There's a 3-D world in our brains. It's a landscape that mimics the outside world, where the objects we see exist as collections of neural circuits and electrical impulses.
Now, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies are using new tools they developed to chart that world, a key step in revolutionizing research into the neurological basis of vision.
BOSTON (MA) -- Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard University, and the University of Cambridge have found that the age-related impairment of the body's ability to replace protective myelin sheaths, which normally surround nerve fibers and allow them to send signals properly, may be reversible, offering new hope that therapeutic strategies aimed at restoring efficient regeneration can be effective in the central nervous system throughout life.
New research highlights the possibility of reversing ageing in the central nervous system for multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. The study is published today, 06 January, in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
The brain's capacity for memory, reasoning and comprehension skills (cognitive function) can start to deteriorate from age 45, finds research published on bmj.com today.
Previous research suggests that cognitive decline does not begin before the age of 60, but this view is not universally accepted.
DURHAM, N.C. – Oxytocin, the "love hormone" that builds mother-baby bonds and may help us feel more connected toward one another, can also make surly monkeys treat each other a little more kindly.
Administering the hormone nasally through a kid-sized nebulizer, like a gas mask, a Duke University research team has shown that it can make rhesus macaques pay more attention to each other and make choices that give another monkey a squirt of fruit juice, even when they don't get one themselves.
In 1997, scientists at the Center for Neurodynamics at the University of Missouri - St. Louis demonstrated that special sensors covering the elongated snout of paddlefish are electroreceptors that help the fish detect prey by responding to the weak voltage gradients that swimming zooplankton create in the surrounding water. Now some of the same researchers have found that the electroreceptors contain oscillators, which generate rhythmical firing of electrosensory neurons.
EVANSTON, Ill. --- Stating that you don't care if you land a partner who is "hot" or "sexy" is relatively commonplace. But what people say they want and what they actually want are often two very different things when it comes to romantic attraction.
However, a new methodology that measures people's implicit, split-second responses gets around this problem. Research from Northwestern University and Texas A&M University measures whether people's implicit preferences actually predict how much you like the hotties.
In the future, patients in need of perfectly matched neural stem cells may not need to look any further than their own eyes. Researchers reporting in the January issue of Cell Stem Cell, a Cell Press publication, have identified adult stem cells of the central nervous system in a single layer of cells at the back of the eye.
Dogs pick up not only on the words we say but also on our intent to communicate with them, according to a report published online in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on January 5.
The findings might help to explain why so many people treat their furry friends like their children; dogs' receptivity to human communication is surprisingly similar to the receptivity of very young children, the researchers say.
DALLAS -- Low levels of vitamin D have been linked to depression, according to UT Southwestern Medical Center psychiatrists working with the Cooper Center Longitudinal Study. It is believed to be the largest such investigation ever undertaken.
FINDINGS:
UCLA researchers have identified how a component of an ancient Chinese herbal anti-hangover medicine called dihydromyricetin, isolated from the plant Hovenia, counteracts acute alcohol intoxication and withdrawal symptoms.
Amsterdam -- Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services today announced the publication of an article in the December issue of Reproductive BioMedicine Online (www.rbmonline.com) about miscarriage rates following IVF treatment with frozen thawed embryos which may revolutionize clinical and laboratory practice.
A new study from researchers at Queen Mary, University of London shows how a particular virus tricks the immune system into triggering inflammation and nerve cell damage in the brain, which is known to cause MS.
Previous research has suggested a link between the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and multiple sclerosis but the research has remained controversial since scientists have so far failed to substantiate the link.
In humans, active periods of the debilitating disease Multiple Sclerosis (MS) can last for mere minutes or extend to weeks at a time. They're caused by lesions in the brain that develop, partly heal, and then recur. Research into a cure has been difficult, because to date scientists have not been able to replicate these brain recurring symptoms in laboratory mice. That's frustrating because these lab animals, known as animal "models," are the primary tool for research into the mechanisms and potential treatments for MS.