Brain News and Research

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The human brain is the center of the human nervous system and is a highly complex organ. Enclosed in the cranium, it has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times as large as the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size.

Air fresheners may help prevent negative impacts of indoor malodors

The Household & Commercial Products Association released the following statement today about the importance of air fresheners after a newly published review article revealed several negative psychological, physical, social, and economic effects associated with indoor malodors, such as stale indoor air and bad smells.

20 Feb 2020

New C. elegans model will accelerate study of a rare disease

The model will permit to accelerate and reduce the price of the research, which is studying the mechanisms and the possible pharmacological targets for the neuronal alterations of this disease.

20 Feb 2020

Mindfulness helps people to deal with physical pain and negative emotions

Merely a brief introduction to mindfulness helps people deal with physical pain and negative emotions, a new study by researchers at Yale, Columbia, and Dartmouth shows.

19 Feb 2020

An enriched environment helps heal young, injured brains

An enriched environment--with increased opportunities for physical activity, socialization and exploring novel stimuli--helped lessen functional, anatomical and cellular deficits in an experimental model of brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation at birth.

19 Feb 2020

Innovative breath collecting device could change coronavirus diagnosis around the world

An innovative breath collecting device developed by academics at Northumbria University, Newcastle, could revolutionize the way we diagnose diseases, such as the newly emerged strain of coronavirus, COVID-19.

19 Feb 2020

Dampening effects of overactive immune cells may serve as new treatment for TBI

Targeting overactive immune cells and dampening their effects may serve as a new treatment for treating a traumatic brain injury, according to new research in mice published in JNeurosci.

From Society for Neuroscience 19 Feb 2020

Time of day influences brain’s global signal fluctuation

As the day progresses, the strength of the brain’s global signal fluctuation shows an unexpected decrease, according to a study published on February 18 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Csaba Orban and a multi-disciplinary team of scientists from the Faculty of Engineering, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and N.1 Institute of Health at the National University of Singapore.

From PLOS ONE 19 Feb 2020

UTHealth physician-scientist receives AHA’s $1 million Merit Award for stroke research

Louise D. McCullough, MD, PhD, a physician-scientist at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston is a recipient of the American Heart Association's prestigious $1 million Merit Award to investigate whether the maternal microbiome influences stroke risk in offspring.

19 Feb 2020

Exploring how brain inflammation after stroke can be shaped to support recovery

University of Kentucky College of Medicine researcher Ann Stowe describes her career path as nontraditional. After earning a bachelor's degree in fine arts, Stowe decided to pursue graduate study in biomedical research instead of art history.

19 Feb 2020

Scientists develop novel method for detecting blood vessels inside tumors

During neuroendoscopic surgery of, for example, brain tumors, the characteristics of the operating space, usually narrower than that of other endoscopic surgery, are determined by visual inspection through the endoscope.

19 Feb 2020

Spanish version of modified Story Memory Technique effective for Mexicans with MS

A team of researchers reported preliminary findings for efficacy of the Spanish version of the modified Story Memory Technique, a cognitive intervention developed at Kessler Foundation.

19 Feb 2020

Fighting against treatment-resistant opioid use disorder

Similar to treatment resistant depression, there is a subpopulation of those addicted to opioids who do not respond to standard opioid use disorder (OUD) treatments.

19 Feb 2020

Increase in out-of-pocket costs associated with lower adherence to neurologic medications

As out-of-pocket costs go up for drugs for the neurologic disorders Alzheimer's disease, peripheral neuropathy and Parkinson's disease, people are less likely to take the drugs as often as their doctors prescribed, according to a study funded by the American Academy of Neurology and published in the February 19, 2020, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

19 Feb 2020

New understanding of neurovascular coupling

A new study published in the journal Nature in February 2020 reports the discovery of a control mechanism in mouse brains, which makes it possible to sensitively regulate the flow of blood to different areas of the brain, to supply enough to more active areas.

19 Feb 2020

Study uses machine learning to identify personalized brain networks in kids

Machine learning is helping Penn Medicine researchers identify the size and shape of brain networks in individual children, which may be useful for understanding psychiatric disorders.

19 Feb 2020

Researchers identify possible new therapy for concussion-related headaches

As she jumped to head a soccer ball during her junior year of college, Kelly Farrell collided skulls with a teammate. She later was diagnosed with a concussion, which proved to be severely debilitating.

19 Feb 2020

Altered potassium levels in neurons linked to mood swings in bipolar patients

People with bipolar disorder experience dramatic shifts in mood, oscillating between often debilitating periods of mania and depression.

19 Feb 2020

Boys with inattention-hyperactivity have higher risk for TBIs later in life

McGill-led research shows that boys exhibiting inattention-hyperactivity at age 10 have a higher risk for traumatic brain injuries in adolescence and adulthood. Treatments to reduce these behaviors may decrease the risk for TBIs.

19 Feb 2020

Environment-cognition associations vary based on genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's

The neighborhood environment may positively or negatively influence one's ability to maintain cognitive function with age. Since older adults spend less time outside, the neighborhood environment increases in importance with age.

19 Feb 2020

BPA-free plastic products aren't safe for people to use, scientists warn

Using "BPA-free" plastic products could be as harmful to human health -- including a developing brain -- as those products that contain the controversial chemical, suggest scientists in a new study led by the University of Missouri and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

19 Feb 2020