Brain

NEW YORK (July 8, 2014) – Researchers from Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University will present new findings at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC) being held July 12 – July 17 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Data from the four abstracts will focus on triggers that could prompt transition from cognitive normality to mild cognitive impairment and dementia.

Since the 1960s, theatergoers have shelled out for crude 3-D glasses, polarized glasses, and shutter glasses to enhance their viewing experience. These basic devices, used to trick the brain into perceiving an artificial three-dimensional reality, may soon be rendered obsolete with the introduction of new holography technology developed by Tel Aviv University researchers.

This news release is available in French.

Montreal, July 9, 2014 — Whether it's how to throw a ball or put together a puzzle, young children learn a lot from their older siblings. While researchers have long known that brothers and sisters teach each other about the world, most of their observations about this have been made in a lab setting.

This news release is available in French.

In the behavioral test, the team used the fact that mice tend to prefer dark places. If a mouse experiences an electric shock in a dark place, it will remember this event and avoid dark places from then on. However, a mouse with modeled Alzheimer's disease cannot remember if such shock is related to dark places and keeps going back to dark places. The team demonstrated that treating these mice with a MAO-B inhibitor fully recovered the mice's memory.

Whether acupuncture or antidepressant drugs exhibit better therapeutic effects on poststroke depression remains disputed. The effectiveness of acupuncture for poststroke depression can be evaluated by evidence-based medicine studies, which provide evidence for clinical application. Systematic review or meta-analysis studies have demonstrated that early acupuncture is superior to conventional western medicine in the treatment of poststroke depression. However, high-quality literatures are needed to further validate the effectiveness of acupuncture for poststroke depression.

Activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 has been demonstrated in acute cerebral ischemia. Yaning Zhao and her colleagues, Hebei United University, China induced transient whole-brain ischemia by four-vessel occlusion in normal and diabetic rats and intravenously injected diabetic rats with extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 30 minutes before ischemia as a pretreatment. Results showed that during the pathological progression of cerebral ischemia/reperfusion in rats, activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 exhibits protective effect on neuronal injury.

Can thyroid hormone protect neuronal function and increase the survival rate of naturally aged animals? Prof. Ailing Fu and her team, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southwest University, China performed an animal experiment in which aged mice were administered with low dose of levothyroxine for 3 consecutive months. Results showed that the aged rats exhibited an obvious improvement in cognitive and an increased rat survival rate from 60% to 93%.

Cholinergic inhibitors and N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonists can alleviate the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, but fail to affect irreversible cognitive dysfunction and effectively scavenge amyloid beta peptide in the brain. Amyloid beta peptide (Aβ) vaccines reduced and eliminated Aβ deposition in an Alzheimer's disease (AD) transgenic mouse model, and significantly improved behavioral and cognitive impairment. Dr.

Depression is a common risk for people who have lost their vision from age-related macular degeneration (AMD), but a new study shows that a type of rehabilitation therapy can cut this risk in half. The study was funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

(CHICAGO) – Neurological scientists at Rush University Medical Center have found that using cinnamon, a common food spice and flavoring material, can reverse the biomechanical, cellular and anatomical changes that occur in the brains of mice with Parkinson's disease (PD). The results of the study were recently published in the June 20 issue of the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology.

Québec City, July 9, 2014 – A study published in the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience by Yves De Koninck and Robert Bonin, two researchers at Université Laval, reveals that it is possible to relieve pain hypersensitivity using a new method that involves rekindling pain so that it can subsequently be erased. This discovery could lead to novel means to alleviate chronic pain.

EMBARGOED - July 9, 2014, 3:01 a.m. ET (Toronto) – An ongoing survey of Ontario students in grades 7 to 12 conducted for Canada's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) reveals a number of significant behavioural trends, including an alarming number of young people who are texting while driving.

Think of your next exercise workout as a "fun run" or as a well-deserved break, and you'll eat less afterward. Think of it as exercise or as a workout and you'll later eat more dessert and snacks to reward yourself.

Researchers from the Universities of Manchester and Liverpool has shown that circuits in the brain involved in pursuing and relishing rewarding experiences are more strongly activated in people with bipolar disorder - guiding them towards riskier gambles and away from safer ones.

The study by the Universities of Manchester and Liverpool, published today [Wednesday 9 July] in the journal 'BRAIN', used brain imaging to identify neural pathways that are responsible for the symptoms of the disorder.