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Bond villain fails neuroanatomy, says St. Michael's Hospital neurosurgeon

James Bond's nemesis in the most recent film likely failed neuroanatomy, said real-life neurosurgeon and scientist Dr. Michael Cusimano of St. Michael's Hospital.

30 Dec 2015

Scientists pin down structure of neuronal protein clumps associated with ALS

To create treatments for a disease without any, scientists need to study and understand the driving forces behind the faulty biology. Today, researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine announced the first-ever evidence-based description of the neuronal protein clumps thought to be important in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, a fatal neurodegenerative condition.

29 Dec 2015

New study identifies activity of brain proteins linked to memory impairments in Alzheimer's disease

A new study conducted at the University of Haifa and published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience has identified activity of brain proteins associated with memory impairments in Alzheimer's disease, and has also found that "repairing" this activity leads to an improvement in memory.

29 Dec 2015

Researchers identify inherited traits related to sleep, wake and activity cycles

In the first study of its kind, a team of international scientists led by UT Southwestern Medical Center and UCLA researchers have identified a dozen inherited traits related to sleep, wake, and activity cycles that are associated with severe bipolar disorder.

29 Dec 2015

CMU researchers develop new method to survey learning-related changes in synapse properties

Carnegie Mellon University researchers have developed a new approach to broadly survey learning-related changes in synapse properties. In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience and featured on the journal's cover, the researchers used machine-learning algorithms to analyze thousands of images from the cerebral cortex. This allowed them to identify synapses from an entire cortical region, revealing unanticipated information about how synaptic properties change during development and learning.

29 Dec 2015

Ebola virus and bats waging molecular battle for survival

Ebola virus and bats have been waging a molecular battle for survival that may have started at least 25 million years ago, according to a study led by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU-Boulder) and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) that published online today in the journal eLife.

24 Dec 2015

TweetChat on AAN's guideline for diagnosing and treating sports concussions

As the nation expands its conversation about sports concussion this week, the American Academy of Neurology, the world's most trusted authority on concussion, will host a TweetChat at 1 p.m. ET, Monday, December 28, to help educate parents, coaches and athletes about the AAN's guideline for diagnosing and treating sports concussion.

24 Dec 2015

Hepatitis C virus linked to increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease

The hepatitis C virus may be associated with an increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease, according to a study published in the December 23, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

24 Dec 2015

Closing patient knowledge gap could encourage cancer patients to enroll in clinical trials

A five-center national study led by Neal Meropol, MD, and a team of researchers from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Case Medical Center demonstrated that a little information goes a long way in encouraging cancer patients to enroll in clinical trials, a decision that could be potentially lifesaving.

24 Dec 2015

Scientists unravel longstanding mystery of fundamental property of the brain

In new research published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team of scientists from the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, in the Faculty of Medicine, unraveled a longstanding mystery of a fundamental property of the brain.

24 Dec 2015

Study explores brain's processes responsible for imitation

We learn many things through imitation: how to walk, play an instument, sports, and even more. What are the processes in the brain responsible for imitation? For some years now, science has been examining the role of mirror neurons, but there is still much to understand.

23 Dec 2015

Study explores how contextual information shapes our visual perception

The Thalamus not only relays visual signals from the eye to the visual cortex as previously thought, but also conveys additional, contextual information.

23 Dec 2015

Novel drug shows promise in mouse models of human metastatic breast cancer

A doctor treating a patient with a potentially fatal metastatic breast tumor would be very pleased to find, after administering a round of treatment, that the primary tumor had undergone a change in character - from aggressive to static, and no longer shedding cells that can colonize distant organs of the body. Indeed, most patients with breast and other forms of cancer who succumb to the illness do so because of the cancer's unstoppable spread.

23 Dec 2015

Bern study sheds light on the brain mechanism of arousal

Scientists from Bern have discovered a mechanism which is responsible for the rapid arousal from sleep and anesthesia in the brain. The results of their study suggest new strategies for the medical treatment of sleep disorders and recovery of consciousness in vegetative states.

22 Dec 2015

New treatment strategy may take pain away

A brain region controlling whether we feel happy or sad, as well as addiction, is remodeled by chronic pain, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.

22 Dec 2015

Family-level preventive intervention may improve outcomes for military families affected by wartime deployment

Family-level preventive intervention can lead to improved behavioral health outcomes for military families affected by wartime deployment, a new study published in the January 2016 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry reports.

22 Dec 2015

Roche announces availability of cobas HBVassay for use on cobas 4800 System

Roche announced today the commercial availability of the cobas HBVassay for use on the cobas 4800 System in countries accepting the CE mark. This new molecular diagnostic assay expands the available virology menu on the cobas 4800 System, improving system efficiency and providing testing flexibility that allows physicians to assess a patient's response to antiviral therapy.

22 Dec 2015

Scientists identify genes linked to human intelligence

Scientists from Imperial College London have identified for the first time two clusters of genes linked to human intelligence.

22 Dec 2015

Roche's cobas HIV-1 viral load test approved by FDA for use on cobas 6800 and cobas 8800 Systems

Roche announced today that it has received FDA approval for the cobas HIV-1 viral load test by the United States Food and Drug Administration for use on the cobas 6800 and cobas 8800 Systems. This HIV-1 viral load test is part of the next generation of Roche viral load tests, which clinicians use to manage the disease and treatment of patients infected with HIV-1.

21 Dec 2015

Enteric nerves of irritable bowel syndrome patients respond poorly to inflammatory substances

For the first time, biopsies of patients with irritable bowel syndrome have shown that the nerves in their gut wall respond poorly to a cocktail of inflammatory substances. This refutes the previous theory that patients with irritable bowel syndrome have an overly sensitive gut.

21 Dec 2015