Brain

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have pinpointed a mechanism in part of the brain that is key to sensing glucose levels in the blood, linking it to both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The findings are published in the July 28 issue of Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.

A study of juvenile rat brain cells suggests that the effects of a commonly used anesthetic drug on the connections between brain cells are temporary.

Stimulating one of two dopamine-producing regions in the brain was able to arouse animals receiving general anesthesia with either isoflurane or propofol. In the August issue of Anesthesiology, investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) report that rats anesthetized with continuous doses of either agent would move, raise their heads and even stand up in response to electrical stimulation delivered to the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Stimulation of the other major dopamine-releasing area, the substantia nigra, did not induce the animals to wake up.

A study of juvenile rat brain cells suggests that the effects of a commonly used anesthetic drug on the connections between brain cells are temporary.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The secret to boosting the language skills of preschoolers with disabilities may be to put them in classrooms with typically developing peers, a new study finds.

Researchers found that the average language skills of a child's classmates in the fall significantly predicted the child's language skills in the spring – especially for children with disabilities.

A psychology researcher at North Carolina State University is proposing a new theory to explain why older adults show declining cognitive ability with age, but don't necessarily show declines in the workplace or daily life. One key appears to be how motivated older adults are to maintain focus on cognitive tasks.

Previous neuropathological studies regarding traumatic brain injury have primarily focused on changes in large structures, for example, the clinical prognosis after cerebral contusion, intracerebral hematoma, and epidural and subdural hematoma. In fact, many smaller injuries can also lead to severe neurological disorders. For example, cerebral microbleeds result in the dysfunction of adjacent neurons and the disassociation between cortex and subcortical structures. These tiny changes cannot be adequately visualized on CT or conventional MRI.

Evidence suggests that autophagy may be a new therapeutic target for stroke, but whether activation of autophagy increases or decreases the rate of neuronal death is still under debate. The research team from the Sixth People's Hospital Affliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China and Zhoupu Hospital, Pudong New District, Shanghai, China, led by Prof. Xiaojiang Sun and Prof. Kangyong Liu summarizes the potential role and possible signaling pathway of autophagy in neuronal survival after cerebral ischemia and proposes that autophagy has dual effects.

It is believed that hyperglycemia leads to increased aldose reductase activity and polyol metabolism in Schwann cells, and the resultant abnormal metabolites cause the organelle's damage and morphological changes such as swelling and vacuolation. Autophagy can remove the damaged organelles, but also provide the materials for cell survival under stressful conditions. Quercetin can reverse high glucose-induced inhibition of neural cell proliferation. Quercetin is also implicated in the mechanism underlying the reduction of apoptosis through autophagy induction.

In an age of "big data," a single computer cannot always find the solution a user wants. Computational tasks must instead be distributed across a cluster of computers that analyze a massive data set together. It's how Facebook and Google mine your web history to present you with targeted ads, and how Amazon and Netflix recommend your next favorite book or movie. But big data is about more than just marketing.

July 25, 2014—(BRONX, NY)—A study involving nearly 27,000 older adults on five continents found that nearly 1 in 10 met criteria for pre-dementia based on a simple test that measures how fast people walk and whether they have cognitive complaints. People who tested positive for pre-dementia were twice as likely as others to develop dementia within 12 years.

An experimental anti-inflammatory drug can protect vulnerable neurons and reduce motor deficits in a rat model of Parkinson's disease, researchers at Emory University School of Medicine have shown.

The results were published in the Journal of Parkinson's Disease.

DALLAS -- A protein that controls when genes are switched on or off plays a key role in specific areas of the brain to regulate metabolism, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found.

People's emotional reactions and desires in initial romantic encounters determine the fate of a potential relationship. Responsiveness may be one of those initial "sparks" necessary to fuel sexual desire and land a second date. However, it may not be a desirable trait for both men and women on a first date. Does responsiveness increase sexual desire in the other person? Do men perceive responsive women as more attractive, and does the same hold true for women's perceptions of men? A study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin seeks to answer those questions.

Neuregulin 1 (NRG1) is a pleiotropic factor characterized by the existence of numerous isoforms arising from alternative splicing of exons that confer to the protein deeply different characteristics. NRG1 plays an important role for both the myelination occurring during development and the different phases occurring after injury in the peripheral nerve: axon degeneration, axon regrowth, remyelination and target reinnervation