Brain Disease News and Research

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Scientists examine hormonal links between diet and obesity

Obesity is a growing public health crisis, bringing with it many serious risk factors, including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

24 May 2019

Gene linked to rare progressive brain disease causes new kind of congenital disorder

A new kind of congenital disorder caused by a group of mutations in a gene previously linked only to a rare progressive brain disease has been discovered by an international team co-led by Saudi investigators.

20 May 2019

Study may help identify patients at relapse risk after treatment for cocaine use disorder

A study conducted at the University of São Paulo in Brazil and described in an article published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence may help healthcare workers identify patients who risk relapse after undergoing treatment for cocaine use disorder.

17 May 2019

SLU researchers reveal how to turn off neuropathic pain in a laboratory setting

Facing an urgent need for safer and more effective therapies for those suffering from debilitating pain in the midst of an opioid crisis, Saint Louis University researchers are on a mission to find a non-narcotic off-switch for pain.

10 May 2019

SLU researcher wins NIH grant to identify risk factors for opioid-related depression

A Saint Louis University researcher has received a grant to study the pathways from chronic prescription opioid use to new onset mood disorder.

29 Apr 2019

Measuring biomarkers in blood may help pinpoint newborns with HIE

Measuring a number of biomarkers over time that are produced as the body responds to inflammation and injury may help to pinpoint newborns who are more vulnerable to suffering lasting brain injury due to disrupted oxygen delivery and blood flow, according to research presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies 2019 Annual Meeting.

27 Apr 2019

Innovative drug delivery may alleviate Parkinson's symptoms and stop its progression

Parkinson's disease affects between 7 and 10 million people worldwide and the number of people diagnosed is soaring due to the ageing population.

10 Apr 2019

Developing imaging techniques for early detection of eye and brain diseases

The eyes may be the window to the soul, but to scientists, they are also the window to the brain. In particular, the retina, a delicate light-sensing neural network with specialized cells at the back of the eyeball, is linked directly to the brain via the optic nerve and is considered by some to be part of the brain itself.

4 Apr 2019

Portable mini microscope could improve scientists' ability to study brain disease in living mice

Working with mice, a team of Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers has developed a relatively inexpensive, portable mini microscope that could improve scientists' ability to image the effects of cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's disease and other conditions in the brains of living and active mice over time.

28 Mar 2019

Purdue engineers develop tiny glutamate sensors for spinal cord injuries

Your chances of getting a nasty migraine increase following a spinal cord injury, thanks to a chemical messenger in the brain that spikes to toxic levels, past studies have suggested.

28 Mar 2019

Scientists grow most sophisticated brain organoid to date

Researchers at Cambridge Biomedical Campus have grown the most sophisticated brain organoid to date, providing new opportunities for scientists to understand human brain development and neurological disorders.

20 Mar 2019

Study shows how neuroactive steroids inhibit activity of pro-inflammatory proteins

For the first time, scientists discovered how neuroactive steroids naturally found in the brain and bloodstream inhibit the activity of a specific kind of protein called Toll-like receptors, which have been known to play a role in inflammation in many organs, including the brain.

14 Feb 2019

Researchers identify regulatory mechanism underlying obesity

Obesity − as research in the past decade has shown − is first and foremost a brain disease. Researchers at Helmholtz Zentrum München, partners in the German Center for Diabetes Research, have now discovered a molecular switch that controls the function of satiety neurons and therefore body weight. The findings were published in the journal 'Nature Metabolism'.

31 Jan 2019

Research brings new hope to treating degenerative brain diseases

Alzheimer's disease is the most representative degenerative brain disease, accounting for 60 to 80% of all dementia cases. In search for new mechanism for AD, the research team led by Professor Seong-Woon Yu of Brain and Cognitive Sciences paid attention to the autophagy of microglia, brain immune cells, is suppressed by inflammation.

17 Jan 2019

SLU researcher aims to eliminate TB with focus on high-risk patients

In a recent paper published in PLOS One, Soumya Chatterjee, M.D., assistant professor of infectious diseases, allergy and immunology at Saint Louis University, presents data to show that a focus on high-risk tuberculosis patients may be the answer to stalled progress in stamping out the illness in the United States.

19 Dec 2018

SLU researchers explore how fetal exposure to inflammation can alter immunity in newborns

Saint Louis University researchers are studying how fetal exposure to inflammation can alter immune responses after birth.

12 Dec 2018

New dye is a step towards personalized neuromedical prophylaxis of the future

Signs of neurodegenerative diseases, visible years before the emergence of clinical manifestations, can be detected during the examination of medical samples by means of fluorescence microscopy.

29 Nov 2018

Study reveals why mitochondria are often strangely shaped inside the brain

Columbia neuroscientists have discovered why mitochondria, tiny power generators that keep our cells healthy, are often strangely shaped inside the brain.

28 Nov 2018

Novel methodology for characterizing neurons could lead to better understanding of brain disease

It takes a lot of cells to make a human brain. The organ houses not only an enormous quantity of neurons (tens of billions), but also an impressive diversity of neuron types. In recent years, scientists have been developing inventories of these cell classes--information that will be essential for understanding how the brain works.