Tag: Alzheimer’s disease

Weekly Round-Up

Blogging may have psychological benefits for teens suffering from social anxiety, improving their self-esteem and helping them relate better to their friends, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have discovered that DNA stays too tightly wound in certain brain cells of schizophrenic subjects. The findings suggest that drugs already in development for other diseases might eventually offer hope as a treatment for schizophrenia and related conditions in the elderly.

Deep depression that fails to respond to any other form of therapy can be moderated or reversed by stimulation of areas deep inside the brain.

Radiology researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) have found evidence that multiple sclerosis affects an area of the brain that controls cognitive, sensory and motor functioning apart from the disabling damage caused by the disease’s visible lesions.

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.

When you experience a new event, your brain encodes a memory of it by altering the connections between neurons. This requires turning on many genes in those neurons. Now, MIT neuroscientists have identified what may be a master gene that controls this complex process. The findings, described in the Dec. 23 issue of Science, not only reveal some of the molecular underpinnings of memory formation — they may also help neuroscientists pinpoint the exact locations of memories in the brain.

Weekly Round Up

Welcome to the last weekly round-up of 2011. I have enjoyed putting this together each week and look forward to updating you with lots more new and exciting research in the field of neuroscience in the coming year.

New research has shown, for the first time, that the cortex, which is the largest zone of the brain and which is generally associated with high cognitive functions, is also a key zone for emotional learning.

When you experience a new event, your brain encodes a memory of it by altering the connections between neurons. This requires turning on many genes in those neurons. Now, MIT neuroscientists have identified what may be a master gene that controls this complex process.

A new technique for color-coding nerves involved in touch gives neuroscientists a much-needed tool for studying that mysterious sense.

When accidents that involve traumatic brain injuries occur, a speedy diagnosis followed by the proper treatment can mean the difference between life and death. A research team, led by Jason D. Riley in the Section on Analytical and Functional Biophotonics at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, has created a handheld device capable of quickly detecting brain injuries such as hematomas, which occur when blood vessels become damaged and blood seeps out into surrounding tissues where it can cause significant and dangerous swelling.

Shrinkage in certain parts of the brain may herald Alzheimer’s disease long before symptoms arise, according to new research.

At UCLA’s Laboratory of Integrative Neuroimaging Technology, researchers use functional MRI brain scans to observe brain signal changes that take place during mental activity. They then employ computerized machine learning (ML) methods to study these patterns and identify the cognitive state — or sometimes the thought process — of human subjects. The technique is called “brain reading” or “brain decoding.”

Compared to our other senses, scientists don’t know much about how our skin is wired for the sensation of touch. Now, research reported in the December 23rd issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, provides the first picture of how specialized neurons feel light touches.

Both children and the elderly have slower response times when they have to make quick decisions in some settings. But recent research suggests that much of that slower response is a conscious choice to emphasize accuracy over speed. In fact, healthy older people can be trained to respond faster in some decision-making tasks without hurting their accuracy – meaning their cognitive skills in this area aren’t so different from younger adults.

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have made a significant step in the development of a novel therapy that could one day help to slow down, or even halt, the damage caused by Parkinson’s disease, one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders.

Weekly Round Up

Image Source: The Dana Foundation

Our senses of sight and hearing work closely together, perhaps more than people realize, a new UCLA psychology study shows.

A team of neurobiologists  has shown for the first time that cortex, the largest area of the brain that is typically associated with higher functions such as perception and cognition, is also a prominent site of emotional learning.

Tiny electric currents applied across regions of the brain can improve hand movements in recovering stroke patients for a short period, an Oxford University study has demonstrated.

For the first time, scientists have proven that cannabis harms the brain. But the same study challenges previously-held assumptions about use of the drug, showing that some brain irregularities predate drug use.

How might keeping patients awake during surgery lead to the more successful removal of brain tumours? James Keidel, in his shortlisted entry for the 2011 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize, explains.

Researchers from the University of Bristol have discovered that a chemical compound in the brain can weaken the synaptic connections between neurons in a region of the brain important for the formation of long-term memories. The findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, may also provide a potential explanation for the loss of memory associated with Alzheimer’s.

