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Study reveals how the brain volume changes in Parkinson's patients

Researchers of the Human Brain Project (HBP) found that in Parkinson’s disease the volumes of certain brain regions decrease over time in a specific pattern that is associated with clinical symptoms and largely coincides with the pattern described in Braak’s famous staging theory.

17 May 2022

New model provides a deep physiology-based explanation of how deep brain stimulation works

People with Parkinson's disease and their doctors confront many unknowns, including the answer to exactly how deep brain stimulation (DBS) relieves some of the motor symptoms patients experience.

16 May 2022

Researchers help better understand the neuronal mechanisms of general anesthesia

In a paper recently published in Neuron, researchers from the group of Botond Roska at IOB reveal how different cell types in cortex change their activity during general anesthesia, helping to understand how unconsciousness may be induced.

16 May 2022

Researchers identify how the brain triages emotions during dream sleep

Researchers at the Department of Neurology of the University of Bern and University Hospital Bern identified how the brain triages emotions during dream sleep to consolidate the storage of positive emotions while dampening the consolidation of negative ones.

13 May 2022

Neuroimaging advances show promise in helping transcranial electrical stimulation to effectively treat visual hallucinations

A literature review in Harvard Review of Psychiatry indicates that, while transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) has rarely been used in treating visual hallucinations (VH) among patients with psychiatric disorders, recent advances in neuroimaging technology show promise in helping tES to more effectively treat VH in psychiatric disorders where VH are a core symptom.

13 May 2022

Brain circuit in the anterior thalamus is crucial for remembering how to navigate a maze

As people age, their working memory often declines, making it more difficult to perform everyday tasks. One key brain region linked to this type of memory is the anterior thalamus, which is primarily involved in spatial memory - memory of our surroundings and how to navigate them.

11 May 2022

Psychopathic individuals have 10% larger striatum in the brain compared to others, finds study

Neuroscientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), University of Pennsylvania, and California State University, have established the existence of a biological difference between psychopaths and non-psychopaths.

11 May 2022

COVID-19 and cerebral blood flow

In a recent study posted to the medRxiv* preprint server, researchers assessed the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on cerebral blood flow in infected patients.

10 May 2022

Fluorescence-based sensing could be a useful tool for monitoring lactate levels in living organisms

Lactate is generated in the body as a byproduct, during normal metabolism and exercise. While considered a useless waste product for a long time, recent studies have shown that lactate can be an indicator for cancer and various other diseases.

10 May 2022

Single-cell genomic sequencing identifies a subpopulation of human dopamine neurons that degenerates in Parkinson’s disease

Researchers developed a novel protocol to examine dopamine (DA) neurons extracted from Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients using single-cell genomic sequencing.

9 May 2022

Are you getting enough sleep?

Sleep plays a vital role in the cognitive processing and maintenance of psychological health, which includes the processing of emotions and the consolidation of memories.

5 May 2022

New insights into the cellular and molecular mechanisms of absence seizures

Bochum researchers have gained new insights into the cellular and molecular mechanisms of absence seizures and potential therapy options.

4 May 2022

Newly discovered brain circuit facilitates the ability to focus on what is important in the environment

When exploring a new environment, mice make use of a unique long-distance connection in the brain that prompts them to pay attention to the most salient features of the environment, according to new research from UC San Francisco. The link, originating in the prefrontal cortex and stretching to the hippocampus, provides evidence of how the brain's higher cognitive regions refine operations occurring in distant brain areas.

4 May 2022

Brain folds formed during fetal development could affect age at onset in frontotemporal dementia

Frontotemporal dementia begins relatively early compared to other forms of dementia. We still know relatively little about what causes the disease, however, new research from Lund University in Sweden shows that the folds in the brain that are formed in the latter stages of pregnancy could have an impact on the age at which the disease takes hold.

3 May 2022

New discovery helps better understand how the brain processes information

For years, the brain has been thought of as a biological computer that processes information through traditional circuits, whereby data zips straight from one cell to another.

22 Apr 2022

Researchers identify brain areas that control the ability to perform complex, sequential movements

In a novel set of experiments with mice trained to do a sequence of movements and "change course" at the spur of the moment, Johns Hopkins scientists report they have identified areas of the animals' brains that interact to control the ability to perform complex, sequential movements, as well as to help the mice rebound when their movements are interrupted without warning.

21 Apr 2022

Novel methods for inferring the movement of brain cells during fetal development

The making of a human brain remains a mostly mysterious process that races from an embryonic neural tube to more than 100 billion interconnected neurons in the brain of a newborn. To achieve this marvel of biological engineering, the developing fetal brain must grow, on average, at a rate of roughly 250,000 nerve cells per minute throughout the course of a pregnancy.

21 Apr 2022

Single-cell genome sequencing provides a new way to think about Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer's disease is marked by a loss of functional neurons in the brain. But what causes this loss? Through single-cell genome sequencing, researchers at Boston Children's Hospital, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the Broad Institute show that people with Alzheimer's have an abundance of newly acquired mutations in their neurons - more than people of the same age without Alzheimer's, and enough to disable genes important to brain function.

20 Apr 2022

Levels of little-studied enzyme found to decline with age and more dramatically with Alzheimer’s

A little-studied enzyme has been found in high levels in healthy neurons, levels that scientists say decline with age and more dramatically with Alzheimer's, making adjusting the enzyme's level a potential treatment for both.

19 Apr 2022

Immune cell responses to bacteria affect intrinsic excitability of neuronal subtypes differently

A new study reports that immune cell responses to bacteria affect the intrinsic excitability of rat neuronal subtypes differently.