Weekly Neuroscience Update

October 27, 2019October 27, 2019Leave a comment

Oxford University researchers have discovered that learned knowledge is stored in different brain circuits depending on how we acquire it.

Neuroscientists say they have identified how people can have a “crash in visual processing” — a bottleneck of feedforward and feedback signals that can cause us not to be consciously aware of stimuli that our brain recognized.

A new study shows that an innovative strategy for treating Parkinson’s disease has proven successful in neurons that derive from people living with the condition.

A new study reveals the gut has a much more direct connection to the brain through a neural circuit that allows it to transmit signals in mere seconds. The findings could lead to new treatments for obesity, eating disorders, and even depression and autism—all of which have been linked to a malfunctioning gut.

New research shows musical improvisation improves cognitive flexibility and increases inhibitory control.

A UCLA-led study has found that MRI scans can help doctors distinguish whether a person’s memory loss is being caused by Alzheimer’s disease or by traumatic brain injury.

A new study suggests a longer duration of estrogen exposure hormone therapy was associated with better cognition in older adult women.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

October 18, 2019Leave a comment

A newly developed microfluidic device microfluidic device allowed researchers to keep tissue from the suprachiasmatic nucleus alive for over 25 days.

Neuroscientists have proved how different parts of the human brain work together to create and retrieve episodic memory. Models suggested that, during formation of a memory, information is routed from cortex to hippocampus whilst retrieving a memory should see this information flow in reverse.

A collaborative study published today in the journal Cell Reports provides evidence for a new molecular cause for neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers have identified brain circuitry differences that might be associated with suicidal behavior in individuals with mood disorders. The study, published in Psychological Medicine, provides a promising lead toward tools that can predict which individuals are at the highest risk for suicide.

A period of wakeful rest can help reduce memory intrusions associated with PTSD.

Does dementia spread gradually and evenly in all directions across the brain, or can it “jump” from one brain area to another? New research helps to settle the question by examining the progression of frontotemporal dementia.

Examining postmortem brains of autism spectrum disorder patients, researchers discover an accumulation of immune cells surrounding blood vessels in the brain.

Your personality type may influence addiction to certain drugs, a new study reveals. Those whose personalities rank higher for impulsivity are more likely to use ecstasy, while those who score higher for neurotic traits are more likely to use opioid like heroin, researchers report.

Finally this week, researchers have mapped out some of the mechanisms that may affect women’s fertility from the teenage years to menopause.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

October 4, 2019Leave a comment

protein-synapse-imaging-neurosciencenews

MIT engineers have developed a technique that allows them to rapidly image many different proteins within a synapse.

A new rapid imaging technique allows researchers to view synaptic proteins at high resolution.

There may be some good news for people with vestibular migraine, a type of migraine that causes vertigo and dizziness with or without headache pain. A small, preliminary study suggests that non-invasive nerve stimulation may show promise as a treatment for vestibular migraine attacks, a condition for which there are currently no approved treatments.

New research uses artificial intelligence to identify patterns of brain activity that make people less responsive to certain antidepressants.

A new study challenges the belief that epileptic seizures can be predicted by brain wave patterns. Researchers report they have found no evidence that specific brain wave patterns can be a predictive indicator of seizure onset.

New research shows prepartum and postpartum physical and mental health was associated with persistent severe sleep problems in their babies.

In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers have pieced together a road map of typical brain development in children during a critical window of maturation. The study shows how a “wave of brain maturation” directly underlies important social and behavioral changes children develop during the transition from childhood to adolescence.

Finally, this week, a new study highlights the role estrogen plays in the differences in the progression of Parkinson’s disease between men and women.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

September 13, 2019Leave a comment

A team of neuroscientists from Göttingen and Tehran has shown. how our brain combines visual features to achieve a unified percept.

Research published in the journal Cerebral Cortex has shown that stronger functional connectivity—that is, communication among neurons in various networks of the brain—is linked to youthful memory in older adults. Those with superior memories—called superagers—have the strongest connectivity.

Scientists have found a link between brain’s emotion circuit and movement.

High-fat diets are not only bad for your waistline, they are also bad for your brain health. A new study reveals high-fat diets contribute to hypothalamic inflammation which occurs long before symptoms of obesity arise.

