Brain

Using powerful X-rays, University of British Columbia researchers have reconstructed a crime scene too small for any microscope to observe – and caught the culprit of arrhythmia in action.

Characterized by the heart beating too fast, too slow or inconsistently, arrhythmias may cause a decrease of blood flow to the brain and body, resulting in heart palpitation, dizziness, fainting, or even death.

We all know the importance of keeping healthy and are familiar with the refrains of 'exercise more', 'eat better' and 'get regular physicals'. But what about our mental health? Professor Barbara Sahakian challenges society (and government) to prioritize mental health in the same way as we do physical health - an especially relevant topic given the crime sprees by mentally unbalanced people recently.

"As a society, we take our mental health for granted," said Prof Sahakian. "But just like our bodies, it is important to keep our brains fit."

February 17, 2013 – Boston, MA - As the National Football League braces for lawsuits by 4000 former players alleging the league failed to protect them from the long-term consequences of concussions, game-changing research by a leading Canadian researcher shows damage to the brain can persist for decades after the original head trauma.

"Even when you are symptom-free, your brain may still not be back to normal," says Dr. Maryse Lassonde, a neuropsychologist and the scientific director of the Quebec Nature and Technologies Granting Agency.

BOSTON, MA -- Rats can't usually see infrared light, but they have "touched" it in a Duke University lab.

The rats sensed the light as a sensation of touch after Duke neurobiologist Miguel Nicolelis and his team fitted the animals with an infrared detector wired to electrodes implanted in the part of the mammalian brain that processes information related to the sense of touch.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Exercise doesn't only strengthen your heart and muscles – it also beefs up your brain. Dozens of studies now show that aerobic exercise can increase the size of critical brain structures and improve cognition in children and older adults.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Aphasia, an impairment in speaking and understanding language after a stroke, is frustrating both for victims and their loved ones. In two talks Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013, at the conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, Sheila Blumstein, the Albert D. Mead Professor of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences at Brown University, will describe how she has been translating decades of brain science research into a potential therapy for improving speech production in these patients.

Cynthia Thompson, a world-renowned researcher on stroke and brain damage, will discuss her groundbreaking research on aphasia and the neurolinguistic systems it affects Feb. 16 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). An estimated one million Americans suffer from aphasia, affecting their ability to understand and/or produce spoken and/or written language.

BOSTON, MA -- Learning, memory and habits are encoded in the strength of connections between neurons in the brain, the synapses. These connections aren't meant to be fixed, they're changeable, or plastic.

Duke University neurologist and neuroscientist Nicole Calakos studies what happens when those connections aren't as adaptable as they should be in the basal ganglia, the brain's "command center" for turning information into actions.

Amsterdam, NL, February 15, 2013 – Administration of the active compound tetrahydroxystilbene glucoside (TSG) derived from the Chinese herbal medicine Polygonum multiflorum Thunb, reversed both overexpression of α-synuclein, a small protein found in the brain, and its accumulation using a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease. These results, which may shed light on the neuropathology of AD and open up new avenues of treatment, are available in the current issue of Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience.

Northwestern University's Chad A. Mirkin, a world-renowned leader in nanotechnology research and its application, has invented and developed a powerful material that could revolutionize biomedicine: spherical nucleic acids (SNAs).

EVANSTON, Ill. --- William Leonard has conducted extensive research on the diets and ways of prehistoric populations. A paper on his research will be presented Friday, Feb. 15, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The research shows that the transition from subsistence to a modern, sedentary lifestyle has created energy imbalances that have increased rapidly -- evolutionarily speaking -- in recent years and now play a major role in obesity.

Around the world, at least a billion people are hungry or need better diets. To feed a global population projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050, we will need to increase food production by as much as 70 percent, most analysts believe.

Sudden shifts in complex systems such as the climate, financial markets, ecosystems and even the human body can be preceded by surprisingly comparable warning signals. It is crucial to be able to predict such transitions, but this is notoriously difficult. In a presentation for the 2013 AAAS meeting, Marten Scheffer presents recent work revealing that systems that are on the verge of a critical transition often emit comparable signals.

HEIDELBERG, 15 February 2013 – Researchers from King's College London have discovered that neuronal activity can stimulate tau release from healthy neurons in the absence of cell death. The results published by Diane Hanger and her colleagues in EMBO reports show that treatment of neurons with known biological signaling molecules increases the release of tau into the culture medi-um. The release of tau from cortical neurons is therefore a physiological process that can be regulated by neuronal activity.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The drug bevacizumab, also known by the trade name Avastin, shrinks tumors briefly in patients with an aggressive brain cancer known as glioblastoma multiforme, but then they often grow again and spread throughout the brain for reasons no one previously has understood. Now, Mayo Clinic researchers have found out why this happens.