News • Blood brain barrier
A new approach to conquer the 'fortress of the brain'
Scientists have helped provide a way to better understand how to enable drugs to enter the brain and how cancer cells make it past the blood brain barrier.
Brain
News • Neurodegeneration
Scientists discover genetic timetable of brain's aging process
Brain scientists from Edinburgh have identified a genetic programme that controls the way our brain changes throughout life. The programme controls how and when brain genes are expressed at different times in a person’s life to perform a range of functions, the study found.
News • Study
Zika virus could be used to treat brain cancer
Recent outbreaks of Zika virus have revealed that the virus causes brain defects in unborn children. But researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of California, San Diego report that the virus could eventually be used to target and kill cancer cells in the brain.
News • Neurology
Biologists find new source for brain’s development
A team of biologists has found an unexpected source for the brain’s development, a finding that offers new insights into the building of the nervous system.
News • Neuron activation
Memories “Lost” to Alzheimer’s May Be Retrievable
Columbia University Medical Center researchers have found that it may be possible to access memories “lost” to Alzheimer’s disease, if their discoveries about memory loss in mice also apply to people with the disease.
Article • Neurological diseases
No health without brain health
A largely aged population is already a reality in some countries, and this will become a worldwide problem by 2047, when the number of the Earth’s old people is likely to surpass the number of young people.
News • Changing lifestyle
One in three cases of dementia preventable
Experts say that one-third of the world’s dementia cases could be prevented by managing lifestyle factors such as hearing loss, hypertension and depression.
Article • World Brain Day
Stroke is over (if you want it)
The fourth World Brain Day (July 22) revolves around stroke – how to detect it, how to prevent it, how to treat it. Raad Shakir, president of the World Federation of Neurology (WFN), seizes the opportunity to raise awareness about a disease that is becoming more common globally – but also preventable to a large extent.
News • Preventing Alzheimer's
$20 million lifestyle intervention trial to prevent cognitive decline
The Alzheimer's Association announced the launch of a $20 million U.S. two-year clinical trial to test the ability of a multi-dimensional lifestyle intervention to prevent cognitive decline and dementia in 2,500 older adults with no current cognitive symptoms but who are at increased risk for later cognitive decline. The announcement was made at the 2017 Alzheimer's Association International…
News • New biological approach
Old antibiotic could become valuable depression treatment
An antibiotic used mostly to treat acne has been found to improve the quality of life for people with major depression, in a clinical trial from Deakin University.
News • Behavioral study
New understanding for autism through eye tracking
New research has uncovered compelling evidence that genetics plays a major role in how children look at the world and whether they have a preference for gazing at people’s eyes and faces or at objects. The discovery by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta adds new detail to understanding the causes of autism…
News • Schizophrenia
When the internal clock is out of order
Persons suffering from schizophrenia have a different perception of time than healthy individuals, a new study finds. There is far more variation in the way that a time interval is perceived by people with schizophrenic disorders than by those who do not have the condition. Patients with schizophrenia are also less precise when it comes to judging the temporal order of events.
News • Emotional disorders
The key to depression may lie in our genes
Researchers have taken an in-depth look at the function of a gene that may be linked to the development of major depression. Their findings show that its activity levels might determine our susceptibility to stress and negative stimuli.
News • Motivation study
Our minds are surprisingly susceptible to meaningless numbers
Keeping score is a common method of motivation. But new research shows that even if the score itself has no inherent meaning, it can serve as an effective motivator, as long as the score is accelerating.
News • The future burden of dementia
Study predicts great rise in dementia in England and Wales
By 2040, there will be over 1.2 million people living with dementia in England and Wales, an increase of 57 per cent from 2016. The rise is largely due to increased life expectancy say researchers in The BMJ today.
News • Multimodal optical spectroscopy
An infallible hand-held probe to aid cancer surgery
Canadian researchers have invented an intraoperative probe that reliably detects multiple types of tumour cells.
News • Brain drain
The mere presence of your smartphone reduces brain power
Your cognitive capacity is significantly reduced when your smartphone is within reach — even if it’s off. That’s the takeaway finding from a new study from the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin.
News • Tumor detection
MRI without contrast agents? Yes, with sugar!
Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), in collaboration with colleagues from Heidelberg University Hospital, have been able to visualize brain cancer using a novel MRI method. They use a simple sugar solution instead of conventional contrast agents, which can have side effects in the body.
News • Neuropathology
Detecting Alzheimer's disease before symptoms emerge
Long before symptoms of Alzheimer's disease become apparent to patients and their families, biological changes are occurring within the brain. Amyloid plaques, which are clusters of protein fragments, along with tangles of protein known as tau, form in the brain and grow in number, eventually getting in the way of the brain's ability to function. These biological changes can be detected early in…
News • Neuro-oncology
Study provides better understanding of how brain tumors ‘feed’
All cancer tumors have one thing in common – they must feed themselves to grow and spread, a difficult feat since they are usually in a tumor microenvironment with limited nutrients and oxygen. A study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has revealed new details about how an enzyme called acetyl-CoA synthetase 2 (ACSS2) allows brain tumors to grow despite their harsh…
News • Avoidance strategy
Our brains detect disease in others even before it breaks out
The human brain is much better than previously thought at discovering and avoiding disease, a new study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden reports. Our sense of vision and smell alone are enough to make us aware that someone has a disease even before it breaks out. And not only aware - we also act upon the information and avoid sick people.
News • Research
Deep sleep maintains the learning efficiency of the brain
For the first time, researchers of the University of Zurich and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich have demonstrated the causal context of why deep sleep is important to the learning efficiency of the human brain. They have developed a new, non-invasive method for modulating deep sleep in humans in a targeted region of the brain.
News • Brain pathology
New insights into early cognitive markers of Alzheimer's
New research led by the University of Hertfordshire, may significantly change the understanding of cognitive processes that are most impaired at very early stages of Alzheimer's disease. The findings could potentially be used to detect the condition at an earlier stage and improve diagnostic accuracy, by creating new cognitive tests that are more sensitive to brain pathology than ones currently…
News • Neurology
New-found brain pathway has implications for schizophrenia treatment
Neuroscientists at Tufts University School of Medicine have discovered a new signaling pathway that directly connects two major receptors in the brain associated with learning and memory – the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) and the alpha 7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (a7nAChR) – which has significance for current efforts to develop drugs to treat schizophrenia.
News • Study
Link between blood sugar and brain cancer found
New research further illuminates the surprising relationship between blood sugar and brain tumors and could begin to shed light on how certain cancers develop. While many cancers are more common among those with diabetes, cancerous brain tumors called gliomas are less common among those with elevated blood sugar and diabetes, a study from The Ohio State University has found. The discovery builds…