The odor of bobcat urine, if you ever get a chance to take a whiff, is unforgettable — like rotten meat combined with sweat, with something indescribably feral underlying it. To humans, it’s just nose-wrinklingly disgusting. But to mice, it smells like one thing: fear.
Siemens Healthcare has launched a range of new MR applications to help hospitals reduce the time needed for MR imaging within neurology. It is estimated that 20 to 25 per cent of all MR examinations are neurological, with the number expected to grow in 2016 (1). The applications have therefore been designed to help organisations increase patient throughput in order to maintain an efficient…
According to the American Heart Association, ischemic strokes account for nearly 90 percent of all strokes. They occur when a blocked artery prevents blood from getting to the brain and usually result in long-term disability or death. Now, a team of researchers led by the University of Missouri School of Medicine has developed a new, real-time method of imaging molecular events after strokes - a…
Stopping the growth of blood vessels in tumours is a key target for glioblastoma therapies, and imaging methods are essential for initial diagnosis and monitoring the effects of treatments. While mapping vessels in tumours has proven a challenge, researchers have now developed a combined magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and ultramicroscopy 'toolkit' to study vessel growth in glioma models in more…
A new way of using MRI scanners to look for evidence of multiple sclerosis in the brain has been successfully tested by researchers at The University of Nottingham and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.
At the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting 2015, world-leading nanoelectronics research center imec, KU Leuven, and Neuro-Electronics Research Flanders (NERF, set up by VIB/KU Leuven and imec) presented a set of silicon neural probes that combine 12 monolithically integrated optrodes using a CMOS compatible process.
Understanding how the Christmas spirit works could be a powerful tool in treating the "bah humbug" syndrome. The Christmas spirit has been located in the human brain, reveals a study published in The BMJ's Christmas issue.
Patients with multiple sclerosis often receive a "hit and miss" treatment when the disease breaks out. A blood analysis is now for the first time able to reveal which of the two most important first-line drugs is better suited for which patients.
SyntheticMR and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have signed a research agreement to study SyMRI to characterize brain tumors.
Brain tumor tissue can be hard to distinguish from normal brain during surgery. Neurosurgeons use their best judgment in the operating room but often must guess exactly where the edges of the tumor are while removing it.
The brain cells of patients with bipolar disorder, characterized by severe swings between depression and elation, are more sensitive to stimuli than other people's brain cells, researchers of the Salk Institute have discovered.
An international team of researchers, led by scientists at the National University of Singapore (NUS), has identified a protein that regulates the growth of neurons by transporting key metabolic enzymes to the tips of neural cells. Their findings open up new avenues for design of drugs for ataxia, a motor coordination disorder.
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.
People with Parkinson’s disease (PD) tend to slow down and decrease the intensity of their movements even though many retain the ability to move more quickly and forcefully. Now, in proof-of-concept experiments with “joysticks” that measure force, a team of Johns Hopkins scientists report evidence that the slowdown likely arises from the brain’s “cost/benefit analysis,” which gets…
A panel of world experts in aging convened at Saint Louis University recommended that everyone 70 and older should have their memory and reasoning ability evaluated annually by a doctor or health care provider.
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.
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.
They did it for heart attacks. Can cardiologists now lead an effort to speed up the emergency medical response for stroke? Over the past five years, the Stent for Life initiative organised by interventional cardiologists has pushed majors medical centres to assure 24/7 coverage and reduce the time to treatment for patients showing up with severe chest pain.
Linköping University Hospital in Sweden installs SyMRI NEURO from SyntheticMR in order to improve the follow-up of patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). SyMRI enables objective follow-up of brain atrophy through automatic calculation of Brain Parenchymal Fraction (BPF). After an initial pilot project, the aim is to take SyMRI into clinical use in Region Östergötland during 2016.
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.
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…
NIH-funded study highlights the possible role of glial brain cells in neurological disorders.
Retrograde amnesia is the inability to recall established memories. In humans, amnesia is associated with traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease, and other neurological conditions. Whether memories lost to amnesia are completely erased or merely unable to be recalled remains an open question. Now, in a finding that casts new light on the nature of memory, researchers from the RIKEN-MIT…
A 'brain training' iPad game developed and tested by researchers at the University of Cambridge may improve the memory of patients with schizophrenia, helping them in their daily lives at work and living independently, according to research published today.
