Feature Channels: Neuro

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Stopping disruptions in cellular “trash removal” brought on by errors in molecular marks on DNA may guard against neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s.

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You wouldn’t think that two Turkish children, some yeast and a bunch of Hungarian fruit flies could teach scientists much. But in fact, that unlikely combination has just helped an international team make a key discovery about how the brain’s “garbage disposal” process works — and how little needs to go wrong in order for it to break down.

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Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative brain disease that leads to cognitive decline, dementia and ultimately death, mostly in the elderly. It’s already a huge health burden, and it’s getting worse as the population ages. Alzheimer’s and Dementia, the journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, estimates that by 2050, one in 85 people around the globe—more than 100 million total—will be afflicted.

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In a paper published Thursday, Jan. 21, in the journal Heliyon, the researchers suggest that mindfulness, a practice used as a therapeutic technique to focus awareness, should be studied as a way to encourage healthy eating and weight loss in children.

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Whitehead Institute researchers have created a new mouse-human modeling system that could be used to study neural crest development as well as the modeling of a variety of neural crest related diseases, including such cancers as melanoma and neurofibromatosis. Mouse-human chimeras would fill an important gap in disease research, as existing models do not accurately mimic key disease processes, including solid tumor initiation and progression, and are of little value for studying diseases with long latencies, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

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Sugar’s sweetness and calorie content combine to give it lethal power to destroy diets, many scientists have assumed. However, new study by Yale University researchers says the brain responds to taste and calorie counts in fundamentally different ways. And only one of these responses explains why most New Years’ resolutions have already disappeared under a deluge of Boston Crème Pies.

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Treatment of multiple sclerosis (MS) and other inflammatory diseases may benefit by new findings from a study that identified potential therapeutic targets for a devastating disease striking some 2.3 million people worldwide.

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Data from the Salk Institute shows brain’s memory capacity is in the petabyte range, as much as entire Web.

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Research from Texas Christian University suggests that some degree of head trauma occurs in American football athletes over the course of a season, even when a concussion does not, and there may be a way to lessen the dangerous effects.

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A Loyola University Medical Center study is providing new evidence that the vast majority of babies who are born with severe brain damage are not the result of mismanaged deliveries.

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At least 60 genetic diseases called neurocutaneous disorders involve the skin, central nervous system, and/or peripheral nervous system, Loyola University Medical Center neurologists report.

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Taking more time to make decisions after a mistake arises from a mixture of adaptive neural mechanisms that improve the accuracy and maladaptive mechanisms that reduce it, neuroscientists at New York University have found. Their study also potentially offer insights into afflictions that impair judgments, such as Alzheimer’s Disease and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

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Even though young African-Americans are at three times greater risk of a first stroke than their white counterparts, they may not be at a higher risk for a second stroke, according to a study published in the January 20, 2016, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study is one of the first of its kind to look at race and second stroke risk.

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Learning a second language is easier for some adults than others, and innate differences in how the various parts of the brain "talk" to one another may help explain why, according to a study published January 20 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

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Lab-grown neural networks have the ability to replace lost axonal tracks in the brains of patients with severe head injuries, strokes or neurodegenerative diseases and can be safely delivered with minimal disruption to brain tissue, according to new research from Penn Medicine’s department of Neurosurgical Research. Their work is published in the Journal of Neural Engineering.

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A new study from Indiana University, reported Jan. 19 in the journal Neuroscience, shows that 70 percent of all information within cortical regions in the brain passes through only 20 percent of these regions' neurons.

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Correctly diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease remains a challenge for medical professionals. Now, a new study published in the current issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease reveals a new clue to possible misdiagnosis.

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A Mayo Clinic study of people who received anesthesia for surgery after age 40 found no association between the anesthesia and development of mild cognitive impairment later in life.

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A songbirds’ vocal muscles work like those of human speakers and singers, finds a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

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Scientists have identified a gene that appears to play a significant role in raising a person’s risk of having more severe subtypes of autism that co-occur with other genetic diseases, such as the chromosomal disorder 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. Variations in this gene, RANBP1, may disrupt brain signaling in different neuropsychiatric conditions.