Brain

Neural networks in the spinal cord, locomotion center are capable of producing rhythmic movements, such as swimming and walking, even when isolated from the brain. The brain controls spinal locomotion center by sending command to the spinal locomotion center to start, stop and change waking speed. In most cases of spinal cord injury, the loss of this link from the brain to the locomotion center causes problems with walking.

A new head-to-head comparison of screening questionnaires for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal, shows a worrying discordance between the previous version of the PTSD definition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—fourth edition (DSM-IV) and DSM-5, released in 2013.

Sam Ridgway has spent most of his life learning about dolphins and whales. Over his five-decade career he has asked these cetaceans various questions, including how deep they can dive and how depth affects their hearing. As he trained each animal to answer his questions, he rewarded them with tasty fish treats, and each time that they received a reward he remembers that they squealed. Initially he thought that the squeals were food signals, where animals communicate the presence of food to nearby members of their species.

Children with high everyday levels of a protein released into the blood in response to infection are at greater risk of developing depression and psychosis in adulthood, according to new research which suggests a role for the immune system in mental illness.

The study, published today in JAMA Psychiatry, indicates that mental illness and chronic physical illness such as coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes may share common biological mechanisms.

A computer science and engineering associate professor and her doctoral student graduate are using a genetic computer network inference model that eventually could predict whether a person will suffer from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or another mental illness.

LA JOLLA–Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified a gene that regulates sleep and wake rhythms.

The discovery of the role of this gene, called Lhx1, provides scientists with a potential therapeutic target to help night-shift workers or jet lagged travelers adjust to time differences more quickly. The results, published in eLife, can point to treatment strategies for sleep problems caused by a variety of disorders.

The metaphor of a ticking clock is often used to refer to a woman's growing urge – from puberty onwards to menopause – to conceive before her childbearing years are over. New research in Springer's journal Human Nature shows that there's more truth to this phrase than you might think. The subtle sound of a ticking clock can quite literally speed up a woman's reproductive timing. That is, the sound of a ticking clock can lead women to want to start a family at an earlier age, especially if she was raised in a lower socio-economic community.

An innovative physical activities guide developed at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) is helping North Carolina fight childhood obesity. New research shows that when teachers direct these physical activities, young children become more active and less sedentary.

"In the past twenty years, childhood obesity rates have skyrocketed," said FPG investigator Allison De Marco. "And for the first time in over a century, children's life expectancies are declining because of increased numbers of overweight kids."

Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons in the preoptic area may undergo morphological changes during the pubertal period when their activities are upregulated. To clarify the regulatory mechanism of puberty onset, Dr. Quan Liu and co-workers from the First Hospital of Jilin University, China investigated the morphological changes of GnRH neurons in the preoptic area of GnRH-enhanced green fuorescent protein transgenic rats. Under confocal laser microscopy, pubertal GnRH neurons exhibited an inverted Y distribution pattern.

Previous studies have shown that Yizhijiannao granule can enhance cognitive performance in Alzheimer's disease patients and Alzheimer's disease-model mice. Further studies revealed that Yizhijiannao granule may exert its therapeutic effect by inhibiting neural cell apoptosis, reducing tau phos-phorylation and relieving neuroinflammation. Dr.

Mammalian adult central nerve system (CNS) injuries are devastating because of the intrinsic difficulties for effective neuronal regeneration. The greatest problem to be overcome for CNS recovery is the poor regeneration of neurons and myelin-forming cells, oligodendrocytes. Endogenous neural progenitors and transplanted exogenous neuronal stem cells can be the source for neuronal regeneration. However, because of the harsh local microenvironment, they usually have very low efficacy for functional neural regeneration which cannot compensate for the loss of neurons and oligodendrocytes.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Physicians tend to marry later and their marriages last longer even as they face the challenges, like others with demanding professions, of giving time and attention to their partners and families.

The University of Michigan Medical School interviewed physicians and spouses to learn how "medical marriages" succeed and the resulting report is rich with data and anecdotes about live-in in-laws, role definition, financial security and the advantage of avoiding the emergency room because Mom or Dad knows how to stitch a bad cut.

Toronto, Canada – An extraordinary opportunity to study memory and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in a group of Air Transat passengers who experienced 30 minutes of unimaginable terror over the Atlantic Ocean in 2001 has resulted in the discovery of a potential risk factor that may help predict who is most vulnerable to PTSD.

Researchers at the Gladstone Institutes have shown that reducing brain levels of the protein tau effectively blocks the development of disease in a mouse model of Dravet syndrome, a severe intractable form of childhood epilepsy. This therapeutic strategy not only suppressed seizure activity and premature death, but also improved cognitive and behavioral abnormalities that can accompany this syndrome.

A "Trojan horse" treatment for an aggressive form of brain cancer, which involves using tiny nanoparticles of gold to kill tumour cells, has been successfully tested by scientists.

The ground-breaking technique could eventually be used to treat glioblastoma multiforme, which is the most common and aggressive brain tumour in adults, and notoriously difficult to treat. Many sufferers die within a few months of diagnosis, and just six in every 100 patients with the condition are alive after five years.