As Alzheimer's disease progresses, it kills brain cells mainly in the hippocampus and cortex, leading to impairments in "neuroplasticity," the mechanism that affects learning, memory, and thinking. Targeting these areas of the brain, scientists hope to stop or slow the decline in brain plasticity, providing a novel way to treat Alzheimer's. Groundbreaking new research has discovered a new way to preserve the flexibility and resilience of the brain.
Brain
People can become addicted to eating for its own sake but not to consuming specific foods such as those high in sugar or fat, research suggests.
An international team of scientists has found no strong evidence for people being addicted to the chemical substances in certain foods.
The brain does not respond to nutrients in the same way as it does to addictive drugs such as heroin or cocaine, the researchers say.
Instead, people can develop a psychological compulsion to eat, driven by the positive feelings that the brain associates with eating.
Treatment with xenon gas after a head injury reduces the extent of brain damage, according to a study in mice.
EAST LANSING, Mich. – Paying attention all day in school as a kid isn't easy, especially for those who are at a higher risk of ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
A new study from Michigan State University and University of Vermont researchers shows that offering daily, before-school, aerobic activities to younger, at-risk children could help in reducing the symptoms of ADHD in the classroom and at home. Signs can include inattentiveness, moodiness and difficulty getting along with others.
AUGUSTA, Ga. – The same sex hormone that helps protect females from stroke may also reduce their risk of autism, scientists say.
In the first look at a potential role of the female sex hormone in autism, researchers at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University have found expression of estrogen receptor beta – which enables estrogen's potent brain protection – is significantly decreased in autistic brains. The receptor also plays a role in locomotion as well as behavior, including anxiety, depression, memory, and learning.
People who are obese may be more susceptible to environmental food cues than their lean counterparts due to differences in brain chemistry that make eating more habitual and less rewarding, according to a National Institutes of Health study published in Molecular Psychiatry.
Treatment at the earliest age when symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) appear – sometimes in infants as young as 6 months old – significantly reduces symptoms so that, by age 3, most who received the therapy had neither ASD nor developmental delay, a UC Davis MIND Institute research study has found.
Higher rates of Autism Spectrum Disorders in males than females may be related to changes in the brain's estrogen signalling, according to research published in the open access journal Molecular Autism.
Researchers from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan, in collaboration with Juntendo University and the Japan Science and Technology Agency, have discovered that a cell receptor widely involved in intracellular calcium signaling--the IP3R receptor--can be locked into a closed state by enzyme action, and that this locking may potentially play a role in the reduction of neuron signaling seen in neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's and Alzheimer's disease.
MADISON, Wis. — Figuring out how blank slate stem cells decide which kind of cell they want to be when they grow up — a muscle cell, a bone cell, a neuron — has been no small task for science.
Human pluripotent stem cells, the undifferentiated cells that have the potential to become any of the 220 types of cells in the body, are influenced in the lab dish by the cocktail of chemical factors and proteins upon which they are grown and nurtured. Depending on the combination of factors used in a culture, the cells can be coaxed to become specific types of cells.
New Haven, Conn. — Researchers at Yale School of Medicine and their colleagues have uncovered a new pathway to help treat perinatal brain injuries. This research could also lead to treatments for traumatic brain injuries and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
The findings are published in the Sept. 8 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
UCLA biologists have identified a gene that can slow the aging process throughout the entire body when activated remotely in key organ systems.
Working with fruit flies, the life scientists activated a gene called AMPK that is a key energy sensor in cells; it gets activated when cellular energy levels are low.
Increasing the amount of AMPK in fruit flies' intestines increased their lifespans by about 30 percent — to roughly eight weeks from the typical six — and the flies stayed healthier longer as well.
DARIEN, IL – A neuroimaging study is the first to show that white matter damage caused by severe obstructive sleep apnea can be reversed by continuous positive airway pressure therapy. The results underscore the importance of the "Stop the Snore" campaign of the National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project, a collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Sleep Research Society and other partners.
People struggling with mental illness often turn to pastors for help, but seminaries do very little to train ministers how to recognize serious psychological distress and when to refer someone to a doctor or psychologist, according to a Baylor University study.
As a result, "many people in congregations continue to suffer under well-meaning pastors who primarily tell them to pray harder or confess sin in relation to mental health problems," said lead researcher Matthew S. Stanford, Ph.D., professor of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences.
Coral trout are fast when chasing prey above the reefs of their habitat, but can't pursue their quarry if it buries itself into a hard-to-reach reef crevice.
When this happens, the trout will team up with a snake-like moray eel to flush out the unfortunate fish in a remarkable piece of interspecies collaboration: either the eel takes the prey in the reef, or scares it back into the open so the trout can pounce.