Weekly Round-Up

Peer pressure is hard-wired into our brains

A new study explains why people take stupid chances when all of their friends are watching that they would never take by themselves. According to the study,the human brain places more value on winning in a social setting than it does on winning when you’re alone. Scientists have identified the part of the brain responsible for controlling whether we conform to expectations and group pressure.

Does a blind person reading Braille process words in the brain differently than a person who reads by sight? Mainstream neuroscience thinking implies that the answer is yes because different senses take in the information. But a recent study in Current Biology finds that the processing is the same, adding to mounting evidence that using sensory inputs as the basis for understanding the brain may paint an incomplete picture.

New research sheds light on how and why we remember dreams–and what purpose they are likely to serve.

Child neurologist and neuroscientist Dr. Tallie Z. Baram has found that maternal care and other sensory input triggers activity in a baby’s developing brain that improves cognitive function and builds resilience to stress.

University of British Columbia scientists may have uncovered a new explanation for how Alzheimer’s disease destroys the brain.

The brains of people who relapse into depression differ from those of people who maintain a recovery, a new study shows. The results may provide insight into why some people relapse and why certain therapies may help, the researchers said.

Researchers using scanning technology say they discovered physical differences in the brains of older children with autism compared to those of kids without autism.

And finally, in an effort to understand what happens in the brain when a person reads or considers such abstract ideas as love or justice, Princeton researchers have for the first time matched images of brain activity with categories of words related to the concepts a person is thinking about. The results could lead to a better understanding of how people consider meaning and context when reading or thinking.

 

Weekly Round Up

Latest study shows buddhist meditation promotes rational thinking

Studies looking at the brains of people playing a fairness game found very different responses between Buddhist meditators and other participants.

It’s possible that depression could be cured by reducing mild swelling in your brain.

New York University neuroscientists have identified the parts of the brain we use to remember the timing of events within an episode. The study, which appears in the latest issue of the journal Science, enhances our understanding of how memories are processed and provides a potential roadmap for addressing memory-related afflictions.

A leading University of Chicago researcher on empathy is launching a project to understand psychopathy by studying criminals in prisons.

A new study at the University of California at Davis has made progress in determining the factors that affect brain degeneration and why our brains shrink with age and a new drug to prevent the development of Alzheimer’s disease could be tested on patients within six years according to researchers at Lancaster University.

Weekly Round Up

The neuroscience of dreaming

In this week’s round-up of the latest discoveries in the field of neuroscience – the neuroscience of dreaming and eureka moments, the teenage brain and new research into Parkinson’s and Alzheimers.

Scientists have long puzzled over the many hours we spend in light, dreamless slumber. But a new study from the University of California, Berkeley, suggests we’re busy recharging our brain’s learning capacity during this traditionally undervalued phase of sleep, which can take up half the night.

Perhaps while sleeping we are gaining new insight into our problems. A new brain-imaging study looks at the neural activity associated with insight. The research, published by Cell Press in the March 10 issue of the journal Neuron, reveals specific brain activity that occurs during an “A-ha!” moment that may help encode the new information in long-term memory.

I’ve written previously about the brain of a teenager being hot-wired to take risk, but now new research shows that just when teens are faced with intensifying peer pressure to misbehave, regions of the brain are actually blossoming in a way that heighten the ability to resist risky behavior.

Brain scans are being used to spot the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease in a UK-based pilot that could revolutionise its diagnosis. Doctors are using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to look at whether particular parts of the brain have started to shrink, which is a key physiological sign of Alzheimer’s. The MRI project is an example of “translational research” – that which will have a direct benefit for patients. And in more translational research news, it emerges that in studies of more than 135,000 men and women regular users of ibuprofen were 40% less likely to develop Parkinson’s disease.

Weekly Round-Up

Does sleep help you learn? (Image: Big Stock)

In today’s weekly round-up..how memories take better hold during sleep, nature vs nurture, fake it til you make it, the nature of heroism, the pathology of Alzheimer’s, the neuroscience of fear and loathing, and more.

