Neurons News and Research

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Neuroscientists locate where fear is stored in the brain

Fear is a powerful emotion and neuroscientists have for the first time located the neurons responsible for fear conditioning in the mammalian brain. Fear conditioning is a form of Pavlovian, or associative, learning and is considered to be a model system for understanding human phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder and other anxiety disorders.

6 Jul 2009

Even moderate exercise helps keep the brain healthy

Scientists at the University of Queensland (UQ) say they have found that exercise helps keep the brain healthy and even moderate exercise directly increases the number of stem cells in the ageing brain.

28 Jun 2009

Smoking provokes migraine attacks

Tobacco acts as a precipitating factor for headaches, specifically migraines. This is indicated in a study which shows that smokers have more migraine attacks and that smoking more than five cigarettes a day triggers this headache. The work has appeared in The Journal of Headache and Pain.

24 Jun 2009

Brain protein a possible biomarker for anorexia

Eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia are often regarded as psychological or societal diseases, but new research suggests that they may have an underlying biological cause - according to a new study anorexic women have different levels of a brain protein to healthy women.

24 Jun 2009

New treatments for infertility could be in the pipeline

Scientists at the University of Otago have found in their research into the brain circuits which control human fertility, that instead of the usual synapses, fertility is controlled by a thousand or so special neurons, which are linked by long, branch-like dendrites and they believe their discovery could lead to the development of new treatments for infertility.

23 Jun 2009

Low dose bisphenol-A exposure shows significant reproductive health effects in rats

New research from North Carolina State University and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) shows significant reproductive health effects in rats that have been exposed to bisphenol-A (BPA) at levels equivalent to or below the dose that has been thought not to produce any adverse effects.

17 Jun 2009

Histamine affects alcohol-related behaviour

The histamine-3 receptor is important in terms of alcohol-related behaviour, and a drug affecting that receptor may have qualities that alter alcohol-related behaviour.

16 Jun 2009

New findings on how stress causes sexual dysfunction and infertility

University of California, Berkeley, researchers have found what they think is a critical and, until now, missing piece of the puzzle about how stress causes sexual dysfunction and infertility.

16 Jun 2009

Inflammation of microglia may not be associated with dementia in Alzheimer's disease

The idea that anti-inflammatory drugs might protect people struggling with dementia from Alzheimer's disease has received a blow with the online release of a study of human brain tissue in Acta Neuropathologica.

15 Jun 2009

Protein regulates movement of mitochondria in brain cells

Scientists have identified a protein in the brain that plays a key role in the function of mitochondria - the part of the cell that supplies energy, supports cellular activity, and potentially wards off threats from disease.The discovery, which was reported today in the Journal of Cell Biology, may shed new light on how the brain recovers from stroke.

15 Jun 2009

New discovery on Huntington's disease

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have discovered how the mutated huntingtin gene acts on the nervous system to create the devastation of Huntington's disease. The report of their findings is available in Nature Neuroscience online.

15 Jun 2009

Potential new way to treat childhood epilepsy

Rutgers researchers have discovered a potential new way to treat childhood epilepsy using a widely available therapeutic drug.

10 Jun 2009

Neuroscientists watch memories form in real time

Our ability to form long-term memories depends on cells in the brain making strong connections with each other. Yet while it's not well understood how those connections are made, lost or changed, the process is known to involve the movement of the AMPA receptor protein to and from those neuronal connections.

10 Jun 2009

Gene activity reveals dynamic stroma microenvironment in prostate cancer

As stroma - the supportive framework of the prostate gland - react to prostate cancer, changes in the expression of genes occur that induce the formation of new structures such as blood vessels, nerves and parts of nerves, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears in the current issue of the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

9 Jun 2009

New imaging technique: toward spinal cord regeneration?

The axon is a part of the neuron through which nerve impulses are transmitted, and at the end of which is located the synapse, which connects it to another neuron. In the event of a lesion, the axon is the component which must be regenerated in order to restore the connections between the different neurons and re-form the nerve.

5 Jun 2009

A bionic broadband ear

MIT engineers have built a fast, ultra-broadband, low-power radio chip, modeled on the human inner ear, that could enable wireless devices capable of receiving cell phone, Internet, radio and television signals.

3 Jun 2009

Greater understanding on leptin's role in brain neurocircuitry

In investigating the complex neurocircuitry behind weight gain and glucose control, scientists have known that the hormone leptin plays a key role in the process. But within the myriad twists and turns of the brain's intricate landscape, the exact pathways that the hormone travels to exert its influence have remained a mystery.

2 Jun 2009

Oligophrenin-1 signaling protein linked to mental retardation controls synapse maturation, plasticity

A team of neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has demonstrated the mechanism by which a signaling protein found throughout the brain controls the maturation and strength of excitatory synapses, the tiny gaps across which the majority of neurons communicate.

1 Jun 2009

Genetic profiling reveals genes active in the earliest brain circuit construction

Long before the brain's neurons can facilitate life's big decisions, they have to find their own destiny in the rapidly developing embryo.

31 May 2009

Neuroscientists reach consensus on how the brain processes speech and language

Neuroscientists feel they are much closer to an accepted unified theory about how the brain processes speech and language, according to a scientist at Georgetown University Medical Center who first laid the concepts a decade ago and who has now published a review article confirming the theory.

26 May 2009