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In Alzheimer’s disease, the problem is amyloid-β, a protein that accumulates in the brain and causes nerve cells to weaken and die. Drugs designed to eliminate plaques made of amyloid-β have a fatal problem: they need to enter the brain and remove the plaques without attacking healthy brain cells. A new breakthrough from the laboratory of Nobel Prize winner Paul Greengard, however, suggests that treatments modeled on the blockbuster cancer drug Gleevec could be the solution. The findings are reported in the September 2 issue of the journal Nature.
Depression is actually defined by specific clinical symptoms such as sadness, difficulty to experience pleasure, and sleep problems that are present for at least two weeks with impairment of psychosocial functioning. These symptoms guide the physician to make a diagnosis and to select antidepressant treatment such as drugs or psychotherapy.
The incidence of psychotic disorders varies greatly across places and demographic groups, as do symptoms, course, and treatment response across individuals. High rates of schizophrenia in large cities, and among immigrants, cannabis users, and traumatized individuals reflect the causal influence of environmental exposures. This, in combination with progress in the area of molecular genetics, has generated interest in more complicated models of schizophrenia aetiology that explicitly posit gene-environment interactions.
Alcohol dependence (AD) has negative effects on cognitive processes such as memory. Metamemory refers to the subjective knowledge that people have of their own cognitive processing abilities, such as their monitoring and control of memory. A new study has found that AD has a negative impact on both episodic memory as well as metamemory. Results will be published in the November 2010 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
A group of “professional couch potatoes,” as one researcher described them, has proven that even moderate exercise – in this case walking at one’s own pace for 40 minutes three times a week – can enhance the connectivity of important brain circuits, combat declines in brain function associated with aging and increase performance on cognitive tasks.
An international study led by University of Montreal scientists suggests family history may not be a good predictor of the presence of mutations predisposing to autism or schizophrenia. The findings show how new or de novo gene mutations – alterations of the cell’s DNA – play a role in these devastating conditions. Published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, this study has implications for disease prevalence and severity.
Scientists at Harvard University have found that humans can make difficult moral decisions using the same brain circuits as those used in more mundane choices related to money and food. These circuits, also found in other animals, put together two critical pieces of information: How good or bad are the things that might happen? What are the odds that they will happen, depending on one’s choice? The results suggest that complex moral decisions need not rely on a specific “moral sense.”
Mutations in a single gene can cause several types of developmental brain abnormalities that experts have traditionally considered different disorders. With support from the National Institutes of Health, researchers found those mutations through whole exome sequencing – a new gene scanning technology that cuts the cost and time of searching for rare mutations.
There is still much that is unknown about autism spectrum disorders, but a University of Nevada, Reno psychologist has added to the body of knowledge that researchers around the world are compiling to try to demystify, prevent, and treat the mysterious condition. This research was published recently in the journal, Brain Research.
Circadian rhythmicity is regulated by circadian clock genes, and animal studies have shown that chronic drinking can alter expressions in these genes. A new study has found that significantly lower levels of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) – a molecule of RNA that helps to manufacture proteins – in circadian clock genes in alcohol-dependent (AD) patients support a relationship between circadian clock gene dysregulation and drinking in humans.
UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified a chemical system in the brain that reacts differently in cocaine addicts, findings that could result in new treatment options for individuals addicted to the drug. The findings were published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.
Whether it is sports, poker, or the high-stakes world of business, there are those who always find a way to win when there is money on the table. Now, for the first time, psychology researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are unraveling the workings of a novel brain network that may explain how these “money players” manage to keep their heads in the game. The results are published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
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