito-borne Zika virus linked to microcephaly and other neurological problems in newborns of affected mothers directly infects the brain progenitor cells destined to become neurons, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report in a study published online today in Cell Reports.

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St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital investigators report promising preliminary results at the annual meeting of ASCO for an experimental monoclonal antibody when combined with chemotherapy for newly diagnosed patients.

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Blacks are four times more likely than their white counterparts to die from stroke at age 45.

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Malicious hacking online costs the private and corporate sectors up to $575 billion annually, according to internet security firm McAfee. While security agencies seek out "ethical" hackers to help combat such attacks, little is known about the personality traits that lead people to pursue and excel at hacking. A recent study published on Frontiers in Human Neuroscience now shows that a characteristic called systemizing provides insight into what makes and motivates a hacker.

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A study led by biomedical researchers at Indiana University has found evidence that an enzyme known as NMNAT2 may help protect against the debilitating effects of certain degenerative brain diseases, including Alzheimer's.

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Neuroscience researchers identify a gene critical for human brain development and unravel how it works.

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A study by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute Florida campus uncovers a new aspect of how the process of forgetting works, indicating a protein called “Scribble” orchestrates the intracellular signaling processes for forgetting, joining several molecules to forge a pathway.

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Call them the Brain Generation -- the students working toward degrees in neuroscience, who have grown up in a time when exciting new discoveries about the brain come out every day. But they’re also worried about their futures – which has led top senior neuroscientists to publish recommendations about how neuroscience education must change.

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The relentless desire by mice to run on cage “exercise” wheels has helped explain at a molecular level how exercise benefits a mammal’s brain.

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A dietary supplement containing a blend of thirty vitamins and minerals—all natural ingredients widely available in health food stores—has shown remarkable anti-aging properties that can prevent and even reverse massive brain cell loss, according to new research from McMaster University. It’s a mixture scientists believe could someday slow the progress of catastrophic neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, ALS and Parkinson’s.

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Researchers have long known that sex hormones such as estrogen play a role in migraine. But there’s been little research on how that works. Do women with migraine have higher estrogen levels in general? Higher levels at the peak of the monthly cycle?

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Employees (or shift workers), who punch in for graveyard or rotating shifts, are more prone to numerous health hazards, from heart attacks to obesity, and now, new research, published in Endocrinology, shows shift work may also have serious implications for the brain.

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Scientists at the University of Liverpool have discovered that muscle cells affected by muscular dystrophy contain high levels of an enzyme that impairs muscle repair. This finding provides a new target for potential drug treatments for the disease, which currently has no cure.

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Brian Balin, PhD, has studied the link between infection and Alzheimer's disease for more than 20 years and offers his thoughts on this growing area of research.

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A new mouse model, developed by researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, is the first to show that when more of a specific biological molecule moves between different parts of nerve cells in the mouse brain, it can lead to behaviors that resembles some aspects of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in humans.