Insulin, the hormone essential to all mammals for controlling blood sugar levels and a feeling of being full after eating, plays a much stronger role than previously known in regulating release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain's reward and pleasure centers, new studies by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center show.
Brain
A five week treatment with the synthetic hormone oxytocin significantly improved social, emotional and behavioral issues among young children with autism, according to University of Sydney research published today in Molecular Psychiatry.
The study, led by researchers at the University's Brain and Mind Centre, is thought to be the first evidence of a medical treatment for social impairments in children with autism. It is also the first clinical trial investigating the efficacy, tolerability and safety of intranasal-administered oxytocin in young children with autism.
UCLA researchers have identified a molecule that, after a stroke, signals brain tissue to form new connections to compensate for the damage and initiate repairs to the brain.
The finding could eventually lead to a new treatment to promote brain repair and functional recovery in people who have suffered a stroke, which is the leading cause of serious long-term disability in adults.
Boston, MA - People who work in well-ventilated offices with below-average levels of indoor pollutants and carbon dioxide (CO2) have significantly higher cognitive functioning scores--in crucial areas such as responding to a crisis or developing strategy--than those who work in offices with typical levels, according to a new study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health's Center for Health and the Global Environment, SUNY Upstate Medical University, and Syracuse University.
New York University researchers have identified how brain rhythms are used to process music, a finding that also shows how our perception of notes and melodies can be used as a method to better understand the auditory system.
The study, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, points to a newfound role the brain's cortical oscillations play in the detection of musical sequences and suggests musical training can enhance the functional role of brain rhythms.
Irvine, Calif. -- The hormone oxytocin, which has been associated with interpersonal bonding, may enhance the pleasure of social interactions by stimulating production of marijuana-like neurotransmitters in the brain, according to a University of California, Irvine study.
A new study led by neuroscientists from the University of Chicago brings us one step closer to building prosthetic limbs for humans that re-create a sense of touch through a direct interface with the brain.
WASHINGTON (Oct. 26, 2015) -- A new study found strokes in young adults who use marijuana are more likely to be caused by stenosis, narrowing of the arteries, in the skull than strokes in non-users.
A team of paleontologists of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, the State University of New York at Oswego and Brown University shows in a new study of fossil amphibians that the extraordinary regenerative capacities of modern salamanders are likely an ancient feature of four-legged vertebrates that was subsequently lost in the course of evolution.
A new microscope developed at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus is giving scientists a clearer, more comprehensive view of biological processes as they unfold in living animals. The microscope produces images of entire organisms, such as a zebrafish or fruit fly embryo, with enough resolution in all three dimensions that each cell appears as a distinct structure. What's more, it does so at speeds fast enough to watch cells move as a developing embryo takes shape and to monitor brain activity as it flashes through neuronal circuits.
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators have discovered a mechanism behind the spread of neurofibrillary tangles - one of the two hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease - through the brains of affected individuals. In a report that has been released online in the journal Nature Communications, the research team describes finding that a particular version of the tau protein, while extremely rare even in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease, is able to spread from one neuron to another and how that process occurs.
More than a century ago, Pavlov figured out that dogs fed after hearing a bell eventually began to salivate when they heard the ring. A Johns Hopkins University-led research team has now figured out a key aspect of why.
TORONTO, October 26, 2015 -- Expectant mothers in their first trimester should avoid certain cosmetics, cleaning agents and medicines, to protect the developing fetal brain from chemicals that can trigger autism, York U health researchers have found.
Scientists at the University of Bonn and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel) have decoded a central signal cascade associated with epileptic seizures. If the researchers blocked a central switch in epileptic mice, the frequency and severity of the seizures decreased. Using a novel technology, it was possible to observe the processes prior to the occurrence of epileptic seizures in living animals. The results are now being published in the journal "Nature Communications".
In few mammal, birds and fish species, individuals can recognize unfamiliar siblings. Until now, however, it remained unclear whether animals also are able to identify more distant, unfamiliar relatives. Evolutionary biologists from the University of Zurich recently demonstrated that Siberian jays, a member of the crow family, evolved this ability.