Brain

University of Tennessee professor Alan Solomon, director of the Human Immunology and Cancer/Alzheimer’s Disease and Amyloid-Related Disorders Research Program, led a team that discovered a link between foie gras prepared from goose or duck liver and the type of amyloid found in rheumatoid arthritis or tuberculosis.

Their experimental data has provided the first evidence that a food product can hasten amyloid development.

A University College London researcher says stereotypes can be a good thing for autistic kids. Autistic children are unable to understand individuals and why they do things but are better with understanding groups. Stereotyping was able to help them learn, for example, if a woman were used as an example of someone who likes to bake/

Looking at fossils of long-dead creatures, it's easy to understand how anthropologists determine the way an animal looked. But how do they determine how one moved?

Alan Walker,Professor of Anthropology and Biology at Penn State University, and a team of researchers studied 91 separate primate species, including all taxonomic families. The study also included 119 additional species, most of which are mammals ranging in size from mouse to elephant, that habitually move in diverse ways in varied environments.

Parkinson disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disease characterized by the selective loss of midbrain dopaminergic neurons.

Although the cause of PD is unknown, pathological analyses have suggested the involvement of oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. Recently, an inherited form of early-onset PD has been linked to mutations in both copies of the gene encoding the mitochondrial protein PINK1. Furthermore, increasing evidence indicates that single-copy mutations in PINK1 are a significant risk factor in the development of later-onset PD.

Is it possible to scientifically measure someone’s sense of humor? Are there universally good or bad jokes that make people laugh no matter their gender, profession or cultural background?

A new Mayo Clinic study provides evidence that DNA variations largely explain why some persons get Parkinson’s disease while others don’t, and even predict with great accuracy at what age people might develop their first symptoms.

Yes, you secretly like giving your money to the government. University of Oregon scientists have found that doing things like donating money to charity or even paying your taxes can give you the same sort of satisfaction you derive from feeding your own hunger pangs.

Subjecting mice to repeated emotional stress, the kind we experience in everyday life, may contribute to the accumulation of neurofibrillary tangles, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, report researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. While aging is still the greatest risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, a number of studies have pointed to stress as a contributing factor.Top left: In unstressed animals the hippocampus, which is involved in the formation of memories and learning, is free of phosphorylated tau.

The consumption of sweetened soft drinks by children has more than doubled between 1965 and 1996 but few studies have been able to investigate the link between diet and the body’s energy balance control systems in early life. Now scientists at Aberdeen’s Rowett Research Institute have been able to model how the young body responds to overeating.

The long supposed connection between mind and music has been further demonstrated by an international collaboration of physicists led by Simone Bianco and Paolo Grigolini at the Center for Nonlinear Science at the University of North Texas. A statistical analysis reveals a remarkable similarity between the distributions produced by music compositions and brain activity.

A protein found primarily in the lens of the eye could be the critical "tipping point" in the spiral of inflammation and damage that occurs in multiple sclerosis, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine report.

This protein - alphaB-crystallin - is not normally found in the brain, but develops in response to the injuries inflicted on nerve cells by multiple sclerosis. The nerve-cell injuries can cause people to suffer loss of motor control and even paralysis.

Although most Americans believe they know what brought down the World Trade Center twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, civil engineers are still seeking answers to questions that could save lives in the future.

Structural engineers need to know from a scientific perspective what happened to the buildings during the terrorist attacks in order to prevent future failures. The search for answers continues with the help of a state-of-the-art animated visualization created by researchers at Purdue University.Source: Purdue University

A newly discovered transmembrane protein called "Wurst" (sausage) appears to play a decisive role in breathing – possibly in all animals, from flies to human beings. This insight is reported by scientists from the University of Bonn and the Göttingen-based Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry.

A new therapy to re-activate silenced genes in patients who suffer from neurodegenerative diseases or stroke is being developed by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Cornell University.

During and after a stroke, certain cellular events take place that lead to the death of brain cells. Compounds that inhibit a group of enzymes called histone deacetylases can modulate gene expression, and in some cases produce cellular proteins that are actually neuroprotective -- they are able to block cell death.

As a result of mapping the structure of the protein complex implicated in autism spectrum disorders, a research team led by scientists at University of California, San Diego have discovered how particular genetic mutations affect this complex and contribute to the developmental abnormalities found in children with autism. Their work should help scientists pinpoint the consequences of other genetic abnormalities associated with the disorder.Neuroligin/neurexin complex in the synapse