MAYWOOD, Ill. -- More than half of patients who have cirrhosis of the liver also display neurocognitive impairments such as short term memory loss, a study led by a Loyola University Health System researcher has found.
Loyola neuropsychologist Christopher Randolph, PhD, and colleagues found that 54 percent of 301 cirrhosis patients who were tested scored below the 10th percentile for their age and education on a test that measures neurocognitive abilities.
Anglers rely on fish finders to help them locate the big catch. Now Tel Aviv University researchers in tissue engineering have developed a "fat finder" that can help scientists accelerate their research into new fat-melting drugs.
The brains of problem gamblers react more intensely to near misses than casual gamblers, new research from the University of Cambridge has found. The results could help explain what keeps problem gamblers betting even though they keep losing.
The study involved scanning the brains of 20 gamblers using functional magnetic resonance imaging while they played a computerised slot machine. Participants' gambling habits ranged from regular, social gamblers to those with severe problem gambling.
CHICAGO --- Researchers from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine have discovered a link between sporadic and familial forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a neurodegenerative disease also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that a compound in dark chocolate may protect the brain after a stroke by increasing cellular signals already known to shield nerve cells from damage.
Ninety minutes after feeding mice a single modest dose of epicatechin, a compound found naturally in dark chocolate, the scientists induced an ischemic stroke by essentially cutting off blood supply to the animals' brains. They found that the animals that had preventively ingested the epicatechin suffered significantly less brain damage than the ones that had not been given the compound.
New research on the properties of the clot-busting stroke drug tPA (tissue-type plasminogen activator) suggests that tPA can act as a neuroprotectant and may form the keystone of an adaptive response to a reduction in blood flow.
Scientists from Emory University School of Medicine have shown that certain parts of the brains of mice lacking the gene for tPA are more vulnerable to stroke. In addition, tPA can protect neurons in the same part of the brain from the stress of hypoxia (low oxygen).
A groundbreaking trial to test bone marrow stem cell therapy with a small group of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) has been shown to have possible benefits for the treatment of the disease.
Drinking alcohol over a long period of time profoundly affects the brain, which adapts to the intoxicant and causes withdrawal symptoms when consumption stops.
Neuroscientists from the University of Southampton's School of Biological Sciences investigated alcohol dependency and withdrawal using tiny 1mm long C. elegans worms. Despite the worm's evolutionary distance from humans, and very simple brain of just 302 nerve cells, it exhibits similar alcohol-dependent behaviours.
Washington, DC — The brains of problem gamblers react more intensely to "near misses" than casual gamblers, possibly spurring them on to play more, according to new research in the May 5 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The researchers found the brain region that responds to rewards by delivering a dose of the chemical dopamine was especially active in these individuals.
