Cortex News and Research

RSS

Understanding the origins of spontaneous neural activity

A new study, published in Nature Communications this week, led by Jake Gavenas PhD, while he was a PhD student at the Brain Institute at Chapman University, and co-authored by two faculty members of the Brain Institute, Uri Maoz and Aaron Schurger, examines how the brain initiates spontaneous actions. In addition to demonstrating how spontaneous action emerges without environmental input, this study has implications for the origins of slow ramping of neural activity before movement onset - a commonly-observed but poorly understood phenomenon.

5 Sep 2024

Brain scans reveal hidden clues to depression susceptibility

By repeatedly scanning the brains of a small group of patients for a year and a half, Weill Cornell Medicine researchers have identified a distinct pattern of neuronal interactions that appears to predispose some people to developing depression.

4 Sep 2024

Scientists uncover shared gene expression patterns in aging and psychiatric disorders

Researchers reveal how aging and psychiatric disorders converge at the cellular level in the orbitofrontal cortex, identifying key gene expression changes that could lead to new therapies.

4 Sep 2024

Neuroscientists decode the brain’s response to unexpected sensory inputs

Researchers have discovered how two brain areas, neocortex and thalamus, work together to detect discrepancies between what animals expect from their environment and actual events.

28 Aug 2024

New biomedical device offers hope for patients with chronic pain

Pain is a necessary biological signal, but a variety of conditions can cause those signals to go awry. For people with chronic pain, the root is often faulty signals emerging deep within the brain, giving false alarms about a wound that has since healed, a limb that has since been amputated, or other intricate, hard-to-explain scenarios.

28 Aug 2024

PET imaging and proteomics reveal distinct protein signatures in Alzheimer's disease progression

Researchers used PET imaging and proteomic analysis of cerebrospinal fluid to study amyloid β and tau tangle loads in Alzheimer's patients, identifying 127 proteins linked to disease progression. The findings highlight distinct molecular pathways and potential therapeutic targets.

28 Aug 2024

Study reveals how different types of love activate the brain

We use the word 'love' in a bewildering range of contexts - from sexual adoration to parental love or the love of nature.

27 Aug 2024

Brief periods of light-intensity exercise can boost children's cerebral blood flow

Cognitive functions, also known as intellectual functions, encompass thinking, understanding, memory, language, computation, and judgment, and are performed in the cerebrum.

26 Aug 2024

Study reveals how brain pathways aid motor recovery after injury

Stroke and spinal cord injuries can severely impair motor functions, and understanding how to promote recovery is a critical challenge.

23 Aug 2024

Exploring the impact of thyroid hormone on brain function

Thyroid hormone plays a key role in regulating a range of physiologic functions, including metabolism, temperature, heart rate, and growth. It accomplishes this impressive array of activities by interacting with almost every organ system in the body. Yet despite a long history of research on how thyroid hormone influences different organs, its effects on arguably the most crucial organ - the brain - have remained shrouded in mystery.

23 Aug 2024

Study shows frequent mitochondrial DNA insertion in the brain cells

As direct descendants of ancient bacteria, mitochondria have always been a little alien.

22 Aug 2024

AI-driven adaptive deep brain stimulation improves Parkinson’s symptoms

Researchers compare the safety and feasibility of an adaptive deep brain stimulation (aDBS) system to a conventional DBS system for Parkinson's disease.

22 Aug 2024

UC Irvine researchers discover the neurons responsible for "item memory"

Researchers from the University of California, Irvine have discovered the neurons responsible for "item memory," deepening our understanding of how the brain stores and retrieves the details of "what" happened and offering a new target for treating Alzheimer's disease.

21 Aug 2024

Researchers unveil new insights into brain activity for improved neuroprosthetic control

In a groundbreaking study recently published, researchers from Zhejiang University have unveiled significant findings that could enhance brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies, marking a crucial step towards more intuitive neuroprosthetic control and advanced rehabilitation therapies.

20 Aug 2024

How the MIND diet may protect against dementia

Researchers utilize transcriptomic data to examine the protective effects of the MIND diet in reducing the risk of dementia and slowing cognitive decline.

20 Aug 2024

UCSF studies point the way toward continuous care for people with Parkinson's disease

Two new studies from UC San Francisco are pointing the way toward round-the-clock personalized care for people with Parkinson's disease through an implanted device that can treat movement problems during the day and insomnia at night.

19 Aug 2024

Scientists discover brain's 'future map'

Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) in Japan have discovered a region of the brain that encodes where an animal is planning to be in the near future. Linked to internal maps of spatial locations and past movements, activity in the newly discovered grid cells accurately predicts future locations as an animal travels around its environment. Published in Science on August 15th, 2024, the study helps explain how planned spatial navigation is possible.

16 Aug 2024

KERI advances neuromodulation technology for appetite suppression in obesity treatment

The R&D on neuromodulation technology for the treatment and management of metabolic syndrome conducted by a team led by Dr. Ki-young Shin of Human Care Electro-Medical Device Research Center, Electro-Medical Equipment Research Division of KERI is underway smoothly.

14 Aug 2024

Study reveals role of parvalbumin neurons in deep rebound sleep after sleep deprivation

Professor Hiroki R. Ueda (RIKEN Center for Functional Biology, concurrently team lead), Dr. Kazuhiro Kon (at the time of the research, currently a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University) and their colleagues at Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, have elucidated the importance of proper regulation of the activity of parvalbumin (PV)-expressing neurons, the major inhibitory neurons in the cerebral cortex, in the long, deep sleep (rebound sleep) that occurs after prolonged wakefulness.

13 Aug 2024

MUSC researchers uncover the surprising role of the dorsal peduncular nucleus in opioid addiction

Opioids, like the commonly prescribed pain reliever oxycodone, are known for being highly addictive. In 2022, nearly 85,000 people died from an opioid overdose in the U.S. according to the Centers for Disease control.

12 Aug 2024

Cortex News and Research

Understanding the origins of spontaneous neural activity

Brain scans reveal hidden clues to depression susceptibility

Scientists uncover shared gene expression patterns in aging and psychiatric disorders

Neuroscientists decode the brain’s response to unexpected sensory inputs

New biomedical device offers hope for patients with chronic pain

PET imaging and proteomics reveal distinct protein signatures in Alzheimer's disease progression

Study reveals how different types of love activate the brain

Brief periods of light-intensity exercise can boost children's cerebral blood flow

Study reveals how brain pathways aid motor recovery after injury

Exploring the impact of thyroid hormone on brain function

Study shows frequent mitochondrial DNA insertion in the brain cells

AI-driven adaptive deep brain stimulation improves Parkinson’s symptoms

UC Irvine researchers discover the neurons responsible for "item memory"

Researchers unveil new insights into brain activity for improved neuroprosthetic control

How the MIND diet may protect against dementia

UCSF studies point the way toward continuous care for people with Parkinson's disease

Scientists discover brain's 'future map'

KERI advances neuromodulation technology for appetite suppression in obesity treatment

Study reveals role of parvalbumin neurons in deep rebound sleep after sleep deprivation

MUSC researchers uncover the surprising role of the dorsal peduncular nucleus in opioid addiction

Improving healthcare sustainability through carbon data

Managing vibration in IVF laboratories

A New Approach to Preventing Bladder Cancer Recurrence

Latest News