Category: Alzheimers

Weekly Neuroscience Update

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A new study has identified a novel signaling system controlling neuronal plasticity.

A lack of shrinkage in the area of the brain responsible for memory may be a sign that people with thinking and memory problems may go on to develop dementia with Lewy bodies rather than Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study published in the November 2, 2016, online issue of Neurology.

A new paper offers an overview as to how neurons ‘communicate’ with one another.

Researchers have confirmed a genetic link between mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is passed on from the mother, and some forms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

A new study looks at how the digestive tract communicates with the brain and could help find new treatment options for obesity.

Scientists can now map what happens neurologically when new information influences a person to change his or her mind, a finding that offers more insight into the mechanics of learning.

New studies may help to explain the path from stem cells to dopamine neurons.

Increased muscle strength leads to improved brain function in adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), new results from a recent trial led by the University of Sydney has revealed.

Researchers have identified a previously unknown stage of human brain development.

Finally, this  week  a new study finds that subtle, unconscious increases in arousal – indicated by a faster heartbeat and dilated pupils – shape our confidence for visual experiences.

 

 

Weekly Neuroscience Update

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New research, using a Bayesian inference model of audio and visual stimuli, has shown how our perception of time lies mid-way between reality and our expectations.

Researchers have developed a virtual brain that can mimic the brain of a person with epilepsy. The model can help provide a better understanding of the disease.

Resting state brain activity may predict how quickly people are able to pick up a second language, a new study reports.

Researchers report that an odour identification test may prove useful in predicting cognitive decline and detecting early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

A new study uses cutting-edge technique to image the process of neuronal transmission.

By scanning the brains of subjects while they were hypnotized, researchers were able to see the neural changes associated with hypnosis.

Yale University researchers have developed a way to picture synapses in living brains.

Music can influence how much you like the taste of beer, according to a study published in Frontiers in Psychology.

According to researchers, sleep twitches in babies could be linked to sensorimotor development.

A new study reports anatomical patterning in the brain’s cortex is controlled by genetic factors.

Finally this week, researchers have uncovered what goes on in our brains when we are faced with the decision to take a risk or play it safe.

 

Weekly Neursocience Update

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Brain glucose metabolism shows a dramatic drop from full consciousness to the minimal conscious and persistent vegetative states.

Brain scans strongly predict return of consciousness in vegetative patients.

Researchers report a surgically implanted neuroprosthetic devices that coordinates the activity hip, knee and ankle muscles led to improved walking speed and distance for a patient with limited mobility following a stroke.

According to new research, dopamine signalling within the cerebral cortex can predict changes between neural networks during working memory tasks.

A region of the brain that responds to bad experiences has the opposite reaction to expectations of aversive events in people with depression compared to healthy adults. The study, published in Molecular Psychiatry, found that the habenula, a pea-sized region of the brain, functions abnormally in depression. The same team previously showed that the habenula was activated in healthy volunteers when they expected to receive an electric shock.

Researchers have identified a mechanism that keeps the brain clean during neurodegenerative diseases.

Older people are less willing to take risks for potential rewards and this may be due to declining levels of dopamine in the brain, finds a new UCL study of over 25,000 people funded by Wellcome.

Neuroscience researchers have identified a gene critical for human brain development.

According to a new study, the brains of people with schizophrenia may be able to reorganize and fight the illness.

Researchers report we recognize patterns in music automatically, even with no musical training.

Finally this week, a new study has identified a neural pathway involved in switching between habitual behavior and deliberate decision making.

 

 

Weekly Neuroscience News

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Researchers have created a ‘virtual partner’ that is able to elicit emotional response from humans in real time.

New research, presented this week at the European Society of Human Genetics conference in Barcelona, Spain, demonstrates that men whose red blood cells lack Y chromosomes are more susceptible to Alzheimer’s disease. The team hopes that, in the future, these findings might help develop an early warning system for Alzheimer’s.

A new study explores the role microtubles play in neurodevelopment.

According to researchers, people with major depressive disorder could have altered purine metabolism.

Researchers report we recognize patterns in music automatically, even with no musical training.

According to a new study, during sensory stimulation, increases of blood flow are not precisely tuned to local neural activity, and this can have implications for fMRI neuroimaging.

New evidence reveals the powerful role of experience in linking language and cognition in infants.

Researchers report microglia may actually protect the brain against Alzheimer’s disease by containing the spread of amyloid plaques.

