A diet high in processed fructose sabotages rat brains’ ability to heal after head trauma, UCLA neuroscientists report. Revealing a link between nutrition and brain health, the finding offers implications for the 5.3 million Americans living with a traumatic brain injury, or TBI.
A study by scientists at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles has shown that tissue-engineered colon derived from human cells is able to develop the many specialized nerves required for function, mimicking the neuronal population found in native colon.
Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have uncovered a significant—and potentially treatable—relationship between a chemical that helps transmit signals in the brain and genetic mutations present in a subset of individuals with autism spectrum disorder.
Stroke is very rare in children, but colds, flu and other minor infections may temporarily increase stroke risk in children, according to a study published in the September 30, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study also found routine childhood vaccines may decrease the risk of stroke.
Latest Research Highlights from ACSM— September 2015
The brain uses similar computations to calculate the direction and speed of objects in motion whether they are perceived visually or through the sense of touch.
Chimpanzees’ personality traits are linked to the anatomy of specific brain structures, according to researchers at Georgia State University, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and University of Copenhagen.
Scientists at Duke Medicine are using transparent fish to watch in real time as Cryptococcal meningitis takes over the brain. The resulting images are worthy of a sci-fi movie teaser, but could be valuable in disrupting the real, crippling brain infection that kills more than 600,000 people worldwide each year.
Researchers at the Vanderbilt Sports Concussion Center (VSCC) are using novel sound wave technology as part of an attempt to more rapidly and accurately diagnose sports concussions on the sidelines during games.
Brittany Brown has watched her daughter, Amaree, 6, struggle with hundreds of seizures every day for the past six years. Now, a new treatment is providing hope.
A new science called Neurogastronomy brings chefs and neuroscientists together to improve quality of life for patients with taste & smell deficits. The inaugural International Society of Neurogastronomy symposium is November 7, 2015, featuring internationally-renowned chefs, scientists, and food technologists.
Researchers at UCSF have succeeded in mapping the genetic signature of a unique group of stem cells in the human brain that seem to generate most of the neurons in our massive cerebral cortex.
Novel brain-computer interface technology created by University of California, Irvine researchers has allowed a paraplegic man to walk for a short distance.
People who get dizzy several minutes after standing up may be at risk of more serious conditions and even an increased risk of death, according to new research published in the September 23, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Neuroscientists have uncovered the brain malady responsible for tinnitus and for chronic pain — the uncomfortable, sometimes agonizing sensations that persist long after an initial injury.
Like scratchy-sounding old radio dials that interfere with reception, circuits in the brain that grow noisier over time may be responsible for ways in which we slow mentally as we grow old, according to the results of new studies from UC San Francisco on young and older adults.
Researchers led by Bradley S. Peterson, MD, director of the Institute for the Developing Mind at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, have shown that lower levels of conflict-related brain activity are associated with a higher risk for later psychosis. The study, in conjunction with colleagues at Columbia University, is available via PubMed in advance of publication by the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.
For adults, memories tend to fade with time. But a new study has shown that there are circumstances under which the opposite is true for small children: they can remember a piece of information better days later than they can on the day they first learned it.
A new animal study shows that traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects the body as well as the brain and that treatment with hypertension drugs blocks the production of proteins related to inflammation.
Salk researchers find correlation between declining ability to smell and lifespan in worms
"This study has let us characterize the parameters of decline in people who will eventually develop Alzheimer's, which means we can better identify both benign symptoms and those that warrant particular attention." - Sylvie Belleville
Birth control pills cause a small but significant increase in the risk of the most common type of stroke, according to a comprehensive report in the journal MedLink Neurology.
An international team of researchers, led by scientists at the National University of Singapore, has identified a protein that regulates the growth of neurons by transporting key metabolic enzymes to the tips of neural cells. Their findings open up new avenues for design of drugs for ataxia, a motor coordination disorder.
University at Buffalo researchers and their colleagues at other institutions are publishing a paper online in Nature Communications on Sept. 18 about a new method they developed to more precisely capture how brain cells interact.
Scientists have identified the precise nerve cells that allow the brain to make a split-second change of course, like jamming on the brakes.
Parkinson’s patients often become sedentary because of motor symptoms such as gait, balance problems or falls. However, new U-M research finds that non-exercise physical activity, more than occasional trips to the gym, is linked to less severe motor symptoms.
University of Florida Health researchers have uncovered more evidence of a link between the brain’s stress response and a protein related to Alzheimer’s disease.
MINNEAPOLIS – Being overweight or obese may be tied to an increased risk of a type of brain tumor called meningioma, according to a new meta-analysis published in the September 16, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Meningiomas occur at a rate of about five to eight cases per 100,000 people per year. The five-year survival rate for meningioma is 63 percent.
Alzheimer’s disease, long thought to be a single disease, really consists of three distinct subtypes, according to a UCLA study.
