Using data derived from nuclear weapons testing of the 1950s and ’60s, Lawrence Livermore scientists have found that a small portion of the human brain involved in memory makes new neurons well into adulthood.
The research may have profound impacts on human behavior and mental health. The...
Studying the networks of connections in the brains of people affected by schizophrenia, bipolar disease or depression has allowed Dr. Peter Williamson, from Western University, to gain a better understanding of the biological basis of these important diseases.
Dr. Williamson and colleagues...
We know the world through the sensory representations within our brain. Such "reconstruction" is performed through the electrical activation of neural cells, the code that contains the information that is constantly processed by the brain. If we wish to understand what are the rules followed by...
A team of European scientists from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) and the Cologne Excellence Cluster on Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-Associated Diseases (CECAD) at the University of Cologne in Germany has taken an important step closer to understanding the root cause...
Researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida have uncovered a toxic cellular process by which a protein that maintains the health of neurons becomes deficient and can lead to dementia. The findings shed new light on the link between culprits implicated in two devastating neurological diseases...
Research from Karolinska Institutet shows that the human olfactory bulb - a structure in the brain that processes sensory input from the nose - differs from that of other mammals in that no new neurons are formed in this area after birth. The discovery, which is published in the scientific...
Collaborative research by groups headed by scientists Joan J. Guinovart and Marco Milan at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) has revealed conclusive evidence about the harmful effects of the accumulation of glucose chains (glycogen) in fly and mouse neurons. These two...
Neuron transplants have repaired brain circuitry and substantially normalized function in mice with a brain disorder, an advance indicating that key areas of the mammalian brain are more reparable than was widely believed. Collaborators from Harvard University, Massachusetts General Hospital...
Among the many hurdles to be cleared before human embryonic stem cells can achieve their therapeutic potential is determining whether or not transplanted cells can functionally integrate into target organs or tissues. Writing today (Monday, Nov. 21) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of...
In principle, stem cells offer scientists the opportunity to create specific cell types - such as nerve or heart cells - to replace tissues damaged by age or disease. In reality, coaxing stem cells to become the desired cell type can be challenging, to say the least...
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Current thinking about Parkinson's disease is that it's a disorder of mitochondria, the energy-producing organelles inside cells, causing neurons in the brain's substantia nigra to die or become impaired. A study from Children's Hospital Boston now shows that genetic mutations causing a...
New research successfully reverses epilepsy-associated pathology by using a sophisticated single-cell modeling paradigm to examine abnormal cell behavior and identify the optimal modulation of channel activity. The study, published by Cell Press in the October 18th issue of Biophysical Journal...
Gardeners know that some trees require regular pruning: some of their branches have to be cut so that others can grow stronger. The same is true of the developing brain: cells called microglia prune the connections between neurons, shaping how the brain is wired, scientists at the European...
Machine logic is based on human logic. But although a computer processor can be dissembled and dissected in logical steps, the same is not true for the way our brains process information, says Mark Shein of Tel Aviv University's School of Electrical Engineering. Doctoral student Shein and his...
Using computer simulations of brain-like networks, researchers from Germany and Japan have discovered why nerve cells transmit information through small electrical pulses. Not only allows this the brain to process information much faster than previously thought: single neurons are already able...
Scientists have identified a double agent in the eye that, once triggered, can morph from neuron protector to neuron killer. The discovery has significant health implications since the neurons killed through this process results in vision loss and blindness. The findings, published in the...
Transplanted neurons grown from embryonic stem cells can fully integrate into the brains of young animals, according to new research in the Jan. 20 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Healthy brains have stable and precise connections between cells that are necessary for normal behavior. This...