Thalamus News and Research

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The Thalamus is an area of the brain that helps process information from the senses and transmit it to other parts of the brain.

Study reveals unexpected mechanisms involved in working memory

Working memory: it's how you make a mental shopping list without forgetting the milk, or memorize a number just long enough to write it down.

29 Sep 2020

Maternal gut microbiota can promote healthy fetal brain development

During pregnancy in mice, the billions of bacteria and other microbes that live in a mother's intestines regulate key metabolites, small molecules that are important for healthy fetal brain development, UCLA biologists report Sept. 23 in the journal Nature.

24 Sep 2020

Scientists identify new area of the brain involved in cost-benefit decision-making

Every day, we make hundreds of decisions. While most are small and inconsequential, like choosing what to eat or wear, others are more complex and involve weighing up potential costs and benefits, like deciding whether to study more for a better grade instead of hanging out with friends.

19 Sep 2020

Research looks at convalescent plasma use in COVID-19 mouse model

A new study by researchers at the University of Iowa and published on the preprint server bioRxiv in August 2020 reports the utility of a mouse model that recapitulates several aspects of human COVID-19 and can reflect the antiviral efficacy of new drugs as well.

12 Aug 2020

Anxiety and depression coexisting could cause physical changes to the brain

A new study from the researchers at the Australian National University shows that there may be physical changes in the brain volume among persons who have coexisting and anxiety and depressive disorders.

6 Aug 2020

Study offers fundamental insights about sensory thalamic subnetworks

The thalamus is a "Grand Central Station" for sensory information coming to our brains. Almost every sight, sound, taste and touch we perceive travels to our brain's cortex via the thalamus.

23 Jul 2020

Neuroscientists map brain's sensory gatekeeper in unprecedented detail

Many people with autism experience sensory hypersensitivity, attention deficits, and sleep disruption. One brain region that has been implicated in these symptoms is the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), which is believed to act as a gatekeeper for sensory information flowing to the cortex.

22 Jul 2020

Study identifies brain circuitry that plays key role in ASD-relevant behaviors

A team led by UT Southwestern researchers has identified brain circuitry that plays a key role in the dysfunctional social, repetitive, and inflexible behavioral differences that characterize autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

15 Jul 2020

New radiotracer can directly measure synaptic changes following stroke

A new radiotracer, 18F-SynVesT-2, can directly assess synaptic density changes in the brain, providing an objective and quantitative measure of disease progression after stroke.

13 Jul 2020

Study provides mechanistic explanation of psychotic symptoms in young people

Schizophrenia symptoms may be the result of increased connections between sensory and language-processing brain areas.

30 Jun 2020

Researchers develop less invasive genetic tools to understand cellular activity

Graduate student Ubadah Sabbagh placed a cold glass slide on the microscope. It was getting late and the lab was quiet.

24 Jun 2020

New MRI techniques can improve outcomes in patients with Parkinson's disease

Recently developed MRI techniques used to more precisely target a small area in the brain linked to Parkinson's disease and essential tremor may lead to better outcomes without surgery and with less risk of negative effects, a new study led by UT Southwestern researchers suggests.

15 Jun 2020

NMDA receptors play key role in sleep deficits that accompany psychiatric disorders

Sofya Kulikova, a researcher at HSE University in Perm, is part of an international research team that has discovered potential mechanisms that explain the sleep spindle deficit in electroencephalograms (EEG) of people with schizophrenia. The article was published in the Schizophrenia Research on June 5.

5 Jun 2020

Studies advance the understanding of sensory disconnection during sleep and anesthesia

During sleep and under anesthesia, we rarely respond to such external stimuli as sounds even though our brains remain highly active.

28 May 2020

Study paves way to better understand the pathophysiology of schizophrenia

There is an extremely high probability that individuals with 22q11.2 microdeletion syndrome - a rare genetic disorder - will develop schizophrenia together with one of its most common symptoms, auditory hallucinations.

26 May 2020

Neuroscientists show how expectations influence learning

During learning, the brain is a prediction engine that continually makes theories about our environment and accurately registers whether an assumption is true or not.

16 Apr 2020

Research provides better understanding of how tremor happens

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital have improved our understanding of how tremor -- the most common movement disorder -- happens, opening the possibility of novel therapies for this condition.

19 Mar 2020

Study provides new insight on neural basis of tremors

New insight on what happens in brain cells to cause tremors in mice has been published today in the open-access journal eLife.

17 Mar 2020

Researchers uncover novel neurotransmitter system in the brain

Neurotransmitters are chemicals that transmit signals between neurons or from neurons to other cells. They interact with specific receptors found in the brain of humans and animals, controlling a variety of biological processes, e.g. fear, anger, pleasure, memory, energy, appetite and sleep.

5 Mar 2020

Study suggests potential treatment to alleviate disorders of consciousness

A small amount of electricity delivered at a specific frequency to a particular point in the brain will snap a monkey out of even deep anesthesia, pointing to a circuit of brain activity key to consciousness and suggesting potential treatments for debilitating brain disorders.

16 Feb 2020