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The thalamus could be a strategic target for treating cognitive dysfunction

Years ago, as a neurology resident, Chinfei Chen, MD, PhD, cared for a 20-year-old woman who had experienced a very small stroke, affecting only the thalamus.

7 Apr 2025

Cornell researchers discover brain mechanisms behind psilocybin's effects

Psilocybin is the active ingredient that gives so-called "magic mushrooms" their hallucinogenic kick. It also has a therapeutic potential for treating depression.

4 Apr 2025

Laughing gas can potentially transform treatment for tough-to-beat depression

Nitrous oxide-better known as "laughing gas"-can potentially transform treatment for tough-to-beat depression.

3 Apr 2025

Speech neuroprosthesis unlocks near-real-time communication for patients with paralysis

Marking a breakthrough in the field of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), a team of researchers from UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco has unlocked a way to restore naturalistic speech for people with severe paralysis.

31 Mar 2025

Why sucralose could make you hungrier instead of helping you lose weight

Sucralose increases hypothalamic activity linked to hunger more than sugar or water, especially in women and people with obesity.

30 Mar 2025

Artificial neurons learn independently in self-organized networks

Novel artificial neurons learn independently and are more strongly modeled on their biological counterparts.

28 Mar 2025

Novel PET imaging method quantifies brain inflammation enzyme

A novel PET imaging approach can effectively quantify a key enzyme associated with brain inflammation, according to research published in the March issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

28 Mar 2025

Scientists confirm neurobiochemical link between dopamine and cognitive flexibility

For the first time, scientists have confirmed a neurobiochemical link between dopamine and cognitive flexibility, according to new research published in the March issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

28 Mar 2025

Conversations on AFM: Exploring the nanomechanics of living cells

In this interview Prof. Dr. Kristina Kusche-Vihrog speaks about the nanomechanics of living cells and their implications for cardiovascular disease.

From Bruker BioAFM 27 Mar 2025

Common sugar substitute increases activity in the brain's hypothalamus

Compared to sugar, consuming sucralose-a widely used sugar substitute-increases activity in the hypothalamus, a brain region that regulates appetite and body weight, according to a new USC study.

26 Mar 2025

Researchers identify key gene linked to heroin addiction

Opioid use disorder is associated with more than 350,000 deaths annually worldwide. Guided by the need for an increased understanding of critical neurobiological features of addiction, researchers have now found a unique molecular signature and genes in the orbitofrontal cortex associated with heroin-seeking behavior.

26 Mar 2025

Study highlights the flexible nature of numerical quantity processing in the brain

The National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT, President: TOKUDA Hideyuki, Ph.D.) has revealed, through fMRI-based brain activity analysis, that multiple regions in the human cerebral cortex flexibly represent numerical quantity.

26 Mar 2025

ADHD may be linked to increased risk of developing dementia later in life

An adult brain affected by attention deficit disorder with or without hyperactivity (ADHD) presents modifications similar to those observed in individuals suffering from dementia.

25 Mar 2025

Study links type 2 diabetes to weakened reward signals in the brain

The high comorbidity of type 2 diabetes (T2D) with psychiatric or neurodegenerative disorders points to a need for understanding what links these diseases.

24 Mar 2025

Research reveals how dendrites connect memories in the brain

If you've ever noticed how memories from the same day seem connected while events from weeks apart feel separate, a new study reveals the reason: Our brains physically link memories that occur close in time not in the cell bodies of neurons, but rather in their spiny extensions called dendrites.

22 Mar 2025

Groundbreaking study unveils key mechanism for neuronal identity regulation

A team of researchers from the Institute for Neurosciences, a joint center of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Miguel Hernández University (UMH) of Elche, in collaboration with researchers from Columbia University (New York, USA), has identified a mechanism that regulates the production of two different proteins from the same gene.

22 Mar 2025

Study identifies brain areas crucial for word memory in epilepsy

The parts of the brain that are needed to remember words, and how these are affected by a common form of epilepsy, have been identified by a team of neurologists and neurosurgeons at UCL.

19 Mar 2025

Study sheds light on brain activity during learning in mice

By revealing for the first time what happens in the brain when an animal makes a mistake, Johns Hopkins University researchers are shedding light on the holy grail of neuroscience: the mechanics of how we learn.

19 Mar 2025

Study: Witnessing trauma triggers unique brain changes

For years, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been studied primarily in people who experience trauma firsthand.

18 Mar 2025

Researchers uncover flexibility in brain development and visual recognition

Riddle me this: how can it be that reading these words activates nearly identical word-sensitive patches of the brain's visual system in you and nearly every other reader of this story? And that a different set of face-sensitive visual regions-again in almost identical positions in each reader's brain-would activate to process the faces of the researchers, should you meet them?

17 Mar 2025