A new study reports microglia can diminish the adverse changes to neural circuitry bought on by chronic cocaine use.

Researchers report they have solved the puzzle as to how antibodies enter the nervous system to control viral infections.

A new study from the University of Rochester suggests that human intelligence might have evolved in response to the demands of caring for infants.

Researchers have investigated how the human brain implements hierarchical structures in order to design more clever algorithms for machine learning.

A new study reports having high blood pressure can raise the risk of developing vascular dementia.

A new study from MIT neuroscientists reveals that a gene mutation associated with autism plays a critical role in the formation and maturation of synapses—the connections that allow neurons to communicate with each other.

Finally this week, a new study reports a number of different areas of childrens’ brains become activated when they hear their mother’s voice. This response predicts a child’s social communication ability.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

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Running barefoot is better than running with shoes for your working memory, according to a new study.

A new study from King’s College London offers clues as to why chronic pain can persist, even when the injury that caused it has gone. Although still in its infancy, this research could explain how small and seemingly innocuous injuries leave molecular ‘footprints’ which add up to more lasting damage, and ultimately chronic pain.

New findings demonstrate that a five-minute measurement of resting-state brain activity predicted how quickly adults learned a second language.

Danish research is behind a new epoch-making discovery, which may prove decisive to future brain research. The level of salts in the brain plays a critical role in whether we are asleep or awake. This discovery may be of great importance to research on psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia and convulsive fits from lack of sleep as well as post-anaesthetization confusion.

Research sheds light the neural structure that controls our sleep, eating habits, hormones and more.

A new study has found that Foreign Accent Syndrome, a condition which results in patients to be perceived as non-native speakers of their mother tongue, may be caused by the impaired connections between the language centres in the front part of the brain and the cerebellum.

Symptoms of depression that steadily increase over time in older age could indicate early signs of dementia, according to new research. 

A newly discovered pathway leading to neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) may unlock the door to new approaches for treating the disease.

Some adults learn a second language better than others, and their secret may involve the rhythms of activity in their brains.

Finally this week, researchers report they have discovered a backup for memory storage that comes into play when the molecular mechanism for primary long term memory storage fails.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

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Researchers analyzed a series of 164 images from each of 114 individuals and discovered the brain scans of the social perception circuits indicated ASD only in boys. Credit: The researchers/George Washington University.

Researchers have developed a new method to map and track the function of brain circuits affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in boys using brain imaging, a technique that will provide doctors with a tool that measures the progress of treatments in individual patients.

Scientists have derived a structural model of a transporter at the blood-brain barrier called Mfsd2a. This is the first molecular model of this critical transporter, and could prove important for the development of therapeutic agents that need to be delivered to the brain, across the blood-brain barrier. In future, this could help treat neurological disorders such as glioblastoma.

Research co-led by the University of Glasgow has made a potential breakthrough in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD), the second most common cause of dementia in people under 65, may be triggered by a defect in immune cells called microglia that causes them to consume the brain’s synaptic connections, according to new research.

A new study shows that a series of play sessions with music improved 9-month-old babies’ brain processing of both music and new speech sounds.

Researchers at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute (BSI) in Japan have demonstrated that astrocytes help control the strength of connections between neurons. Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study used cultured cells and brain slices to show that astrocytes in the hippocampus regulate changes in the brain brought on by neural activity.

Finally this week, people with more friends have higher pain tolerance, Oxford University researchers have found.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

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Consciousness seems to work as continuous stream: one image or sound or smell or touch smoothly follows the other, providing us with a continuous image of the world around us. Image adapted from the EPFL press release.

 

Scientists propose a new way of understanding of how the brain processes unconscious information into our consciousness. According to the model, consciousness arises only in time intervals of up to 400 milliseconds, with gaps of unconsciousness in between.

A new study finds bursts of neural activity as the brain holds information in mind, overturns a long-held model.

Why do we sometimes decide to take risks and other times choose to play it safe? In a new study, researchers explored the neural mechanisms of one possible explanation: a contagion effect.

Using imagery is an effective way to improve memory and decrease certain types of false memories.

Scientists have developed an imaging process that for the first time, they say, can identify and track the progression of Alzheimer’s disease in people’s brains, even when there are no symptoms — a development that could lead to earlier diagnosis and treatment.

People prone to seeking stimulation and acting impulsively may have differences in the structure of their brains according to a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience. What’s more, those differences may predispose them to substance abuse.

