Neuroscience News

A newly available DNA-based prenatal blood test that can identify a pregnancy with Down syndrome can also identify two additional chromosome abnormalities: trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome) and trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome).The test for all three defects can be offered as early as 10 weeks of pregnancy to women who have been identified as being at [...]

New research reveals how the brain appears to adapt to compensate for the effects of long-term ADHD medication, suggesting why ADHD medication is more effective short-term than it is long-term . The study, from the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King’s College London is published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry . Dr Paolo Fusar-Poli and Professor Katya [...]

Mental illness suspect genes are among the most environmentally responsive. For the first time, scientists have tracked the activity, across the lifespan, of an environmentally responsive regulatory mechanism that turns genes on and off in the brain’s executive hub. Among key findings of the study by National Institutes of Health scientists: genes implicated in schizophrenia and [...]