People with diets high in several vitamins or in omega 3 fatty acids are less likely to have the brain shrinkage associated with Alzheimer’s disease than people whose diets are not high in those nutrients, according to a new study published in the December 28, 2011, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study author was Gene Bowman, ND, MPH, of Oregon Healt ...

New research suggests that, in people who do not currently have memory problems, those with smaller regions of the brain’s cortex may be more likely to develop symptoms consistent with very early Alzheimer’s disease. The study is published in the December 21, 2011, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. ...

An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, reports that abnormal sequences of DNA known as rare copy number variants, or CNVs, appear to play a significant role in the risk for early onset bipolar disorder. The findings will be published in the December 22 issue of the journal Neuron. ...

Depression may have more far-reaching consequences than previously believed. Recent data suggests that individuals who suffer from a mood disorder could be twice as likely to have a heart attack compared to individuals who are not depressed. This process has been poorly understood — until now. A new study led by Concordia University has found that depressed individuals have a slower recovery time after exer ...

Most cases of autism are not caused by a single genetic mutation. However, several disorders with autism-like symptoms, including the rare Fragile X syndrome, can be traced to a specific mutation. Several years ago, MIT neuroscientist Mark Bear discovered that this mutation leads to overproduction of proteins found in brain synapses — the connections between neurons that allow them to communicate with each ...

Researchers at McMaster University have found that brief high intensity workouts, as little as six sessions over two weeks, rapidly lower blood sugar levels in type 2 diabetics, offering a potential fix for patients who struggle to meet exercise guidelines. The small proof-of-principle study, conducted on eight diabetics, appears in the latest edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology. Included in this r ...

A new study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet shows that infants with low concentrations of the stress-related hormone cortisol in their saliva develop fewer allergies than other infants. Hopefully this new knowledge will be useful in future allergy prevention. The study is published in the December paper issue of Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. ...

Imagine waking up and being unable to see or recognize anything on the left side of your body. This condition, called hemispatial neglect, is common after a stroke that occurs on the right side of the brain. The current treatment of attention and concentration training using computer and pencil-and-paper tasks is inadequate. ...

Potential clues to how autism miswires the brain are emerging from a study of a rare, purely genetic form of the disorders that affects fewer than 20 people worldwide. Using cutting-edge "disease-in a-dish" technology, researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have grown patients' skin cells into neurons to discover what goes wrong in the brain in Timothy Syndrome. Affected children often show ...

Patients with Parkinson disease-related dementia appear to have increased brain atrophy in the hippocampal, temporal and parietal lobes and decreased prefrontal cortex volume compared to patients with Parkinson disease without dementia, according to a report in the December issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archivesjournals. The study was conducted by Daniel Weintraub, M.D., of the Perelman Sc ...