Brain

Scientists have identified a critical function of what they believe to be schizophrenia's "Rosetta Stone" gene that could hold the key to decoding the function of all genes involved in the disease.

The breakthrough has revealed a vulnerable period in the early stages of the brain's development that researchers hope can be targeted for future efforts in reversing schizophrenia.

In a paper published today in the journal Science, neuroscientists from Cardiff University describe having uncovered the previously unknown influence of a gene in ensuring healthy brain development.

New research suggests concussion may not significantly impair symptoms or cognitive skills for one gender over another, however, women may still experience greater symptoms and poorer cognitive performance at preseason testing. The study released today will be presented at the Sports Concussion Conference in Denver, July 24 to 26, hosted by the American Academy of Neurology, the world's leading authority on diagnosing and managing sports concussion. The conference will feature the latest scientific advances in diagnosing and treating sports concussion from leading experts in the field.

Music training, begun as late as high school, may help improve the teenage brain's responses to sound and sharpen hearing and language skills, suggests a new Northwestern University study.

The research, to be published the week of July 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), indicates that music instruction helps enhance skills that are critical for academic success.

The gains were seen during group music classes included in the schools' curriculum, suggesting in-school training accelerates neurodevelopment.

Challenging the idea that addiction is hardwired in the brain, a new UC Berkeley study of mice suggests that even a short time spent in a stimulating learning environment can rewire the brain’s reward system and buffer it against drug dependence.

Scientists tracked cocaine cravings in more than 70 adult male mice and found that those rodents whose daily drill included exploration, learning and finding hidden tasty morsels were less likely than their enrichment-deprived counterparts to seek solace in a chamber where they had been given cocaine.

A new study by a team of researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine on the Anschutz Medical Campus found that long-term stimulant abuse had more significant effects on brain volume in women compared with men.

For the study, Jody Tanabe, MD, professor of radiology, and her colleagues sought to determine how the brains of people previously dependent on stimulants were different from the brains of healthy people. The results were published online in the journal Radiology.

Are wind farms harmful to humans? Some believe so, others refute this; this controversial topic makes emotions run high. To give the debate more objectivity, an international team of experts dealt with the fundamentals of hearing in the lower limit range of the audible frequency range (i.e. infrasound), but also in the upper limit range (i.e. ultrasound). The project, which is part of the European Metrology Research Programme (EMRP), was coordinated by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB).

A blood-borne molecule that increases in abundance as we age blocks regeneration of brain cells and promotes cognitive decline, suggests a new study by researchers at UC San Francisco and Stanford School of Medicine.

The human organism contains hundreds of distinct cell types that often differ from their neighbours in shape and function. To acquire and maintain its characteristic features, each cell type must express a unique subset of genes. Neurons, the functional units of our brain, develop through differentiation of neuronal precursors, a process that depends on coordinated activation of hundreds and possibly thousands of neuron-specific genes.

Research from Eric Kandel's lab at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) has uncovered further evidence of a system in the brain that persistently maintains memories for long periods of time. And paradoxically, it works in the same way as mechanisms that cause mad cow disease, kuru, and other degenerative brain diseases.

Imagine the way you might smell a rose. You'd take a nice big sniff to breathe in the sweet but subtle floral scent. Upon walking into a public restroom, you'd likely do just the opposite--abruptly limiting the flow of air through your nose. Now, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on July 2 have found that people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) don't make this natural adjustment like other people do. Autistic children go right on sniffing in the same way, no matter how pleasant or awful the scent.

The brain hidden inside the oldest known Old World monkey skull has been visualized for the first time. The creature's tiny but remarkably wrinkled brain supports the idea that brain complexity can evolve before brain size in the primate family tree.

The ancient monkey, known scientifically as Victoriapithecus, first made headlines in 1997 when its fossilized skull was discovered on an island in Kenya's Lake Victoria, where it lived 15 million years ago.

Prions are fascinating, enigmatic, and might teach us not only about rare prion diseases like Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, mad cow disease, or scrapie, but also about other more common neurodgenerative diseases. Two studies published on July 2nd in PLOS Pathogens report progress with novel tools and paradigms to study prion disease.

In the first study of its kind, UCLA and United Kingdom researchers found that neurons in a specific brain region play a key role in rapidly forming memories about every day events, a finding that may result in a better understanding of memory loss and new methods to fight it in Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases.

Two migraine surgery techniques targeting a specific "trigger site" are both highly effective in reducing the frequency and severity of migraine headaches, according to a randomized trial.

Patients with temporal-type migraine derive similar and significant improvement from techniques that relieve pressure on (decompression) or remove a portion of (neurectomy) the nerve responsible for triggering their headaches, reports the study by ASPS Member Surgeon Bahman Guyuron, MD, Emeritus professor of plastic surgery at Case School of Medicine, Cleveland, and colleagues.

The brains of people with recurrent depression have a significantly smaller hippocampus - the part of the brain most associated with forming new memories - than healthy individuals, a new global study of nearly 9,000 people reveals.

Published in Molecular Psychiatry, the ENIGMA study is co-authored by University of Sydney scholars at the Brain and Mind Research Institute.