A gene variant responsible for vascular damage to the brain is a promising new target for drug therapy to fight Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases, according to research published on May 16 in  Nature. Berislav Zlokovic, deputy director of the Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, is the corresponding author on [...]

What can a fish tell us about human brain development? Researchers at Duke University Medical Center transplanted a set of human genes into a zebrafish and then used it to identify genes responsible for head size at birth. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center transplanted a set of human genes into a zebrafish and then used [...]

NIH-funded study shows progress in brain-computer interface technology. In an ongoing clinical trial, a paralyzed woman was able to reach for and sip from a drink on her own – for the first time in nearly 15 years – by using her thoughts to direct a robotic arm. The trial, funded in part by the National [...]

This is your brain on sugar: UCLA study shows high-fructose diet sabotages learning, memory. Attention, college students cramming between midterms and finals: Binging on soda and sweets for as little as six weeks may make you stupid. A new UCLA rat study is the first to show how a diet steadily high in fructose slows the [...]

Technique could help those with C6, C7 spinal cord injuries. Surgeons at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have restored some hand function in a quadriplegic patient with a spinal cord injury at the C7 vertebra, the lowest bone in the neck. Instead of operating on the spine itself, the surgeons rerouted working nerves [...]

Using tiny solar-panel-like cells surgically placed underneath the retina, scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have devised a system that may someday restore sight to people who have lost vision because of certain types of degenerative eye diseases. This device — a new type of retinal prosthesis — involves a specially designed pair of [...]

Controlled trial shows improved spasticity, reduced pain after smoking medical marijuana. A clinical study of 30 adult patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine has shown that smoked cannabis may be an effective treatment for spasticity – a common and disabling symptom of this neurological disease. The placebo-controlled [...]

EPFL scientists have proven that light intensity influences our cognitive performance and how alert we feel, and that these positive effects last until early evening. Tests conducted in EPFL’s Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory (LESO) have confirmed the hypothesis that light influences our subjective feeling of sleepiness. The research team, led by Mirjam Münch, also [...]

Star-shaped brain cells called astrocytes are found to bridge the gap between global brain activity and localized circuits. Global network activity in the brain modulates local neural circuitry via calcium signaling in non-neuronal cells called astrocytes, according to research led by Hajime Hirase of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute. The finding clarifies the link between two [...]

Babies born to women with sensitivity to gluten appear to be at increased risk for certain psychiatric disorders later in life, according to research by scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore. The team’s findings, published in  The American Journal of Psychiatry , add to a growing body of evidence that many [...]

History, science and discovery come together to help family members. C5ORF42 was identified as the gene that causes Joubert Syndrome in a number of families in the Lower St. Lawrence region of Quebec where the causal gene had remained unknown since the initial description of the syndrome in 1969. This is what a study in the [...]

Glial cells pass on metabolites to neurons. Around 100 billion neurons in the human brain enable us to think, feel and act. They transmit electrical impulses to remote parts of the brain and body via long nerve fibres known as axons. This communication requires enormous amounts of energy, which the neurons are thought to generate from [...]

A recently evolved pattern of gene activity in the language and decision-making centers of the human brain is missing in a disorder associated with autism and learning disabilities, a new study by Yale University researchers shows. “This is the cost of being human,” said  Nenad Sestan , associate professor of neurobiology, researcher at Yale’s Kavli Institute for Neuroscience, [...]