Brain

A new study shows that cichlid fish reared in larger social groups from birth display a greater and more extensive range of social interactions, which continues into the later life of the fish. Researchers say this indicates the fish develop more attuned social behaviour as a result of early environments.

University of British Columbia researchers say a new epilepsy drug holds promise as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease.

The findings, published today in Alzheimer's Research & Therapy, reinforce the theory that brain hyperexcitability plays an important role in Alzheimer's disease, and that anticonvulsant drugs -- drugs that prevent or reduce the severity of seizures -- represent a promising treatment that deserve further human studies.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics (Germany), VU University Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience (USA) succeed in reconstructing the neuronal networks that interconnect the elementary units of sensory cortex - cortical columns.

Using a weak electric current in an attempt to boost brainpower or treat conditions has become popular among scientists and do-it-yourselfers, but a new University of North Carolina School of Medicine study shows that using the most common form of electric brain stimulation had a statistically significant detrimental effect on IQ scores.

Published in the journal Behavioural Brain Research, the study adds to the increasing amount of literature showing that transcranial direct current stimulation - tDCS - has mixed results when it comes to cognitive enhancement.

Researchers studying how the brain makes decisions have, for the first time, recorded the moment-by-moment fluctuations in brain signals that occur when a monkey making free choices has a change of mind.

The findings result from experiments led by electrical engineering Professor Krishna Shenoy, whose Stanford lab focuses on movement control and neural prostheses - such as artificial arms - controlled by the user's brain.

After gobbling the fourth Oreo in a row while bathed in refrigerator light, have you ever thought, "That wasn't enough," and then proceeded to search for something more?

Researchers at BYU have shed new light on why you, your friends, neighbors and most everyone you know tend to snack at night: some areas of the brain don't get the same "food high" in the evening.

People with depression or bipolar disorder often feel their thinking ability has gotten "fuzzy", or less sharp than before their symptoms began. Now, researchers have shown in a very large study that effect is indeed real - and rooted in brain activity differences that show up on advanced brain scans.

What's more, the results add to the mounting evidence that these conditions both fall on a spectrum of mood disorders, rather than being completely unrelated. That could transform the way doctors and patients think about, diagnose and treat them.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Alzheimer's disease (AD) may affect as many as 5.5 million Americans. Scientists currently are seeking treatments and therapies found in common foods that will help stave off the disease or prevent it completely. Now, University of Missouri researchers have determined that a compound found in green tea, and voluntary exercise, slows the progression of the disease in mice and may reverse its effects.

People with insomnia and other sleep problems have increased sensitivity to pain, reports a study published in PAIN®, the official publication of the International Association for the Study of Pain. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

The effect on pain tolerance appears strongest in people who suffer from both insomnia and chronic pain, who may benefit from treatments targeting both conditions. The study was led by Børge Sivertsen, PhD, of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Bergen.

People with Insomnia Have Increased Pain Sensitivity

The brain function of people addicted to cocaine is different from that of people who are not addicted and often linked to highly impulsive behavior, according to a new scientific study.

The variation in the way that different regions of the brain connect, communicate and function in people addicted to cocaine is an observation uncovered for the first time by a collaborative research team led by The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and Virginia Commonwealth University. These findings were recently published in NeuroImage: Clinical.

Neuroscientists have discovered brain circuitry for encoding positive and negative learned associations in mice. After finding that two circuits showed opposite activity following fear and reward learning, the researchers proved that this divergent activity causes either avoidance or reward-driven behaviors. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, they used cutting-edge optical-genetic tools to pinpoint these mechanisms critical to survival, which are also implicated in mental illness.

Epilepsy, a disorder characterized by abnormal neuronal activity in certain regions of the brain, leads to organizational changes that can alter brain efficiency at the level of the whole brain. This occurs across functional networks that connect different brain regions and within individual brain regions, as described in an article in Brain Connectivity.

Because depression in brain cancer patients is a common but often overlooked condition, oncologists should regularly screen tumor patients for depression, according to an article in CNS Oncology.The authors also propose that more studies be completed to explore the efficacy of anti-depression treatments, as well as the value of depression biomarkers for future brain tumor research.

Most of the time, we learn only gradually, incrementally building connections between actions or events and outcomes. But there are exceptions--every once in a while, something happens and we immediately learn to associate that stimulus with a result. For example, maybe you have had bad service at a store once and sworn that you will never shop there again.

Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight knows that it's no fun to feel hungry. In fact, the drive to tame gnawing hunger pangs can sabotage even the best-intentioned dieter. But how exactly is it that fasting creates these uncomfortable feelings - and consuming food takes them away?