Patients with schizophrenia show increased brain activity in central areas of the brain, but lower activity in the temporal sulcus when hearing metaphors.

Researchers have developed a system that measures a patient’s pain level by analyzing brain activity from a portable neuroimaging device. The system could help doctors diagnose and treat pain in unconscious and noncommunicative patients, which could reduce the risk of chronic pain that can occur after surgery.

Finally this week, a new study reports maternal marijuana use may be detrimental to the brain development of children.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

September 7, 2019Leave a comment

A new brain mapping experiment shows that whether you read or listen to a book, the same parts of the brain are stimulated to help you understand and respond to the meaning of the words

Poor oral health has been linked to cognitive decline and increased symptoms of stress.

The brains’ of first degree relatives of those with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder differ from those with no family history of the disorders. Relatives of those with bipolar disorder tend to have larger intracranial volume, while those who had a relative with schizophrenia had smaller brain volume.

Minute-to-minute fluctuations in human brain activity, linked to changing levels of dopamine, impact whether we make risky decisions, finds a new study.

Meditation and yoga practice is associated with smaller right amygdala volume, a brain region involved in emotional processing, according to research published in Brain Imaging and Behavior.

Tiny changes in the microscopic structure of the human brain may affect how patients respond to an emerging therapy for neurological problems.

The brains of people with epilepsy appear to react to music differently from the brains of those who do not have the disorder, a finding that could lead to new therapies to prevent seizures.

Major depressive disorder has been linked to at least 22 distinct diseases, including asthma, coronary heart disease, and an increased risk of E. coli infection.

Researchers have identified a specific area of the brain responsible for auditory verbal hallucinations in people with schizophrenia. The researchers were able to control the hallucinations with the help of transcranial magnetic stimulation.

A new study challenges the existing theory that testosterone levels are linked to reduced cognitive empathy.

Finally this week, new research provides insights into what happens in our brains when curiosity is piqued. The findings could help scientists find ways to enhance overall learning and memory in both healthy individuals and those with neurological conditions.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

August 31, 2019August 31, 2019Leave a comment

A demonstration of the hippocampus and LEC. The image is credited to University of Warwick.

A new theory and model helps explain how entorhinal time ramping cells produce hippocampal time cells. The hippocampal cells allow for memory association between places and people to help recall event sequences.

Researchers shed light on why we need to sleep and discuss the effects of sleep deprivation.

In a groundbreaking finding, researchers have identified a new sensory organ under the skin that can detect pain as a result of impact or pinpricks. The organ comprises of glial cells with multiple long protrusions which collectively make up the mesh-like organ under the skin.

A 3D map of how the brain responds to words could unlock new ways to understand and treat dyslexia and speech disorders.

A visual test may be a new tool in the diagnosis of autism. Individuals on the autism spectrum are slower to dampen neural activity in response to visual stimuli in the brain. Using EEG data collected from the visual region, researchers could predict with 87% accuracy whether or not a person had ASD.

Contrary to popular belief, a new study reveals higher levels of testosterone may make people more sensitive to moral norms.

Boosting a single molecule in the brain can change “dispositional anxiety,” the tendency to perceive many situations as threatening, in nonhuman primates, researchers have found.

Finally this week, a new study suggests there may be genetic explanations for why some children with poor language also have poor mental health.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

August 10, 2019Leave a comment

Researchers have demonstrated a universal decoding system in humans that determines how we perceive vibrations of different frequencies through touch.

A new study by researchers at the University of Eastern Finland is the first to observe that dietary intake of phosphatidylcholine is associated with a reduced risk of dementia. Phosphatidylcholine was also linked to enhanced cognitive performance. The main dietary sources of phosphatidylcholine were eggs and meat. The findings were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Scientists have identified a group of proteins that help to regenerate damaged nerve cells. Their findings are reported in the journal Neuron.

Difficulty sleeping in a new environment is so common that neuroscientists have a name for it: the ”first-night effect” (FNE). New research shows FNE is basically the neurological equivalent of sleeping with one eye open. When you go to sleep for the first time in a new environment only half of your brain really rests, according to a study recently published in Current Biology.