Juries in criminal cases typically decide if someone is guilty, then a judge determines a suitable level of punishment. New research confirms that these two separate assessments of guilt and punishment – though related -- are calculated in different parts of the brain. In fact, researchers found that they can disrupt and change one decision without affecting the other. New work by researchers at Vanderbilt University and Harvard University confirms that a specific area of the brain, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, is crucial to punishment decisions. Researchers predicted and found that by altering brain activity in this brain area, they could change how subjects punished hypothetical defendants without changing the amount of blame placed on the defendants.
New technique to selectively and noninvasively turn on groups of neurons in worms could be boon to science and medicine
Scientists at Duke University have released a highly detailed model of connections in the mouse brain that could provide generations of neuroscientists new insights into brain circuits and origins of mental illness, such as depression and schizophrenia. The findings are published in the journal Cerebral Cortex.
Prenatal repair of a myelomeningocele results in less need for a shunt at 12 months and reduces the need for shunt revision in those infants who do require shunt placement. Patients with extensive hydrocephalus at the time of prenatal evaluation do not have improved outcomes following prenatal surgery.
Fetuses with enlarged ventricles—the fluid-filled cavities inside the brain—may be less likely than other fetuses to benefit from surgery in the womb to treat spina bifida, according to a study co-authored by researchers at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco.
University of California, Irvine researchers with the School of Medicine have identified the mechanism by which valproic acid controls epileptic seizures, and by doing so, also revealed an underlying factor of seizures.
A part of the brain lost from scientific literature for over a century may be responsible for a key component of perception according to a new study from the IU neuroscientist who was part of the team that rediscovered the forgotten structure.
The largest nationwide clinical trial to study high-dose resveratrol long-term in people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease found that a biomarker that declines when the disease progresses was stabilized in people who took the purified form of resveratrol.
Researchers conducting clinical trials of drugs that might prevent AD are exploring how best to inform participants of their increased risk for the disease, and studying how they cope with this information. Alzforum reports in a two-part series.
A prospective longitudinal study of U.S. Marines suggests that reduced heart rate variability – the changing time interval between heartbeats – may be a contributing risk factor for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The findings are reported in the September 9 online issue of JAMA Psychiatry by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System.
Like the hairs they resemble, cilia come in all lengths, from short to long. But unlike the hair on our heads, the length of sensory cilia on nerve cells in our noses is of far more than merely cosmetic significance. Researchers found a location-dependent pattern in cilia length in the mouse nasal cavity that affects sensitivity to odors. The discovery may also have important implications for the study of sight and touch.
Researchers at the NYU Langone Concussion Center reviewed studies that involved athletes who sustained a concussion during sporting activities and found the vision test, known as the King-Devick test, was 86 percent sensitive in detecting whether a concussion had occurred, as confirmed by clinical diagnosis. When combined with rapid assessments of balance and cognition, the testing battery was able to detect 100 percent of concussions that occurred among athletes in the studies that measured this outcome.
Researchers have discovered why long-term use of L-DOPA (levodopa), the most effective treatment for Parkinson’s disease, commonly leads to a movement problem called dyskinesia, a side effect that can be as debilitating as Parkinson’s disease itself.
Addressing the relatively small number of new cancer drugs for children, a selective group of leading research centers is joining a new federally funded research consortium aimed at bringing scientific rigor and a concentrated effort to identifying new drug candidates for pediatric clinical trials.
People with Parkinson’s disease (PD) tend to slow down and decrease the intensity of their movements even though many retain the ability to move quickly and forcefully. Now, scientists report evidence that the slowdown likely arises from the brain’s “cost/benefit analysis,” which gets skewed by the loss of dopamine in people with PD. In addition, their small study demonstrated that noninvasive electrical stimulation of the brain temporarily improved some patients’ motor symptoms.
Researchers may have discovered a new marker found in the blood for episodic migraine, according to a study published in the September 9, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Episodic migraine is defined as having less than 15 headaches per month.
In a consensus paper, a global panel of leading aging experts suggests physicians routinely screen everyone older than 70 annually for cognitive problems.
Low. Down. Less than normal. That’s what the word depression means, and what people with depression often feel like. But sometimes, depression can mean too much of something – as new research shows.
Using “mini-brains” built with induced pluripotent stem cells derived from patients with a rare, but devastating, neurological disorder, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say they have identified a drug candidate that appears to “rescue” dysfunctional cells by suppressing a critical genetic alteration.
No cures exist for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and the only approved therapy slows the progression by only a few months. A new study identifies a promising unexplored avenue of treatment for ALS, the endothelin system.
One of the longstanding debates in science, that has, perhaps unsurprisingly, permeated into the field of stem cell research, is the question of nature versus nurture influencing development. Science on stem cells thus far, has suggested that, as one side of the existential debate holds: their fate is not predestined. But new research from the Neural Stem Cell Institute and Drexel University suggests that the cells’ tabula might not be as rasa as we have been led to believe.
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