Entries tagged as Neuroscience

Research Identifies Gene That Changes The Brain’s Response To Stress

On March 11, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Anxiety, Neuroscience / No Comments

Stress can literally warp your brain, reshaping some brain structures that help cope with life’s pressures. In the short term, the stress response can be helpful – i.e., fight or flight – but over time it leads to a wear and tear that can cause disease in both the brain and other parts of the body. Digging deeper into what underlies these potentially harmful changes, new research has identified a key protein involved in remodeling the brain under stress. (read the full story)

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UCI Researchers Find That Learning Keeps The Brain Healthy

On March 6, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Brain Imaging, Neuroscience / No Comments

human brainUC Irvine neurobiologists are providing the first visual evidence that learning promotes brain health – and, therefore, that mental stimulation could limit the debilitating effects of aging on memory and the mind. Using a novel visualization technique they devised to study memory, a research team led by Lulu Chen and Christine Gall found that everyday forms of learning animate neuron receptors that help keep brain cells functioning at optimum levels. (read the full story)

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EEG Study Finds That A Neural Mechanism May Underlie An Enhanced Memory For The Unexpected

On March 3, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Neuroscience, QEEG / No Comments

The human brain excels at using past experiences to make predictions about the future. However, the world around us is constantly changing, and new events often violate our logical expectations. “We know these unexpected events are more likely to be remembered than predictable events, but the underlying neural mechanisms for these effects remain unclear,” says lead researcher, Dr. Nikolai Axmacher, from the University of Bonn in Germany. (read the full story)

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Increasing Neurogenesis Might Prevent Drug Addiction And Relapse

On March 2, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Neuroscience, Substance Abuse / No Comments

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center hope they have begun paving a new pathway in the fight against drug dependence. Their hypothesis – that increasing the normally occurring process of making nerve cells might prevent addiction – is based on a rodent study demonstrating that blocking new growth of specific brain nerve cells increases vulnerability for cocaine addiction and relapse. The study’s findings, available in the Journal of Neuroscience, are the first to directly link addiction with the process, called neurogenesis, in the region of the brain called the hippocampus. (read the full story)

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Protecting The Brain From A Deadly Genetic Disease

On February 27, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Neuroscience / No Comments

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a cruel, hereditary condition that leads to severe physical and mental deterioration, psychiatric problems and eventually, death. Currently, there are no treatments to slow down or stop it. HD sufferers are born with the disease although they do not show symptoms until late in life. In a new study published in The Journal of Neuroscience, Stephen Ferguson and Fabiola Ribeiro of Robarts Research Institute at The University of Western Ontario identified a protective pathway in the brain that may explain why HD symptoms take so long to appear. The findings could also lead to new treatments for HD. (continue reading)

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Genes Responsible For The Ability To Recognize Faces

On February 26, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Neuroscience / No Comments

The ability to recognize faces is largely determined by your genes, according to new research at UCL (University College London). Published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists found that identical twins were twice as similar to each other in terms of their ability to recognize faces, compared to non-identical twins. Check the end of this report for a link to take the Cambridge Face Memory Test (the same memory test used in this research). (continue reading)

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Magnesium Supplement Helps Boost Brainpower

On February 25, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Neuroscience, Nutrition / 1 Comment

Neuroscientists at MIT and Tsinghua University in Beijing show that increasing brain magnesium with a new compound enhanced learning abilities, working memory, and short- and long-term memory in rats. The dietary supplement also boosted older rats’ ability to perform a variety of learning tests. Magnesium, an essential element, is found in dark, leafy vegetables such as spinach and in some fruits. Those who get less than 400 milligrams daily are at risk for allergies, asthma, and heart disease, among other conditions. (continue reading)

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Brain Structure Predicts Ability To Learn Video Games

On February 25, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Brain Imaging, Neuroscience / No Comments

Researchers can predict your performance on a video game simply by measuring the volume of specific structures in your brain, a multi-institutional team reports this week. The new study, in the journal Cerebral Cortex, found that nearly a quarter of the variability in achievement seen among men and women trained on a new video game could be predicted by measuring the volume of parts of the striatum, a collection of brain structures tucked deep inside the cerebral cortex. (continue reading)

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Neuroengineers Silence Brain Cells With Multiple Colors Of Light

On February 25, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Neuroscience / No Comments

Neuroscientists at MIT have developed a powerful new class of tools to reversibly shut down brain activity using different colors of light. When targeted to specific neurons, these tools could potentially lead to new treatments for the abnormal brain activity associated with disorders such as chronic pain, epilepsy, brain injury, and Parkinson’s disease. The tools work on the principle that such disorders might be best treated by silencing, rather than stimulating, brain activity. These “super silencers” exert exquisite control over the timing of the shutdown of overactive neural circuits – an effect that’s impossible with existing drugs or other conventional therapies. (continue reading)

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Caltech Neuroscientists Find Brain System Behind General Intelligence

On February 24, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Neuroscience / No Comments

A collaborative team of neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the University of Iowa, the University of Southern California (USC), and the Autonomous University of Madrid have mapped the brain structures that affect general intelligence. The study, to be published the week of February 22 in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds new insight to a highly controversial question: What is intelligence, and how can we measure it? (continue reading)

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First Evidence That Native Dendritic Cells Of The Brain Can Muster An Immune Response

On February 24, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Immunology, Neuroscience / No Comments

The human brain is a delicate organ, robustly defended. A thick skull shields it from any direct exposure to the outside world, and the blood-brain barrier keeps out any foreign substances that are circulating within. New research shows that the brain may have its own specialized immune defenses, too. In 2008, researchers at Rockefeller University first identified a population of dendritic cells, the sentinels of the immune system, that was native to the brain. (continue reading)

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MIT Neuroscientists Unveil Molecular Pathway Involved With Huntington’s Disease

On February 24, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Neuroscience / No Comments

CalDAG-GEFIMIT researchers have discovered new molecular changes in the brains of individuals with Huntington’s disease, a genetic disorder that leads to neuronal loss accompanied by unwanted movements, psychiatric symptoms, and eventual death. By studying brains of human patients, as well as mouse and rat models, they have uncovered a protective response that may eventually lead to new therapies for this currently incurable disease. continue reading)

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Mouse Model Reveals A Cause of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

On February 23, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In ADHD, Neuroscience / No Comments

Although it is typically considered an adolescent curse, ADHD actually affects about five percent of adults as well. New research in a mouse model of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) suggests that the root of the psychiatric disorder might be the over-activity of a protein that regulates dopaminergic pathways. The work suggests a path toward new treatments for symptoms including inattentiveness, over-activity, and impulsivity. (continue reading)

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Penn Researchers Find New Risk Factor for Second-Most-Common Form Of Early-Onset Dementia

On February 23, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Neuroscience / No Comments

van-deerlin-tdp-inclusionsExamining brain tissue from over 500 individuals in 11 countries, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and colleagues found a new risk factor for the second-most-common cause of early-onset dementia after Alzheimer’s disease. “Using a genome-wide scan for genetic variation in post-mortem brain tissue, we were able to pinpoint variations common to patients with a specific subtype of frontotemporal lobar degeneration, FTLD,” says co-first author Vivianna Van Deerlin, MD, PhD, associate professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Penn. (continue reading)

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Penn Study Finds That Three Brain Diseases Are Linked By A Toxic Form Of The Same Neural Protein

On February 22, 2010 / By Chris Fisher / In Neuroscience / No Comments

For the first time, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found that three different degenerative brain disorders are linked by a toxic form of the same protein. The protein, called Elk-1, was found in clumps of misshaped proteins that are the hallmarks of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and Huntington’s disease. (continue reading)

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