Neuroscience News and Research

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Innovative brain-scan technology helps visualize brain aging before symptoms appear

UCLA scientists have used innovative brain-scan technology developed at UCLA, along with patient-specific information on Alzheimer's disease risk, to help diagnose brain aging, often before symptoms appear.

6 Jan 2009

Apolipoprotein D protects against Alzheimer's

Do Carmo and her collaborators have successfully demonstrated the protective and reparative role of apolipoprotein D, or ApoD, in neurodegenerative diseases. Their discovery suggests interesting avenues for preventing and slowing the progression of this type of illness.

6 Jan 2009

Collagen VI protects brain cells against amyloid-beta proteins

Scientists from the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease (GIND), UCSF, and Stanford have discovered that a certain type of collagen, collagen VI, protects brain cells against amyloid-beta proteins, which are widely thought to cause Alzheimer's disease (AD).

5 Jan 2009

Researchers link blood sugar to normal cognitive aging

Maintaining blood sugar levels, even in the absence of disease, may be an important strategy for preserving cognitive health, suggests a study published by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC).

1 Jan 2009

Risk takers do so because their brains are less able to process dopamine

According to scientists risk takers and drug abusers behave the way they do because their brains are less able to process dopamine.

30 Dec 2008

Cardiovascular system proteins play a role in Alzheimer's

Researchers have found that two proteins which work in tandem in the brain's blood vessels present a double whammy in Alzheimer's disease.

22 Dec 2008

How mirror neurons allow us to learn and socialize by going through the motions in the head

The old adage that we can only learn how to do something by trying it ourselves may have to be revised in the light of recent discoveries in neuroscience.

21 Dec 2008

Cellular reprogramming, the 'Breakthrough of the Year' according to AAAS

In its annual list of the year's top ten scientific breakthroughs, the journal Science has given top honors to research that produced "made-to-order" cell lines by reprogramming cells from ill patients.

18 Dec 2008

Neuralstem files IND for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis stem cell trial

Neuralstem, Inc. announced this morning that it has filed an Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin a clinical trial to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease).

18 Dec 2008

Researchers discover reason why men outperform women on spatial tasks

Men consistently outperform women on spatial tasks, including mental rotation, which is the ability to identify how a 3-D object would appear if rotated in space.

17 Dec 2008

Cause found for abnormal muscle constrictions in dystonia

Dystonia is a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary abnormal muscle constrictions.

17 Dec 2008

Help for spine injury victims could be just a sniff away

According to Australian scientists help for spine injury victims could be just a sniff away - researchers from the University of New South Wales in Sydney say stem cells taken from the nose could help spinal injury victims regain movement.

17 Dec 2008

Researchers find brain's reward and stress signaling circuits are intertwined in complex ways

Vanderbilt University Medical Center investigators have now discovered a functional link between reward and stress. They found that dopamine - the brain's chief reward signal - works through corticotrophin-releasing factor (CRF) - the brain's main stress signal - to increase the activity of a brain region involved in addiction relapse.

16 Dec 2008