Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute scientists have discovered how retinal neurons claim prime real estate in the brain by controlling the abundance of a protein called aggrecan. The discovery could shed light on how to repair the injured brain.
In a study published in Neuron, Tufts neuroscientists report that exposure therapy, a common treatment for anxiety disorders, remodels an inhibitory junction in the mouse brain. The findings improve the understanding of how exposure therapy suppresses fear responses and may aid in the development of more effective treatments for anxiety disorders.
With the help of computerized eye trackers, a new cognitive science study finds that at least 50 percent of people can see the movement of their own hand even in the absence of all light.
A discovery from Case Western Reserve and Cleveland Clinic researchers could provide epilepsy patients invaluable advance guidance about their chances to improve symptoms through surgery.
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery for adults, but for babies it's their foremost tool for learning. Now researchers from the University of Washington and Temple University have found the first evidence revealing a key aspect of the brain processing that occurs in babies to allow this learning by observation.
High blood-sugar levels, such as those linked with Type 2 diabetes, make beta amyloid protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease dramatically more toxic to cells lining blood vessels in the brain, according to a new Tulane University study published in latest issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
Scientists have known for some time that a protein called presenilin plays a role in Alzheimer’s disease, and a new study reveals one intriguing way this happens. It has to do with how important materials travel up and down brain cells.
Light enhances brain activity during a cognitive task even in some people who are totally blind, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Montreal and Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The findings contribute to scientists’ understanding of everyone’s brains, as they also revealed how quickly light impacts on cognition.
The largest international Alzheimer's disease genetics collaboration to date has found 11 new genetic areas of interest that contribute to late onset Alzheimer's Disease (LOAD), doubling the number of potential genetics-based therapeutic targets to interrogate.
Dendrites, parts of neurons, were once thought to be passive wiring in the brain. But now researchers at the University of North Carolina have shown that dendrites actively process information, multiplying the brain’s computing power. Published in the journal Nature, the finding could help researchers better understand neurological disorders.
A study, led by researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Regenerative Medicine Institute and published in Science Translational Medicine, is believed to be one of the first in which a specific form of Lou Gehrig’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, was replicated in a dish, analyzed and “treated,” suggesting a potential future therapy all in a single study.
Using a discovery platform whose components range from yeast cells to human stem cells, Whitehead Institute scientists have identified a novel Parkinson’s disease drug target and a compound capable of repairing neurons derived from Parkinson’s patients.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center has joined a national network funded by the National Institutes of Health to streamline multi-site clinical trials focused on key interventions in stroke prevention, treatment and recovery. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Stroke Trials Network will include up to 25 academic medical centers and aims to increase efficiency and resource sharing within cerebrovascular clinical research.
A team of neurobiologists led by Simon Rumpel at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna succeeded in tracking single neurons in the brain of mice over extended periods of time. Advanced imaging techniques allowed them to establish the processes during memory formation and recall. The results of their observations are published this week in PNAS Early Edition.
UNC School of Medicine researchers describe a major reason why current medications only moderately alleviate symptoms for Fragile X syndrome patients, a third of whom are clinically diagnosed with autism.
Even for people who don’t have diabetes or high blood sugar, those with higher blood sugar levels are more likely to have memory problems, according to a new study published in the October 23, 2013, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Accurately diagnosing traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and concussions is difficult, as standard CT or MRI scans can’t see most changes to the brain caused by these injuries. Borrowing a tactic used to identify lung infections, University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have discovered a potential method to identify TBI that uses positron emission tomography (PET) scans and the body’s immune response to a brain injury.
From Neurodegeneration to Brain Health: An Integrated Approach -- Conference
Poverty coupled with stress have long-lasting effects on brain function, according to a study published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
New study finds, shorter sleep duration and poorer sleep quality were associated with a greater β-Amyloid burden.
The major genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, present in about two-thirds of people who develop it, is ApoE4, the cholesterol-carrying protein that about a quarter of us are born with. But one of the unsolved mysteries of AD is how ApoE4 causes this risk. Researchers at the Buck Institute have found a link between ApoE4 and SirT1, an “anti-aging protein” that is targeted by resveratrol, present in red wine.
The prevalence of depression among those with migraine is approximately twice as high as for those without the disease (men: 8.4% vs. 3.4%; women 12.4% vs. 5.7%), according to a new study published by University of Toronto researchers.
The investigators found that brain connectivity data from 19 paths in brain scans predicted whether the participants had autism, with an accuracy rate of 95.9 percent.
ALS patients using diaphragm pacing experienced improved quality of life, with better sleep and daytime functioning, better breathing, and less fatigue.
With the flick of a light switch, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies can change the shape of a protein in the brain of a mouse, turning on the protein at the precise moment they want. This allows the scientists to observe the exact effect of the protein's activation. The new method, described in the October 16 issue of the journal Neuron, relies on specially engineered amino acids----the molecules that make up proteins----and light from an LED. Now that it has been shown to work, the technique can be adapted to give researchers control of a wide variety of other proteins in the brain to study their functions.
