Brain News and Research

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The human brain is the center of the human nervous system and is a highly complex organ. Enclosed in the cranium, it has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times as large as the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size.

Fruit flies' fat-store levels can be measured and controlled by brain neuron manipulation

A team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have pinpointed two groups of neurons in fruit fly brains that have the ability to sense and manipulate the fly's fat stores in much the same way as do neurons in the mammalian brain.

19 Aug 2009

Obama calls for veterans' health care expansion

President Obama Monday included health care in a speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars' national convention Monday, The Arizona Republic reports.

19 Aug 2009

Neurofeedback 'brain training' helps surgeons improve skills

A team of researchers have found that trainee eye surgeons can significantly improve their surgical skills by regulating their own brainwave activity, using a process called neurofeedback.

18 Aug 2009

Video-game playing and health risks

While video gaming is generally perceived as a pastime for children and young adults, research shows that the average age of players in the United States is 35.

18 Aug 2009

Mediterranean-type diet and exercise lowers Alzheimer's risk

Both being more physically active and adhering to a Mediterranean-type diet appears to be associated with reduced Alzheimer's risk, according to a new report in the August 12, 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

18 Aug 2009

Genentech announces Phase III study results for Avastin (bevacizumab) in combination with chemo in HER2-negative breast cancer

Genentech, Inc. today announced that a Phase III study (RIBBON 2) of Avastin (bevacizumab) in combination with chemotherapy increased the time women with metastatic HER2-negative breast cancer whose initial chemotherapy had stopped working lived without the disease worsening (progression-free survival or PFS), compared to chemotherapy alone.

18 Aug 2009

Prion found to be a biomarker for pancreatic cancer

Mad cow disease is caused by the accumulation of an abnormal protein, the prion, in the brain of an affected patient. Outside of the brain, very little is known about prions.

18 Aug 2009

Sleep apnea increases chances of dying

Nightly bouts of interrupted, oxygen-deprived sleep from a collapsed airway in the upper neck raises the chances of dying in middle-aged to elderly people by as much as 46 percent in the most severe cases, according to a landmark study on sleep apnea by lung experts at Johns Hopkins and six other U.S. medical centers.

18 Aug 2009

Smoking increases risk for brain shrinkage in multiple sclerosis

People who smoke and have multiple sclerosis (MS) may be at increased risk of brain shrinkage and increased brain lesions related to the disease, according to a study published in the August 18, 2009, print issue of NeurologyÂ®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Smoking has already been linked to an increased risk of developing MS.

18 Aug 2009

Protein Huwe1 may be an important factor in the development of brain cancer

Researchers from Columbia University Medical Center's Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center have identified a protein that activates brain stem cells to make new neurons - but that may be hijacked later in life to cause brain cancer in humans. The protein called Huwe1 normally functions to eliminate other unnecessary proteins and was found to act as a tumor suppressor in brain cancer.

17 Aug 2009

Running and addiction

Although exercise is good for your health, extreme exercise may be physically addicting. Rats given a drug that produces withdrawal in heroin addicts went into withdrawal after running excessively in exercise wheels, according to new research. Rats that ran the hardest had the most severe withdrawal symptoms.

17 Aug 2009

FDA approves Extavia for multiple sclerosis

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Extavia(R) (interferon beta-1b), the first in a new planned portfolio of multiple sclerosis (MS) medicines from Novartis to help patients manage this devastating disease.

17 Aug 2009

New target for Alzheimer's disease

For close to a decade, pharmaceutical researchers have been in hot pursuit of compounds to activate a key nicotine receptor that plays a role in cognitive processes. Triggering it, they hope, might prevent or even reverse the devastation wrought by Alzheimer’s disease.

16 Aug 2009

Doctors overiding end of life counseling see benefit in current controversy

The paragraphs, buried deep in the 1,000-page House health reform bill, appear innocuous, but they have ignited a firestorm among critics predicting government-sponsored euthanasia.

14 Aug 2009

Human Pheromone Sciences announces Q2 2009 financials

Human Pheromone Sciences, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: EROX) today announced results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2009.

13 Aug 2009

Smell and taste disorders can be treated

When flowers aren’t fragrant and spicy foods don’t zing, the senses may be impaired. But don’t assume that diminished senses of taste and smell are due to aging, says the August issue of Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource.

13 Aug 2009

Human brain distinctly separates living and non-living objects for processing

For unknown reasons, the human brain distinctly separates the handling of images of living things from images of non-living things, processing each image type in a different area of the brain. For years, many scientists have assumed the brain segregated visual information in this manner to optimize processing the images themselves, but new research shows that even in people who have been blind since birth the brain still separates the concepts of living and non-living objects.

13 Aug 2009

Britons getting irritated by health-reform rhetoric

U.S. health care reform efforts garner attention and reaction from around the globe especially from Britain.

13 Aug 2009

Endocannabinoids found to spread and prolong pain

Imagine that you're working on your back porch, hammering in a nail. Suddenly you slip and hit your thumb instead - hard. The pain is incredibly intense, but it only lasts a moment. After a few seconds (and a few unprintable words) you're ready to start hammering again.

13 Aug 2009

Nfocus Neuromedical obtains CE approval for vascular reconstruction device

Nfocus Neuromedical Inc. announced today that its CardioVasc Advantage Vascular Reconstruction Device has been granted CE Mark approval by the European Notified Body, G-Med.

13 Aug 2009