It appears from the latest research that the best way to hold onto a  newly learned poem, card trick or algebra equation may be to take a quick nap, for the brain is better during sleep than during wakefulness at resisting attempts to scramble or corrupt a recent memory. The study, published in Nature Neuroscience, provides new insights into the complex process by which we store and retrieve deliberately acquired information.

Athena Stalk in Your Brain and The Power of Rehearsing Your Future explains that the advice to “fake it til you make it” is backed up by some of the latest findings on the brain.

Interesting article from Jonah Lehrer in the Wall Street Journal on the perennial nature vs nurture debate. And in a similar vein,  is there a gene for heroism or is it down to social or economic factors?  Can neuroscience explain the nature of heroism?

The Neuroscience of Fear and Loathing is an interesting look at this universal emotion. 

Findings from a new study from the University of Haifa shows that people diagnosed as psychopathic have difficulty showing empathy, just like patients who have suffered frontal head injury.

Article in this week’s New York Times on a new brain scan tech­nol­ogy to detect Alzheimer’s pathol­ogy in the brain.

How Perception Reveals Brain Differences explores the ways in which brains differ from one another and the ways in which we owners perceive the world accordingly.

Slow protein clearance ‘clue to Alzheimer’s’

Amyloid plaques build up in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease. Image: BBC Health

The BBC News website this week reports on the latest research to suggest that people with Alzheimer’s disease clear a damaging protein from their brains more slowly than those who are healthy. With an ageing population,  dementia, including Alzheimer’s, is currently seen as one of the main health challenges in Ireland the UK.

Amyloid plaques are one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. Amyloid is a general term for protein fragments that the body produces normally. Beta amyloid is a protein fragment snipped from an amyloid precursor protein. In a healthy brain, these protein fragments are broken down and eliminated. For some reason, in Alzheimer’s disease, the fragments accumulate to form hard, insoluble plaques.

The findings from this study suggests that people with Alzheimer’s disease clear the damaging protein from their brains 30% more slowly than those who are healthy suggesting that  it is the poor clearance of the protein, not the build-up, that is the problem. Admittedly it’s a small study – just 24 people were looked at, but exciting, and could help the understanding of the disease.

Not meaning to blow my own trumpet (ahem!) but in 2008 my research group showed how the amyloid protein might be toxic in higher concentration …by inappropriately increasing the concentrations of a neurotransmitter called glutamate in the hippocampus – a brain region long associated with Alzheimer’s disease*. It’s well known that high concentrations of glutamate can damage local nerve cells and thus impair the functioning of the hippocampus.

It’s exciting to see the pieces of evidence coming together as the search for an effective treatment for dementia continues apace.

*  O’Shea S.D., Smith I.M., McCabe O.M., Cronin M.M., Walsh D.M., O’Connor W.T. Sensors. 2008; 8(11):7428-7437.

Neuroscience research may help brain injury recovery

New research shows that the way the brain first captures and encodes a situation or event is quite different from how it processes subsequent similar events.

I was interested to read a special report from the Center for Neuro Skills which describes the latest developments into how the brain registers new memory and equally importantly, how it strengthens older memories.

It has been known for years that the so-called NMDA receptor – a  lock on the skin of the nerve cell which is ‘opened’ by a special key – the neurotransmitter glutamate – is involved in new learning and memory.

However this research shows that the way the brain first captures and encodes a situation or event is quite different from how it processes subsequent similar events,  and suggests a whole new NMDA-independent system involving the so-called AMPA receptor – a less powerful type of NMDA receptor –  involved in strengthening older memories.
Why is this so important?   

Well, this new system is known to be critically involved in Alzheimer’s disease and other kinds of brain deficit memory impairment including stroke and head injury.

In fact, you may be interested to know that several drug companies have developed drugs that open the AMPA receptors called ampakines – a class of compounds known to enhance attention span and alertness, and facilitate learning and memory.

Unlike earlier stimulants such as caffeine, methylphenidate (Ritalin), and the amphetamines, ampakines do not seem to have unpleasant, long-lasting side effects such as sleeplessness.

These new memory enhancing drugs will be coming to a pharmacy near you within the next few years!

Don’t forget!