Neuroscience News and Research

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Researchers identify two groups of neurons related to Leigh Syndrome

Leigh Syndrome affects one in every 40,000 newborns and is produced by deficits in the mitochondria, which are in charge of providing the energy needed for cells to function correctly.

18 Sep 2019

UVA leads statewide effort to fight opioid crisis

The University of Virginia School of Medicine is leading a statewide effort to battle the opioid crisis and reduce the number of people dying from it.

18 Sep 2019

Researchers develop new way to measure how mechanical fatigue affects biological cells

Human red blood cells are extremely resilient and have the capacity to undergo cellular deformation as they navigate across various micro-vessels and capillaries.

17 Sep 2019

Research reveals new molecular mechanisms that contribute to plasticity of the adult brain

The team's findings describe for the first time the changes that take place in the genetic material of excitatory neurons in the hippocampus of adult mice when they activate.

12 Sep 2019

Optimal strategy for making multi-alternative decisions

Our brains are constantly faced with different choices: Should I have a chocolate éclair or macaroon? Should I take the bus or go by car? What should I wear: a woolen sweater or one made of cashmere? When the difference in quality between two choices is great, the choice is made very quickly.

12 Sep 2019

Brain changes may help track people most likely to develop dementia

Even before dementia diagnosis, people with mild cognitive impairment may have different changes in the brain depending on what type of dementia they have, according to a study published in the September 11, 2019, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

11 Sep 2019

Calcium channel blockers may help effectively treat memory loss in Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia but the changes in brain cell function underlying memory loss remains poorly understood.

11 Sep 2019

Neural network approach accurately identifies congestive heart failure with 100% accuracy

Researchers have developed a neural network approach that can accurately identify congestive heart failure with 100% accuracy through analysis of just one raw electrocardiogram heartbeat, a new study reports.

11 Sep 2019

Researchers identify mechanism responsible for spatial issues in people with Down syndrome

Researchers reveal that an imbalance of gene Grik1 is behind the spatial issues that people with Down syndrome experience.

11 Sep 2019

Brain circuit regulates individual responses to temptation cues, rat study finds

Differences in a key brain circuit may suggest why some individuals are less able than others to resist tempting cues, according to a study in rats published today in eLife.

11 Sep 2019

Brain-computer interface: huge potential benefits and formidable challenges

A new Royal Society report called “iHuman: blurring lines between mind and machine” is for the first time systematically exploring whether it is “right” or not to use neural interfaces – machines implanted in or worn over the body to pick up or stimulate nervous activity in the brain or other parts of the nervous system.

11 Sep 2019

Scientists find a link between brain’s emotion circuit and movement

The brain is a powerful organ that controls all the body processes, including movement. In some athletes, however, they usually experience a phenomenon called “choking,” wherein their performance rapidly declines when they’re under a lot of pressure.

11 Sep 2019

Scientists unveil key brain cells that suppress drug cravings

Illicit drug use has been linked to disability, death, and the risk for many diseases. But more, it is associated with risks to the person’s family, friends, and the community.

10 Sep 2019

Socioeconomic deprivation linked to suicide rates in rural areas

This is National Suicide Prevention Week, and John Campo--the chief behavior wellness officer at West Virginia University--is examining trends in suicide rates to make suicide prevention more effective.

10 Sep 2019

Salk researchers develop method to reveal epigenetic features of brain cells

The brain's prefrontal cortex, which gives us our ability to solve problems and plan ahead, contains billions of cells. But understanding the large diversity of cell types in this critical region, each with unique genetic and molecular properties, has been challenging.

10 Sep 2019

Neuroscientists discover how brain rhythms organize our visual perception

To investigate how information of different visual features is processed in the brain, the neuroscientists from the German Primate Center - Leibniz Institute of Primate Research in Göttingen, Germany, the Iran University of Science and Technology and the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences in Tehran, Iran measured the activity of individual nerve cells in the brain of rhesus monkeys, while the animals performed a visual perception task.

9 Sep 2019

Researchers develop new cocktail of drugs that shrink pancreatic tumors

Cancer is relentless and resilient. When a drug blocks a cancer cell's main survival pathway, the cell avoids the obstacle by taking different pathways or detours to save itself. This tactic is called "developing resistance," and it's one of the key challenges researchers face when seeking effective therapeutics to combat pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA).

9 Sep 2019