Even for elderly people with no signs of dementia, those with hardening of the arteries are more likely to also have the beta-amyloid plaques in the brain that are a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study published in the October 16, 2013, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Johns Hopkins researchers say that by measuring levels of certain proteins in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), they can predict when people will develop the cognitive impairment associated with Alzheimer’s disease years before the first symptoms of memory loss appear.
Johns Hopkins scientists have developed new drugs that — at least in a laboratory dish — appear to halt the brain-destroying impact of a genetic mutation at work in some forms of two incurable diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and dementia.
First step taken in collection of data on vaccine-preventable illnesses in patients with myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disorder causing weakness and rapid fatigue of voluntary muscles.
New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that chronic itching, which can occur in many medical conditions, is different from the urge to scratch a mosquito bite. Chronic itching appears to incorporate more than just the nerve cells that normally transmit itch signals. In chronic itching, neurons that send itch signals also co-opt pain neurons to intensify the itch sensation.
Connecticut College students and a professor of neuroscience have found “America’s favorite cookie” is just as addictive as cocaine – at least for lab rats. In a study designed to shed light on the potential addictiveness of high-fat/ high-sugar foods, Professor Joseph Schroeder and his students found rats formed an equally strong association between the pleasurable effects of eating Oreos and a specific environment as they did between cocaine or morphine and a specific environment. They also found that eating cookies activated more neurons in the brain’s “pleasure center” than exposure to drugs of abuse.
New research at the University of Chicago is laying the groundwork for touch-sensitive prosthetic limbs that one day could convey real-time sensory information to amputees via a direct interface with the brain.
Faced with news of suicides and brain damage in former professional football players, geneticist Barry Ganetzky bemoaned the lack of model systems for studying the insidious and often delayed consequences linked to head injuries.
Recent scientific findings have raised the fear that young athletes may fare worse after sustaining a sports-related concussion than older athletes. Researchers in the Vanderbilt Sports Concussion Center compared symptoms associated with concussion in middle- and high-school aged athletes with those in college-age athletes and found no significant differences between the two age groups.
Before and after spinal surgery, patients on a polyamine-deficient diets experienced significant relief of both chronic and acute pain, according to a study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2013 annual meeting.
For the more than 45 million Americans who suffer from chronic headaches, relief may be on the way in the form of an electric pulse, according to a study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2013 annual meeting. Electric stimulation of the peripheral nerve reduced average headache intensity by more than 70 percent.
Long-term memory loss, difficulty understanding verbal or written communication or impaired ability to pay attention may still occur five years after heart surgery if a patient has a certain gene variation, according to a study presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2013 annual meeting. This gene was found to be related to a decline in cognitive capabilities compared to those who do not have the variation.
A protein that is increased by endurance exercise has been isolated and given to non-exercising mice, in which it turned on genes that promote brain health and encourage the growth of new nerves involved in learning and memory, report scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” goes the playground rhyme that’s supposed to help children endure taunts. But a new study suggests that there’s more going on inside our brains when someone snubs us – and that the brain may have its own way of easing social pain.
A research team, headed by Theodore Friedmann, MD, professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, says a gene mutation that causes a rare but devastating neurological disorder known as Lesch-Nyhan syndrome appears to offer clues to the developmental and neuronal defects found in other, diverse neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases.
Stroke treatments and prevention to improve quality of life for people who experience a stroke is poorer than researchers hoped, with stroke still taking nearly three out of five quality years off a person’s life, according to a new study published in the October 9, 2013, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers say the findings leave considerable room for improvement in stroke treatment.
Neurons deep in the fly’s brain tune in to some of the same basic visual features that neurons in bigger animals such as humans pick out in their surroundings. The new research is an important milestone toward understanding how the fly brain extracts relevant information about a visual scene to guide behavior.
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have identified a set of compounds that may be used to treat multiple sclerosis (MS) in a new way. Unlike existing MS therapies that suppress the immune system, the compounds boost a population of progenitor cells that can repair MS-damaged nerve fibers.
Although there are several risk factors of dementia, abnormal fat metabolism has been known to pose a risk for memory and learning. People with high amounts of abdominal fat in their middle age are 3.6 times as likely to develop memory loss and dementia later in their life.
Researchers today published findings that point to a promising discovery for the treatment and prevention of prion diseases, rare neurodegenerative disorders that are always fatal. They discovered that recombinant human prion protein stops the propagation of prions, the infectious pathogens that cause the diseases.
Researchers exploring the link between newborn infections and later behavior and movement problems have found that inflammation in the brain keeps cells from accessing iron that they need to perform a critical role in brain development.
Johns Hopkins researchers say they have pinpointed a site in a highly developed area of the human brain that plays an important role in the subconscious recognition of which way is straight up and which way is down.
Scientists from the University of Iowa and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have discovered -- by studying the genetics of two families severely affected by eating disorders -- two gene mutations, one in each family, that are associated with increased risk of developing eating disorders.
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