Brain

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – At the molecular level, drugs like salvinorin A (the active ingredient of the hallucinogenic plant Salvia divinorum) work by activating specific proteins, known as receptors, in the brain and body.

LA JOLLA, CA -- March 21, 2012 -- Scientists have for the first time determined the three-dimensional atomic structure of a human opioid receptor, a molecule on the surface of brain cells that binds to opioids and is centrally involved in pleasure, pain, addiction, depression, psychosis, and related conditions. Dozens of legal and illegal drugs, from heroin to hospital anesthetics, work by targeting these receptors. The detailed atomic structure information paves the way for the design of safer and more effective opioid drugs.

NEW YORK (March 21, 2012) -- Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have developed a computer program that has tracked the manner in which different forms of dementia spread within a human brain. They say their mathematic model can be used to predict where and approximately when an individual patient's brain will suffer from the spread, neuron to neuron, of "prion-like" toxic proteins -- a process they say underlies all forms of dementia.

Two breakthrough studies may explain why we see distinct patterns of brain damage associated with dementias, such as Alzheimer's disease, and could be useful for predicting future cognitive decline in patients. These independent studies published by Cell Press in the March 22 issue of the journal Neuron, one studying how brain circuits wire up structurally and the other studying their functional connections, converged on a remarkably similar model that predicted the landscape of degeneration in various forms of dementia.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – What characterizes many people with depression, schizophrenia and some other mental illnesses is anhedonia: an inability to gain pleasure from normally pleasurable experiences.

Exactly why this happens is unclear. But new research led by neuroscientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine may have literally shined a light on the answer, one that could lead to the discovery of new mental health therapies. A report of the study appears March 22 in the journal Neuron.

STANFORD, Calif. — Investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown that removing a matched set of molecules that typically help to regulate the brain's capacity for forming and eliminating connections between nerve cells could substantially aid recovery from stroke even days after the event. In experiments with mice, the scientists demonstrated that when these molecules are not present, the mice's ability to recover from induced strokes improved significantly.

Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia may spread within nerve networks in the brain by moving directly between connected neurons, instead of in other ways proposed by scientists, such as by propagating in all directions, according to researchers who report the finding in the March 22 edition of the journal Neuron.

STANFORD, Calif. — Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown for the first time how brain function differs in people who have math anxiety from those who don't.

A series of scans conducted while second- and third-grade students did addition and subtraction revealed that those who feel panicky about doing math had increased activity in brain regions associated with fear, which caused decreased activity in parts of the brain involved in problem-solving.

Tampa, Fla., USA – On March 22, during the 41st Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR), held in conjunction with the 36th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, a symposium titled "Rewarding Educational Research: the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning" will take place to assist dental administrators, educators and members of appointment, promotion and tenure committees in understanding the role and potential of educational research and develop strategies to facilitate scholarly inquiry into student learning to advanc

Tampa, Fla., USA – On March 23, during the 41st Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR), held in conjunction with the 36th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research, a symposium titled "TMJ: Stem Cell Biology and Engineering toward Clinical Translation" will provide a rare forum for multidisciplinary discussion of the biology, engineering and clinical translation of fundamental discoveries towards novel clinical therapy.

Readers whose mother tongue is Arabic have more challenges reading in Arabic than native Hebrew or English speakers have reading their native languages, because the two halves of the brain divide the labor differently when the brain processes Arabic than when it processes Hebrew or English. That is the result of a new study conducted by two University of Haifa researchers, Dr. Raphiq Ibrahim of the Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities and the Learning Disabilities Department, and Prof. Zohar Eviatar of the Department of Psychology.

Research at the University of Calgary's Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) has demonstrated the novel expression of an ion channel in Purkinje cells – specialized neurons in the cerebellum, the area of the brain responsible for movement. Ray W. Turner, PhD, Professor in the Department of Cell Biology & Anatomy and PhD student Jordan Engbers and colleagues published this finding in the January edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Researchers from the Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) and the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases at the University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine have discovered a pathway that may contribute to the symptoms related to Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, collectively known as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). This research is a major milestone in developing future drug therapies for those living with these debilitating disorders.

The United States military and intelligence communities have developed a close relationship with the scientific establishment. In particular, they fund and utilize an array of neuroscience applications, generating profound ethical issues.