Feature Channels: Neuro

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Light switches for neurons have made enormous contributions to brain research by giving investigators access to “on switches” for brain cells. But, finding “off switches” has been much more challenging. Addressing the challenge, biochemists in the Center for Membrane Biology at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) discovered a new family of light-activated proteins that work as “off switches.”

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Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have discovered that histones are steadily replaced in brain cells throughout life

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In the first study of its kind, UCLA and United Kingdom researchers found that neurons in a specific brain region play a key role in rapidly forming memories about every day events, a finding that may result in a better understanding of memory loss and new methods to fight it in Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.

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Using clinical data collected over the past decade through a U.S. cancer registry, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine demonstrated that significant strides have been made in improving the survival of adult patients with low-grade gliomas, a slow-growing yet deadly form of primary brain cancer.

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The brain region that helps people tell whether an object is near or far may also guide how emotionally close they feel to others and how they rank them socially, according to a study conducted at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published today in the journal Neuron. The findings promise to yield new insights into the social deficits that accompany psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and depression.

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Researchers find that nerve stimulation can improve the function of peripheral nerves damaged by spinal cord injury (SCI). This technique may be a new approach to preventing long-term changes in nerve and muscle function after SCI and improving SCI rehabilitation outcomes.This research is highlighted as one of this month’s “best of the best” as part of the American Physiological Society’s APSselect program.

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Researchers at NYU have developed ways to measure both the objective probability density functions (pdfs) for a simple motor task and the corresponding subjective pdfs.

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Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have found that a type of genetic material called “microRNA” plays surprisingly different roles in the formation of memory in animal models. In some cases, these RNAs increase memory, while others decrease it.

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Clinicians testing the drug dasatinib, approved for several blood cancers, had hoped it would slow the aggressive growth of the deadly brain cancer glioblastoma; however, clinical trials to date have not found any benefit. Researchers at Mayo Clinic, who conducted one of those clinical trials, believe they know why dasatinib failed — and what to do about it.

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Male and female mice use different immune cells to process chronic pain, indicating that different therapies for different genders could better target the problem.

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New research reveals for the first time that pain is processed in male and female mice using different cells. These findings have far-reaching implications for our basic understanding of pain, how we develop the next generation of medications for chronic pain, and the way we execute basic biomedical research using mice.

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An analysis of the results of more than 16,000 brain and spine surgeries suggests patients have nothing to fear from having residents — physicians-in-training — assist in those operations. The contributions of residents, who work under the supervision and alongside senior physicians, do nothing to increase patients’ risks of postoperative complications or of dying within 30 days of the surgery, the analysis showed.

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Physicists have found that intense visual input forces the brain into a brief moment of chaos, but the visual cortex spontaneously returns the brain to its optimal function.

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Researchers have discovered a thick band of microtubules in certain neurons in the retina that they believe acts as a transport road for mitochondria that help provide energy required for visual processing.

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A new map of emergency stroke care in America shows just how much of a patchwork system we still have for delivering the most effective stroke treatment. And thousands of people a year may end up unnecessarily disabled as a result.

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Researchers at the University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging have completed a study that revealed differences in the way brain inflammation -- considered a key component of AD-- is expressed in different subsets of patients, in particular people with Down syndrome (DS) and AD.

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UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers report that the amyloid cascade hypothesis, long believed to describe the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease, is not a fixed and invariable sequence of events. Rather, early indicators or biomarkers of the neurodegenerative condition vary by individual, making preclinical diagnoses more challenging.

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A new study suggests that errors on memory and thinking tests may signal Alzheimer’s up to 18 years before the disease can be diagnosed. The research is published in the June 24, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Think the nest of cables under your desk is bad? Try keeping the trillions of connections crisscrossing your brain organized and free of tangles. A new study by UC San Francisco researchers reveals this seemingly intractable job may be simpler than it appears.

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The first test in a mammalian model of a potential new class of drugs to treat Parkinson’s disease shows abatement of neurodegeneration in the brains of test rats and no significant toxicities.

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During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US combat support hospitals treated at least 650 children with severe, combat-related head injuries, according to a special article in the July issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

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In addition to its effect on chronic tics, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) can change the brain function of people with Tourette syndrome.

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Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scientists have profiled key features of the genetic material inside three types of brain cells and found vast differences in the patterns of chemical modifications that affect how the genes in each type of neuron are regulated. The analysis was made possible by a new method of collecting and purifying the nuclei of specific kinds of cells. Doing this type of study on cells in brain tissue has been challenging because the cells are densely packed and intimately intertwined.

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Sixty-seven patients from the Hermelin Brain Tumor Center at Henry Ford Hospital and their families made important contributions to a national cancer study that proposes a change in how some brain tumors are classified – and ultimately treated. Published in the July 25 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, the study reveals that a tumor’s DNA is key to determining if a lower-grade malignant brain tumor (glioma) may rapidly progress to glioblastoma.

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Other topics include: breast cancer, blood thinners and surgery, cognitive impairment, and new ultra-dark galaxies discovered.

