Brain

Researchers led by EPFL have found how lactate, a waste product of glucose metabolism can protect neurons from damage following acute trauma such as stroke or spinal cord injury.

For the first time, researchers have succeeded in passing an antibody through the blood-brain barrier to act as a tracer for PET imaging of the brain. This resulted in more precise information being obtained than with regular radioactive tracers. The study provides hope for more effective diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer's disease and improvements in monitoring the effects of medication.

Reporting on the results of a phase III international clinical trial, Johns Hopkins Medicine physicians say use of a cardiac clot-busting drug to treat strokes that cause brain bleeding safely decreased the death rate in patients by 10 percent, compared to a control group receiving saline.

Despite several safe drug therapies available to help smokers quit, three-quarters report relapsing within six months of a quit attempt. University of Pennsylvania researchers Rebecca Ashare and Heath Schmidt saw potential for a permanent cessation solution in a class of FDA-approved medications used to improve cognitive impairments from Alzheimer's disease.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 19, 2016) -- A new report by University of Kentucky researcher Linda Van Eldik, PhD, describes an experimental drug candidate that may aid patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI).

The article appeared this week in the journal PLoS One, the world's largest biology journal.

Neuroscientists have discovered a specific enzyme that plays a critical role in spinal muscular atrophy, and that suppressing this enzyme's activity, could markedly reduce the disease's severity and improve patients' lifestyles.

Spinal muscular atrophy is a debilitating disease that causes weakness and wasting of the muscles. The disease ranges in severity with patients experiencing different symptoms, from the inability to sit up and stand, to trouble walking. In its severest form, the disease results in difficulty breathing and leads to death.

Regions of the brain can "dance" on their own but when they work together they fall in step to a well-timed choreography: according to a study just published in PLOS Biology, when a rat is engaged in a sensory recognition task and needs to make a spatial choice based on previous knowledge, the sensory, motor, and memory regions of the animal's brain (but similar mechanisms are also likely to exist in the human brain), make the rhythms of electrical activity coherent with each other.

Montreal, Feb. 18, 2016 - A research team, led by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) in Montreal, has broken new ground in our understanding of the complex functioning of the brain. The research, published in the current issue of the journal Science, demonstrates that brain cells, known as astrocytes, which play fundamental roles in nearly all aspects of brain function, can be adjusted by neurons in response to injury and disease.

The use of clot-busting drugs to clear blood from the brain's ventricles may be the first effective strategy to decrease mortality for a type of catastrophic bleeding stroke, according to phase-3 clinical trial results announced Thursday at the International Stroke Conference in Los Angeles. The treatment also significantly reduced post-stroke disability in a subset of patients, according to data presented by trial leaders from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago.

In the 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram famously conducted experiments in a Yale University basement showing that people will apparently inflict pain on another person simply because someone in a position of authority told them to. Now, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on Feb. 18, 2016 have taken those classic experiments one step further, providing new evidence that might help to explain why people are so easily coerced.

NEW YORK--Researchers have successfully disrupted a genetic chain of events in a mouse model of schizophrenia and reversed memory deficits, one of the disorder's most difficult-to-treat symptoms. This discovery--which builds upon decades of early-stage research--could lead to more effective therapies for the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia, a psychiatric disorder that affects more than 21 million people worldwide.

Bacteria that live in the gut interact with dietary components to affect health and wellness. In a study published February 18 in Cell, a team led by Jeffrey Gordon at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis now finds key components in breast milk that promote healthy infant growth and how interactions with the gut bacteria drive this process.

As tiny embryos in the womb, we start out with a lot more neuronal material than we actually need. During development, the body drastically prunes back the excess--cutting the branches from nerve cell bodies, known as axons, as well as entire neurons.

Stem cell research published today offers up new clues as to how Parkinson's spreads from cell to cell, a process which has evaded researchers for decades.

The research, published in Stem Cell Reports, is the first to link the release of alpha synuclein, a naturally occurring protein that plays a central role in the development of Parkinson's, with its most common genetic risk factor - GBA-1 - shedding new light on its role in the progression of the devastating neurological condition and its symptoms.

Lueneburg. The necessity of strong public participation in planning processes of public authorities has been generally recognized in recent years. It is an area in which public authorities are still undergoing a learning process, since best practice knowledge on shaping and implementing participatory processes is scarce. A study led by the Lueneburg political scientist Professor Jens Newig showed how these learning processes take place at the level of German federal states.