Brain

Neurons in the brain interact by sending each other chemical messages, so-called neurotransmitters. Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is the most common inhibitory neurotransmitter, which is important to restrain neural activity, preventing neurons from getting too trigger-happy and from firing too much or responding to irrelevant stimuli.

Researchers led by Dr Tobias Bast in the School of Psychology at The University of Nottingham have found that faulty inhibitory neurotransmission and abnormally increased activity in the hippocampus impairs our memory and attention.

Researchers from the Universities of Groningen (Netherlands) and Pennsylvania have discovered a piece in the puzzle of how sleep deprivation negatively affects memory.

For the first time, a study in mice, to be published in the journal eLife, shows that five hours of sleep deprivation leads to a loss of connectivity between neurons in the hippocampus, a region of the brain associated with learning and memory.

A recent study published by Brazilian researchers from the D'Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Institute for Research Professor Amorim Neto (IPESQ), alongside Tel Aviv University and the Boston Children's Hospital in the US, indicates that microcephaly, a very usual feature in cases of Zika virus gestational infection, is just one of several observed brain changes. The results are extremely important as they describe which areas of the brain are most affected and the severity of such damages.

Researchers at Linköping University have developed in collaboration with French colleagues a small device that both detects the initial signal of an epileptic attack and doses a substance that effectively stops it. All this takes place where the signal arises - in an area of size 20×20 μm known as a "neural pixel".

The results, from the Laboratory for Organic Electronics at LiU's Campus Norrköping, have been published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), with Asst. Prof. Daniel Simon as main author.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Diseases such as epilepsy, neuropathic pain, anxiety, depression, drug addiction and Alzheimer's are all associated with changes in the excitability of brain neurons. University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers show, for the first time, that the well-known mechanism of gene expression control -- dynamic changes in DNA methylation -- is also involved in changes to the excitability of neural cells.

ITHACA, N.Y. - If you think you have a knack for interior design, or just want to spruce up your own home, new technology developed by Cornell researchers may help you choose furnishings the way professionals do. And professionals may find it helpful, too.

Given a photo of a chair, lamp or some other item, a new service will tell you who makes it and where to buy it, and show you pictures of how it might look in various rooms.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical used in many consumer products including water bottles, metal food storage products and certain resins. Often, aquatic environments such as rivers and streams become reservoirs for BPA, affecting turtle habitats. Last year, a team of researchers led by the University of Missouri determined that BPA can disrupt sexual function in painted turtles, causing males to develop female sex organs. Now, the team has shown that BPA also can induce behavioral changes in turtles, reprogramming male turtle brains to show behavior common in females.

Choosing a health insurance plan - whether through an employer, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Medicare - is complicated and stressful and often leads to consumers making costly mistakes.

In a new NEJM Catalyst paper, Carnegie Mellon University behavioral economists George Loewenstein and Saurabh Bhargava argue that the best way to address the problems caused by health plan complexity is to simplify and standardize the plans.

Youth cyberbullying is dramatically more likely to occur between current or former friends and dating partners than between students who were never friends or in a romantic relationship, according to researchers.

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 22, 2016 -- More than a hundred years ago, Ivan Pavlov conducted what would become one of the most famous and influential psychology studies -- he conditioned dogs to salivate at the ringing of a bell. Now, scientists are able to see in real time what happens in the brains of live animals during this classic experiment with a new technique. Ultimately, the approach could lead to a greater understanding of how we learn, and develop and break addictions.

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 22, 2016 -- Scientists may be closing in on a way to let consumers savor the sweet taste of cake, cookies and other culinary delights without the sugar rush. In preliminary tests using a new device developed in-house that allows them to screen for odor compounds in real foods, they have isolated several natural aromatic molecules that could be used to trick our brains into believing that desserts and other foods contain more fat, sugar or salt than they actually do.

Permanent brain damage from a stroke may be reversible thanks to a developing therapeutic technique, a USC-led study has found.

The novel approach combines transplanted human stem cells with a special protein that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration already approved for clinical studies in new stroke patients.

Scientists and clinicians have long dreamed of helping the injured brain repair itself by creating new neurons, and an innovative NIH-funded study published today in Nature Medicine may bring this goal much closer to reality. A team of researchers has developed a therapeutic technique that dramatically increases the production of nerve cells in mice with stroke-induced brain damage.

How early experiences are built into the body with lasting effects on learning, behavior and health may be made clearer through advances in science.

In a special communication article published online by JAMA Pediatrics, Jack P. Shonkoff, M.D., of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., writes about leveraging science to reduce the health consequences of childhood adversity.

TORONTO, August 22, 2016 - Increasing the supply of psychiatrists in Ontario, Canada has not significantly improved access to psychiatric care, according to a new study from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES).

The study, published today in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, found that despite a 17 per cent increase in the number of practicing psychiatrists between 2003 and 2013, and increases in the number of patients seen, demand for services continues to outpace supply.