Neuroscience News and Research

RSS

Portland State awarded $901,000 NSF funding to study neural systems

Portland State University will join eight institutions as part of a new National Science Foundation-backed research team tasked with investigating how brains interact with their surrounding environment.

18 Aug 2020

New insights into how the brain's internal states influence decision-making

Biomedical Engineering's Matthew Smith and Byron Yu, along with former Ph.D. student Ben Cowley (School of Computer Science '18), have studied the neural basis through which internal states in the brain affect decision-making over an extended period of time.

17 Aug 2020

Mild COVID-19 cases can trigger robust memory T cell responses

Mild cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) can trigger robust memory T cell responses, even in the absence of detectable virus-specific antibody responses, researchers report August 14 in the journal Cell.

17 Aug 2020

Switching off 'master regulator' may protect critical brain cells from Parkinson's-related damage

Switching off a molecular "master regulator" may protect the brain from inflammatory damage and neurodegeneration in Parkinson's disease, reports a study published today in Nature Neuroscience.

17 Aug 2020

Using music therapy to combat 'chemobrain'

Music as medicine has become a more widely adopted concept over the years and considered as complementary therapy for a number of health issues.

17 Aug 2020

FDA approves drug for treatment of neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Enspryng (satralizumab-mwge) for the treatment of neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) in adults with a particular antibody - patients who are anti-aquaporin-4 or AQP4 antibody-positive.

17 Aug 2020

New research offers hope for treating Parkinson's disease

The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) has published, on August 12, the results of a research project conducted jointly by Cardiocentro Ticino and the EOC Neurocentro, which delivers a message of hope in the fight against Parkinson's disease, as well as providing encouraging news for the USI Faculty of Biomedical Sciences.

17 Aug 2020

Understanding the relationship between movement and vision

To get a better look at the world around them, animals constantly are in motion. Primates and people use complex eye movements to focus their vision (as humans do when reading, for instance); birds, insects, and rodents do the same by moving their heads, and can even estimate distances that way.

15 Aug 2020

Nanoparticle carriers expand the effectiveness of gene therapies for human eye diseases

NIBIB-funded researchers have created nanoparticles for successful gene therapy of a mouse model of macular degeneration.

15 Aug 2020

Researchers study about the science behind staying motivated

There is no question that motivation is one of the hardest and yet important factors in life. It's the difference between success and failure, goal-setting and aimlessness, well-being and unhappiness. And yet, why is it so hard to get motivated - or even if we do, to keep it up?

13 Aug 2020

Reelin inhibition may be effective for treating multiple sclerosis

In an animal model of multiple sclerosis (MS), decreasing the amount of a protein made in the liver significantly protected against development of the disease's characteristic symptoms and promoted recovery in symptomatic animals, UTSW scientists report.

12 Aug 2020

Scientists win grant to study brain's role in tracking odors

Seeking to unravel the mystery of how animals follow scent, a team of scientists from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, the University of Colorado Boulder and Columbia University, have won a grant to peer deeply inside the brain as the process takes place.

12 Aug 2020

FDA approves new treatment option for patients with rare Duchenne muscular dystrophy mutation

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval to Viltepso (viltolarsen) injection for the treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in patients who have a confirmed mutation of the DMD gene that is amenable to exon 53 skipping.

12 Aug 2020

Adaptive features of single neurons supply memory for language processing

To understand language, we have to remember the words that were uttered and combine them into an interpretation.

12 Aug 2020

Acupuncture can tame cytokine storm in mice with systemic inflammation

A team of researchers led by neuroscientists at Harvard Medical School has successfully used acupuncture to tame cytokine storm in mice with systemic inflammation.

12 Aug 2020

Study identifies neural connectivity patterns associated with autism in infants

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is rarely diagnosed until symptoms arise, often well into childhood. Evidence however, is mounting that developmental abnormalities likely emerge in the brain long before then: early identification of babies at risk for ASD could allow for interventions that would improve their developmental outcomes.

12 Aug 2020

New techniques help replace malfunctioning microglia associated with neurological disorders

Researchers at Fudan University in Shanghai, China have developed three different techniques that successfully replace almost all malfunctioning microglia - each technique with its own advantage in application

12 Aug 2020

Purdue University startup receives NIH grant to advance Alzheimer's research

A $2 million grant from the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health to Neurodon, a Purdue University-affiliated startup, will help fast-track molecules that could improve memory and reduce Alzheimer's disease neurodegeneration.

12 Aug 2020

Brain activity in older adults is not necessarily quieter when it comes to memory

Everyone has heard it, and decades of research studies seem to confirm it: While it may not always be the first sign of aging, some faculties, including memory, do get worse as people age.

12 Aug 2020

Study to examine possible effects of COVID-19 on dementia risk in older adults

In addition to its clear impact on physical health, COVID-19 may also have adverse consequences for brain health. Therefore, researchers at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute (RRI) are investigating the possible effects of COVID-19 and infection prevention measures on dementia risk in older adults.

11 Aug 2020