With obesity reaching epidemic levels in some parts of the world, scientists have only begun to understand why it is such a persistent condition. A study in the Journal of Biological Chemistry adds substantially to the story by reporting the discovery of a molecular chain of events in the brains of obese rats that undermined their ability to suppress appetite and to increase calorie burning.
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Neuroscientist Patrik Verstreken of VIB (Flanders Institute for Biotechnology) and KU Leuven has shown for the first time that dysfunctional mitochondria in brain cells can lead to learning disabilities.
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Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have helped identify many of the biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease that could potentially predict which patients will develop the disorder later in life.
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A key type of human brain cell developed in the laboratory grows seamlessly when transplanted into the brains of mice, UC San Francisco researchers have discovered, raising hope that these cells might one day be used to treat people with Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and possibly even Alzheimer's disease, as well as and complications of spinal cord injury such as chronic pain and spasticity.
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Leaving the house in the morning may seem simple, but with every move we make, our brains are working feverishly to create maps of the outside world that allow us to navigate and to remember where we are.
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The production of a certain kind of brain cell that had been considered an impediment to healing may actually be needed to staunch bleeding and promote repair after a stroke or head trauma, researchers at Duke Medicine report.
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In a serendipitous discovery, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have found a way to turn bone marrow stem cells directly into brain cells.
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Overworked and stressed out? Look on the bright side. Some stress is good for you. "You always think about stress as a really bad thing, but it's not," said Daniela Kaufer, associate professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley.
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Exposure to the anesthetic agent isoflurane increases "programmed cell death" of specific types of cells in the newborn mouse brain, reports a study in the April issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society.
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As the body ages, the physical effects are notable; wrinkles in the skin appear, physical exertion becomes harder. But there are also less visible processes going on. Inside aging brains there is another phenomenon at work, which may contribute to age-related brain defects.
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The seizures that affect people with temporal-lobe epilepsy usually start in a region of the brain called the hippocampus.
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The Kavli Foundation applauds today's launch by President Obama of his Administration's ambitious research effort to understand the brain by deciphering the brain's activity that gives rise to our perceptions, our experiences and our consciousness.
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Women who abruptly and prematurely lose estrogen from surgical menopause have a two-fold increase in cognitive decline and dementia.
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A team of Korean researchers investigated whether "environmental enrichment" can improve the neurobehavioral function of six week-old mice after transplantation of adipose-derived stem cells to treat hypoxic-ischemic brain injury, and found that brain repair (neurogenesis) was aided in some animals through exercise-induced fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), a strong pro-angiogenic factor.
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A new study by Multiple Sclerosis researchers at three leading Canadian centres addresses why bone marrow transplantation has positive results in patients with particularly aggressive forms of MS.
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Dr. Santosh D'Mello, professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of Texas at Dallas, has received a federal grant for research that may shed light on why and how specific brain cells are affected by Huntington's disease, a devastating, degenerative brain disorder.
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A new study from the University of Maryland School of Medicine suggests that depression results from a disturbance in the ability of brain cells to communicate with each other.
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An iron imbalance caused by prion proteins collecting in the brain is a likely cause of cell death in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have found.
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Concussions can occur in sports and in combat, but health experts do not know precisely which jolts, collisions and awkward head movements during these activities pose the greatest risks to the brain. To find out, Johns Hopkins engineers have developed a powerful new computer-based process that helps identify the dangerous conditions that lead to concussion-related brain injuries.
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According to a 2012 World Health Organization report, over 35 million people worldwide currently have dementia, a number that is expected to double by 2030 (66 million) and triple by 2050 (115 million).
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