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By identifying in spinal fluid how the characteristic mutant proteins of Huntington’s disease spread from cell to cell, UC Irvine scientists and colleagues have created a new method to quickly and accurately track the presence and proliferation of these neuron-damaging compounds – a discovery that may accelerate the development of new drugs to treat this incurable disease.

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Our brains track moving objects by applying one of the algorithms your phone’s GPS uses, according to researchers at the University of Rochester. This same algorithm also explains why we are fooled by several motion-related optical illusions, including the sudden “break” of baseball’s well known “curveball illusion.”

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Topics include: women's health, cancer care, research at the Large Hadron Collider, dementia drug treatment, dermatology, skin cancer, breast cancer, smoking risks, and genetics.

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Diabetes is a known risk factor for cognitive decline and dementia, age-related conditions that affect memory and thinking skills. However, little is known about how the diabetes-cognitive decline link compares across cultures.

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In 1999 Danish scientist Per Bak made the startling proposal that the brain remained stable for much the same reason a sand pile does; many small avalanches hold it at a balance point, where --in the brain's case -- information processing is optimized. Now scientists have showed for the first time that a brain receiving and processing sensory input follows these dynamics.

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CGRP monoclonal antibodies appear to significantly reduce the frequency of migraine in human clinical trials, potentially changing the landscape for migraine treatment. Headache specialist Sid Kapoor, MD, discusses the enormous potential -- and pitfalls-- facing the drug class' road to FDA approval.

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An amino acid whose role in the body has been all but a mystery appears to act as a potent seizure inhibitor in mice, according to a study by researchers at Johns Hopkins.

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Topics include: treating advanced skin cancer, big data and bioenergy, cancer research, 10 reasons to eat quinoa, sleep issues in the nursing field, advances in cancer surgery, genes for sleep, brain receptor for cocaine addiction, and nano imaging on insect adaptations.

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Long-term administration of a drug that mimics the hunger-signaling hormone ghrelin protected Alzheimer’s disease-model mice from memory deterioration, despite a high-glycemic-index diet.

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A new experiment shows that auditory melodies can enhance a musician's visual awareness of written music, particularly when the two match.

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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have teamed up with several other institutions and pharmaceutical companies, to publish the first 3D structures of a receptor implicated in many diseases of the brain and in normal physiology throughout the body.

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By manipulating the activity of Activin receptors in the brain, researchers were able to increase or decrease cocaine-taking and relapse behavior in animal models. The study focused on receptors in regions of the brain involved in pleasure and reward.

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A protein long believed to only guard the nucleus also regulates gene expression and stem cell development

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A genetic disorder called neurofibromatosis (NF) causes benign tumors to grow on the brain, spinal cord, and other parts of the nervous system. There are no effective drugs to prevent or reverse NF.

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Brain surgery is famously difficult for good reason: When removing a tumor, for example, neurosurgeons walk a tightrope as they try to take out as much of the cancer as possible while keeping crucial brain tissue intact — and visually distinguishing the two is often impossible. Now Johns Hopkins researchers report they have developed an imaging technology that could provide surgeons with a color-coded map of a patient’s brain showing which areas are and are not cancer.

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An international team of researchers from Indiana University and Switzerland is using data mapping methods created to track the spread of information on social networks to trace its dissemination across a surprisingly different system: the human brain.

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Migraine researchers and clinicians are excited about a new class of drugs called Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) monoclonal antibodies, which are showing promise in preventing attacks in high-frequency episodic migraine and chronic migraine. Numerous studies on these medications are being presented at this week's American Headache Society scientific meeting.

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Studying mice, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a neural circuit in the retina that carries signals enabling the eye to detect movement. The finding could help in efforts to build artificial retinas for people who have suffered vision loss.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: An anonymous donor for cancer research, solar storms and incidences of rheumatoid arthritis, vulnerabilities in genome’s ‘Dimmer Switches’, new treatments for Alzheimer's, How people make decisions for or against flu vaccinations.

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Changes in the vaginal microbiome are associated with effects on offspring gut microbiota and on the developing brain, according to a new study published in Endocrinology, a journal of the Endocrine Society.

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Researchers investigated mannitol use before and during transportation of patients with intracranial emergencies from peripheral hospitals to tertiary facilities that house neurosurgery departments. The authors found a 22% dosing error rate, with slightly more patients receiving a dose smaller, rather than larger, than the dose range recommended by the Brain Trauma Foundation.

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Trending news releases with the most views in a single day. Topics include: new drug for heart disease, astronomy, sleep, stroke, diabetes, materials science, MERS, and U.S. Politics.

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Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have established conclusively that an activating protein, called “Rhes,” plays a pivotal role in focusing the toxicity of Huntington’s disease.

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Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute have invented the first practical, scalable method for synthesizing jiadifenolide, a plant-derived molecule that may have powerful brain-protecting properties.

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Every 67 seconds someone is the United States develops Alzheimer’s disease or some form of dementia. James E. Galvin, M.D., M.P.H., one of the most prominent neuroscientists in the country, is at the helm of cutting-edge research, screening methods and clinical care for all forms of dementia and cognitive impairments as well as neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.