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.

Study reveals key insight into the development of hair bundles

New research reveals a key insight into the development of hair bundles, the intricately complex assemblies in the inner ear responsible for hearing.

2 Jan 2020

Brain activity synchronizes with sound waves through lip-reading

Brain activity synchronizes with sound waves, even without audible sound, through lip-reading, according to new research published in JNeurosci.

2 Jan 2020

Study shows cardiorespiratory exercise is good for the brain's gray matter

Cardiorespiratory exercise -- walking briskly, running, biking and just about any other exercise that gets your heart pumping -- is good for your body, but can it also slow cognitive changes in your brain?

2 Jan 2020

Studying Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease using Pre-Formed Fibrils

Ariel Louwrier discusses the development of pre-formed tau and alpha-synuclein fibrils for research into Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

From StressMarq Biosciences Inc. 2 Jan 2020

CEA-Leti’s lensfree microscope to be demonstrated at CES 2020

Miniaturization of sophisticated technologies has opened the door to innovative health-and-safety equipment that enables advances such as onsite, immediate evaluation of environmental risks and patient-sample analysis outside the lab.

2 Jan 2020

GlobalData: Leading medical robots used by the healthcare industry

The healthcare industry uses four types of robots to improve the current standard of care, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

2 Jan 2020

Short chain fatty acid supplementation improves stroke recovery, mice study shows

Supplementing the body’s short chain fatty acids can improve stroke recovery, according to research in mice recently published in JNeurosci. Short chain fatty acid supplementation may be a non-invasive addition to stroke rehabilitation therapies.

From Society for Neuroscience 2 Jan 2020

Tau-protein better predicts brain atrophy in Alzheimer's patients than amyloid plaques

Brain imaging of pathological tau-protein "tangles" reliably predicts the location of future brain atrophy in Alzheimer's patients a year or more in advance, according to a new study by scientists at the UC San Francisco Memory and Aging Center. In contrast, the location of amyloid "plaques," which have been the focus of Alzheimer's research and drug development for decades, was found to be of little utility in predicting how damage would unfold as the disease progressed.

2 Jan 2020

Extending ‘healthspan’: Brain scientists tap into the secrets of living well longer

Retired state employees Vickey Benford, 63, and Joan Caldwell, 61, are Golden Rollers, a group of the over-50 set that gets out on assorted bikes — including trikes for adults they call "three wheels of awesome" — for an hour of trail riding and camaraderie.

2 Jan 2020

Research reveals how the brain balances pleasure and pain

As our brains take in information about the world and use it to steer our actions, two key principles guide our choices: seek pleasure and avoid pain.

31 Dec 2019

Obj-SCD predicts future amyloid accumulation and neurodegeneration

Writing in the December 30, 2019 online issue of Neurology, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System report that accumulating amyloid -- an abnormal protein linked to neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease -- occurred faster among persons deemed to have "objectively-defined subtle cognitive difficulties" (Obj-SCD) than among persons considered to be "cognitively normal."

31 Dec 2019

Crab study advocates a more 'multimodal' approach to defining cell identity

A longstanding goal in neuroscience is to classify the brain's many cells into discrete categories according to their function.

31 Dec 2019

New dementia vaccine may proceed to clinical trials after successful testing

A preventive treatment for dementia may proceed to clinical trials after successful animal testing.

31 Dec 2019

Novela Neurotech’s “smart” neural interface displayed at Creative Destruction Lab

Novela Neurotech, a MedTech company developing AI-powered wireless, "smart" neural interface systems, joins Canada's Creative Destruction Lab to further fine-tune its health technologies to the needs of patients with difficult neurological disorders.

31 Dec 2019

Amyloid plaques may not necessarily come first in Alzheimer's disease, suggests new study

The scientific community has long believed that beta-amyloid, a protein that can clump together and form sticky plaques in the brain, is the first sign of Alzheimer's disease. Beta-amyloid then leads to other brain changes including neurodegeneration and eventually to thinking and memory problems. But a new study challenges that theory.

30 Dec 2019

Proton therapy has similar cure rates, fewer serious side effects compared with traditional radiation

Cancer patients who receive high-tech proton therapy experience similar cure rates and fewer serious side effects compared with those who undergo traditional X-ray radiation therapy, according to a study led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

28 Dec 2019