An excess of the brain neurotransmitter glutamate may cause a transition to psychosis in people who are at risk for schizophrenia, reports a study from investigators at Columbia University Medical Center published in the current issue of Neuron.
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New findings clarify where and how the brain's "slow waves" originate. These rhythmic signal pulses, which sweep through the brain during deep sleep at the rate of about one cycle per second, are assumed to play a role in processes such as consolidation of memory.
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How do nerve cells -- which can each be up to three feet long in humans -- keep from rupturing or falling apart?
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Mutations found in individuals with autism block the action of molecules made by the brain that act on the same receptors that marijuana's active chemical acts on, according to new research reported online April 11 in the Cell Press journal Neuron.
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Slow oscillations in brain activity, which occur during so-called slow-wave sleep, are critical for retaining memories. Researchers reporting online April 11 in the Cell Press journal Neuron have found that playing sounds synchronized to the rhythm of the slow brain oscillations of people who are sleeping enhances these oscillations and boosts their memory.
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Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have shed light on one of the major toxic mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease. The discoveries could lead to a much better understanding of the Alzheimer's process and how to prevent it.
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Your brain knows it's time to cook when the stove is on, and the food and pots are out. When you rush away to calm a crying child, though, cooking is over and it's time to be a parent. Your brain processes and responds to these occurrences as distinct, unrelated events.
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A team of researchers, led by Marc Freeman, PhD, an early career scientist with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and associate professor of neurobiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School have discovered a gene in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster that, when mutant, blocks the self-destruction of damaged axons, which could hold clues to treating motor neuron diseases, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
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A study from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine offers new insights into how the nervous system processes hot and cold temperatures. The research led by neuroscientist Mark J. Zylka, PhD, associate professor of cell biology and physiology, found an interaction between the neural circuits that detect hot and cold stimuli: cold perception is enhanced when nerve circuitry for heat is inactivated.
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There are cells in your brain that recognize very specific places, and have that as one of their main jobs. These cells, called place cells, are found in an area behind your temple called the hippocampus. While these cells must be sent information from nearby cells to do their job, so far no one has been able to determine exactly what kind of nerve cells, or neurons, work with place cells to craft the code they create for each location.
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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a new set of genetic markers for Alzheimer's that point to a second pathway through which the disease develops.
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Salk neuroscientist Terrence J. Sejnowski joined President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C., on April 2, 2013, at the launch of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative-a major Administration neuroscience effort that advances and builds upon collaborative scientific work by leading brain researchers such as Salk's own Sejnowski.
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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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A team of researchers at The New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute led by Scott Noggle, PhD, Director of the NYSCF Laboratory and the NYSCF - Charles Evans Senior Research Fellow for Alzheimer's Disease, and Michael W. Nestor, PhD, a NYSCF Postdoctoral Research Fellow, has developed a technique to produce three-dimensional cultures of induced pluripotent stem cells called embryoid bodies, amenable to live cell imaging and to electrical activity measurement.
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There are two regions in the brain that continue to produce new neurons well into adulthood. One of these regions is the hippocampus and as we converse this region is actively involved in memory formation, mood regulation and cognition.
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In a mouse model of early Parkinson's disease, animals displayed movement deficits, loss of tyrosine-hydroxylase (TH)-positive fibers in the striatum, and astro-gliosis and micro-gliosis in the substantia nigra (SN), without the loss of nigral dopaminergic neurons.
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Northwestern Medicine scientists have identified a component of the herpesvirus that "hijacks" machinery inside human cells, allowing the virus to rapidly and successfully invade the nervous system upon initial exposure.
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A study led by Zachary Mainen, Director of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme, and published today (March 28th) in the scientific journal, Neuron, reports that when rats were challenged with a series of perceptual decision problems.
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Clumps of α-synuclein protein in nerve cells are hallmarks of many degenerative brain diseases, most notably Parkinson's disease.
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Amarantus BioScience, Inc., a biotechnology company discovering and developing treatments and diagnostics for diseases associated with neurodegeneration and apoptosis, today reported positive preclinical data for its lead therapeutic MANF in neuroprotection 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) rat models of Parkinson's disease.
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