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Featured Neuroscience

·January 17, 2013·3 min read

Is Athleticism Linked to Brain Size?

Research shows that exercise-loving mice have larger midbrains.

A brain slice with glioblastoma multiforme

Brain Cancer Featured

·January 17, 2013·3 min read

Researchers Identify Enzyme Involved in Deadly Brain Tumors

In a study published in Neuro-Oncology, researchers at Mayo Clinic identify an important association between the naturally occurring enzyme Kallikrein 6, also known as KLK6, and glioblastoma multiforme tumors.

Two brain images are shown side by side with Wernicke's area highlighted.

Featured Neuroscience

·January 16, 2013·3 min read

Research Reveals How the Human Brain Adapts to Injury

Scientists used a new combination of neural imaging methods to discover how the human brain adapts to injury. The research shows that when one brain area loses functionality, a back-up team of secondary brain areas immediately activates, replacing not only the unavailable area but also its confederates.

Featured Neurology

·January 16, 2013·2 min read

Promising New Finding for Therapies to Treat Persistent Seizures in Epileptic Patients

In a promising finding for epileptic patients suffering from persistent seizures known as status epilepticus, researchers reported today that new medication could help halt these devastating seizures.

Featured Neuroscience

·October 26, 2012·2 min read

Stimulating Brain Cells with Light

The work will be conducted on laboratory rats modelling Parkinson’s disease. The transplanted cells will be derived from skin from an adult human and will have been “reprogrammed” as nerve cells. The light-sensitive protein is obtained from a bacterium, which uses light to gain energy.

Featured Psychology

·October 25, 2012·2 min read

Loneliness? It’s All a State of Mind

Researchers from UCL have found that lonely people have less grey matter in a part of the brain associated with decoding eye gaze and other social cues.

Wine from a wine bottle is being poured into a glass.

Featured Neuroscience

·October 24, 2012·2 min read

Researchers Say Daily Drinking Can Be Risky

Drinking a couple of glasses of wine each day has generally been considered a good way to promote cardiovascular and brain health. A new study indicates there is a fine line between moderate and binge drinking - a risky behavior that can decrease the making of adult brain cells by as much as 40 percent.

Featured Psychology

·October 24, 2012·3 min read

Brainwave Training Boosts Network for Cognitive Control and Predicts Mind Wandering

Using several neuroimaging methods, a team of researchers working at the University of Western Ontario have now uncovered that functional changes within a key brain network occur directly after a 30-minute session of noninvasive, neural-based training.

Neurons are shown. Caption describes it well.

Brain Cancer Featured Neurology

·October 22, 2012·3 min read

Aggressive Brain Tumors Can Originate from a Range of Nervous System Cells

Scientists have long believed that glioblastoma multiforme, the most aggressive type of primary brain tumor, begins in glial cells that make up supportive tissue in the brain or in neural stem cells. Researchers found that the tumors can originate from other types of differentiated cells in the nervous system, including cortical neurons.

Featured Neurology

·October 21, 2012·5 min read

Natural Process Activating Brain’s Immune Cells Could Point Way to Repairing Damaged Brain

The brain’s key “breeder” cells secrete substances that boost the numbers and strength of critical brain-based immune cells believed to play a vital role in brain health. This finding adds a new dimension to our understanding of how resident stem cells and stem cell transplants may improve brain function.

An old picture shows a man on a tight rope crossing Niagara River.

Electrophysiology Featured Neuroscience

·October 19, 2012·4 min read

Researchers Explore How the Brain Perceives Direction and Location

The Who asked “who are you?” but Dartmouth neurobiologist Jeffrey Taube “where are you?” and “where are you going?” Taube is not asking philosophical or theological questions. He is investigating nerve cells in the brain that function in establishing one’s location and direction.

Featured Neuroscience

·October 19, 2012·2 min read

How the Brain Forms Categories

Neurobiologists investigated how the brain is able to group external stimuli into stable categories. They found the answer in the discrete dynamics of neuronal circuits.