A study three years ago sparked a medical mystery when it revealed a part of the brain not found in any present-day anatomy textbooks. Recently, Indiana University computational neuroscientist Franco Pestilli and an international research team published an article in the journal Cerebral Cortex that suggests this missing part of the brain may play an important role in how we understand the world…
Juries in criminal cases typically decide if someone is guilty, then a judge determines a suitable level of punishment. New research confirms that these two separate assessments of guilt and punishment – though related - are calculated in different parts of the brain. In fact, researchers found that they can disrupt and change one decision without affecting the other.
University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have discovered a new strategy for attacking cancer cells that could fundamentally alter the way doctors treat and prevent the deadly disease. By more selectively targeting cancer cells, this method offers a strategy to reduce the length of and physical toll associated with current treatments.
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award the 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine with one half jointly to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites and the other half to Youyou Tu for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria.
By implanting electrodes in the brain tissue one can stimulate or capture signals from different areas of the brain. These types of brain implants, or neuro-prostheses as they are sometimes called, are used to treat Parkinson's disease and other neurological diseases.
People often talk about how important it is to stay in shape, something humans usually can accomplish with exercise and a healthy diet, and other habits. But chances are, few of us ever think about the shape of our individual cells.
Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Princeton University have designed a new online tool that predicts the role of key proteins and genes in diseases of the human immune system. Called “ImmuNet,” details of the publically available resource were published online in the journal Immunity.
Scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have elucidated a genetic interaction that may prove key to the development and progression of glaucoma, a blinding neurodegenerative disease that affects tens of millions of people worldwide and is a leading cause of irreversible blindness.
More than five million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Of them, 400,000 also have Down syndrome. Both groups have similar looking brains with higher levels of the protein beta amyloid.
A gap in scientific knowledge about a family of drugs that are used to treat Type 2 diabetes has been highlighted in a new study.
MRSA is bad news. If you've never heard of it, here's what you need to know: It's pronounced MER-suh, it's a nasty bacterial infection and it can cause serious disease and death. Senior molecular biology major Jacob Hatch knows MRSA as the infection that took his dad's leg.
Fetuses with enlarged ventricles--the fluid-filled cavities inside the brain--may be less likely than their counterparts to benefit from surgery in the womb to treat spina bifida, according to a study supported by the National Institutes of Health.
Proteins called broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) are a promising key to the prevention of infection by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, say researchers at California Institute of Technology.
‘In IT we often casually say that Big Data is exactly what we can’t do yet,’ said Professor Christoph Meinel, President of Germany’s Hasso-Plattner-Institute, ruefully. We asked the computer science expert about the potential of big data in medicine and medical research.
For patients with an often-deadly form of leukemia, new research suggests that lingering cancer-related mutations – detected after initial treatment with chemotherapy – are associated with an increased risk of relapse and poor survival.
Scientists at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden have discovered a new explanation for severe early infant epilepsy. Mutations in the gene encoding the protein KCC2 can cause the disease, hereby confirming an earlier theory. The findings are being published in the journal Nature Communications.
Researchers at the University of Alberta have found that spinal manipulation--applying force to move joints to treat pain, a technique most often used by chiropractors and physical therapists--does indeed have immediate benefits for some patients with low-back pain but does not work for others with low-back pain.
With every breath you take, microbes have a chance of making it into your lungs. But what happens when they get there? And why do dangerous lung infections like pneumonia happen in some people, but not others? Researchers at the University of Michigan Medical School have started to answer these questions by studying the microbiome of the lungs – the community of microscopic organisms that are…
The loss of a critical receptor in a special class of inhibitory neurons in the brain may be responsible for neurodevelopmental disorders including autism and schizophrenia, according to new research by Salk scientists.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that in 2013, malaria infected 198 million people and killed 584,000, the majority of whom were African children. The compound that detectives spray at crime scenes to find trace amounts of blood may be used one day to kill the malaria parasite.
Researchers have identified a new test that can be used to predict the likelihood of a patient developing heart failure, or even dying following a heart attack.
Stony Brook researchers publish experimental findings in the Journal of Neuroscience that show the lateral position more efficiently rids the brain of solutes that may contribute to disease.
Cardiac surgeons have finally found what cardiologists had reported missing three years ago: evidence to support the use of the oldest mechanical circulatory assist devices: IABP. Nevertheless, the findings may have only limited impact.
Researchers at McGill University have clearly identified, for the first time, the specific parts of the brain involved in decisions that call for delayed gratification. In a paper published in the European Journal of Neuroscience, they demonstrated that the hippocampus (associated with memory) and the nucleus accumbens (associated with pleasure) work together in making critical decisions of this…
The number of hepatitis C patients suffering from advanced liver damage may be grossly underestimated and underdiagnosed, according to a study led by researchers at Henry Ford Health System and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.