In a recent study, researchers found evidence of a compromised dopamine system in heavy users of marijuana. Lower dopamine release was found in the striatum – a region of the brain that is involved in working memory, impulsive behavior, and attention. Previous studies have shown that addiction to other drugs of abuse, such as cocaine and heroin, have similar effects on dopamine release, but such evidence for cannabis was missing until now.

Finally this week an innovative collaboration between neuroscientists and developmental psychologists that investigated how infants’ brains process other people’s action provides the first evidence that directly links neural responses from the motor system to overt social behaviour in infants.

 

Weekly Neuroscience Update

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Researchers show how brain connections, or synapses, are lost early in Alzheimer’s disease and demonstrate that the process starts, and could potentially be halted, before telltale plaques accumulate in the brain.

Older adults who exercise regularly could buy an extra decade of good brain functioning, a new study suggests.

Researchers have identified an area of the brain that helps us to perceive boundaries.

Using a sophisticated MRI technique, researchers have found abnormalities in the brain’s white matter tracts in patients with insomnia. Results of the study were published online in the journal Radiology.

A pioneering new study has revealed how an individual’s movement can give a unique insight into their inherent personality traits.

The fluctuations of your heartbeat may affect your wisdom, according to new research.

Researchers have found that the emotional impact experienced by music listeners depends on the concert hall’s acoustics.

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) use causes changes in the way that people think about time that may help develop drug therapies for people suffering from depression, according to a study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Repeated minor trauma to the head and other body parts can lead to early dementia, according to a new study.

The risk of schizophrenia in children associated with younger and older maternal age appears to be partly explained by the genetic association between schizophrenia and age at first birth, according to an article published online by JAMA Psychiatry.

A new imaging study shows that intense exercise boosts two critical neurotransmitters — glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) — resulting in better mental fitness.

Religion and science activate different networks in the brain and each suppresses the other, new research finds.

Sensory neurons in human muscles provide important information used for the perception and control of movement. Learning to move in a novel context also relies on the brain’s independent control of these sensors, not just of muscles, according to a new study published in the journal Current Biology.

Finally this week, women with Alzheimer’s have poorer cognitive abilities than men at the same stage of the disease, according to a new paper published in World Journal of Psychiatry.

 

Weekly Neuroscience Update

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Scientists have discovered a new genetic syndrome of obesity, over-eating, mental and behavioural problems in six families, from across the world. The study represents an important step in our understanding of how the hypothalamus and oxytocin control appetite and behaviour. 

A new study published in Biological Psychiatry suggests that a brain reward centre, the striatum, may be directly affected by inflammation and that striatal change is related to the emergence of illness behaviors.

By studying stroke patients who have lost the ability to spell, researchers have pinpointed the parts of the brain that control how we write words.

A study has shown for the first time that the structure of the brain circuitry known as the corticolimbic system is more likely to be passed down from mothers to daughters than from mothers to sons or from fathers to children of either gender. The corticolimbic system governs emotional regulation and processing and plays a role in mood disorders, including depression.

New research proves that suffering repeated traumatic experiences throughout infancy and adolescence multiplies by 7 the risk of suffering psychosis during adulthood.

Researchers are using a mathematical tool to help determine which concussion patients will go on to suffer migraine headaches, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology.

Some of the earliest nerve cells to develop in the womb shape brain circuits that process sights and sounds, but then give way to mature networks that convert this sensory information into thoughts. This is the finding of a study led by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and published in the February 3 edition of Neuron.

Scientists have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to specifically modify gene expression in diseased upper motor neurons, brain cells that break down in ALS.

New research indicates that the location of receptors that transmit pain signals IS important in how big or small a pain signal will be and how effectively drugs can block those signals.

A new way of using MRI scanners to look for evidence of multiple sclerosis in the brain has been successfully tested by researchers.

A team of European researchers has found evidence that suggests that human consciousness is a state where the neural network that makes up the brain operates at an optimal degree of connectedness. In their paper published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface, the team describes their study of the human brain using volunteers undergoing fMRI scans while succumbing to the effects of an anesthetic that caused them to lose consciousness, and what was revealed in reviewing the scan data.

Researchers have determined that testing a portion of a person’s submandibular gland may be a way to diagnose early Parkinson’s disease.

Finally this week, researchers of a new study published in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry report successful reduction of depressive symptoms in patients using a novel non-invasive method of vagus nerve stimulation, or VNS.