Rhythms in gene expression in the brain are highly disrupted in people with schizophrenia, according to a new study.

Moderate exercise is not only good for memory as people age, it also appears to help prevent the development of physical signs of Alzheimer’s, known as biomarkers, in those who are at risk for the disease, according to research presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association.

Finally this week, a new study identifies 69 genes linked to increased autism risk, including 16 new genes previously not believed to be associated with ASD.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

July 26, 2019Leave a comment

Cortisol levels associated with stress are reduced after interacting with cats and dogs, researchers report.

A headset that stimulates the ear canal improves both motor and non-motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. The effects of the stimulation appear to have a lasting effect following treatment.

Atypical eating behaviors may be a sign a child should be screened for autism, according to a new study from Penn State College of Medicine.

Researchers have identified a cell population that likely plays a key role in multiple sclerosis (MS). T helper cells in the blood of MS patients infiltrate the central nervous system, where they can cause inflammation and damage nerve cells. This discovery opens up new avenues for monitoring and treating MS patients.

Automated robotic technology allows researchers to identify new pathways activated when the brain rewires circuits in response to experience.

A potential link has been identified between obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and major depressive disorder. Treating OSA may help to improve depressive symptoms, as well as reduce suicidal thoughts and improve sleep for those with insomnia.

Researchers are looking at how neuroscience can help with artificial intelligence technology and vice versa.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

July 14, 2019Leave a comment

A new study finds sound waves from the voice effectively transmit information beyond the lexical meaning of words.

A new study offers clues about how to prevent inflammation of brain tissue, which promotes Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The findings of this study online now and appearing in the September 4, 2019 print issue of the journal Neuron, could contribute to the development of new therapies for AD.

Partial sight has been restored to six blind people via an implant that transmits video images directly to the brain.

People with a family history of Alzheimer’s disease perform worse on learning tasks than those without a genetic link to the disease. The learning impairments appear to be exacerbated by the APOE E4 gene and diabetes.

Restless REM sleep disrupts the adjustment of memory traces during sleep. This may increase negative emotions associated with mental health disorders.

Functional regions within the brain become less distinct and inter-connected in the elderly over time, especially in those networks related to attention span and cognition. The finding, published by researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School in the Journal of Neuroscience, adds to the current understanding of longitudinal decline in brain network integrity associated with aging.

Researchers at EPFL’s Blue Brain Project, a Swiss Brain Research Initiative, have developed a new framework to work out how a single neuron in the brain operates.

Finally this week, with the help of data collected from an online app, researchers have developed a machine learning algorithm which is 90% accurate in determining subsets of behavior associated with autism.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

July 6, 2019Leave a comment

Neurodegeneration sets in earlier for those with unhealthy diets and lifestyle choices.

A new study shows a particularly marked impairment of moral emotions in patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The results, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, open a new approach for early, sensitive and specific diagnosis of FTD.

People with a genetic predisposition for Alzheimer’s disease may exhibit changes in memory up-to four decades before the typical age of dementia onset.

Without being aware of it, people sometimes wrongly perceive tactile sensations. A new study in the scientific journal “Current Biology” shows how healthy people can sometimes misattribute touch to the wrong side of their body, or even to a completely wrong part of the body.

A new study has found that information acts on the brain’s dopamine-producing reward system in the same way as money or food.

A link between disease activity in those with inflammatory bowel disease and less positive biases in emotional regulation could explain a higher risk of depression in those with IBD.

Researchers have identified a rare genetic mutation which occurs in clinical disorders with psychotic features, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

A newly developed mathematical framework describes the ecology of the microbiome coupled to its host. The approach allows researchers to evaluate the microbiome-host interaction landscape and examine why diverse microbiome are associated with similar health outcomes.

Combining multiple artificial intelligence agents sheds light on the aging process and can help further understanding of what contributes to healthy aging.

A novel surgical technique that connects functioning nerves with injured nerves helps restore function to paralyzed muscles. Following surgery, 13 young adults with tetraplegia now have restored hand and elbow function, allowing them to feed themselves, hold a drink and write.

Finally this week, exposure to unpleasant smells is associated with better memory recall 24 hours later.