Neuroscience News and Research

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Neuromuscular consequences of reflexive covert orienting

The person you're speaking with may be looking at you, but are they really paying attention? Or has the person covertly shifted their attention, without moving their eyes? Dr. Brian Corneil, of the Centre for Brain and Mind at The University of Western Ontario in London, Canada has found a way of actually measuring covert attention.

2 Dec 2007

Queen's University Belfast opens new centre for cancer research

Queen's Chancellor Senator George Mitchell officially opened the University's new £25M cancer research centre aimed at stopping the spread of cancer.

29 Nov 2007

Research suggests new direction for ALS treatment

A research team from Wake Forest University School of Medicine is the first to show that injections of a protein normally found in human cells can increase lifespan and delay the onset of symptoms in mice with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), or Lou Gehrig's disease.

27 Nov 2007

Brain stem-cell therapies more complicated than thought

An MIT research team's latest finding suggests that stem cell therapies for the brain could be much more complicated than previously thought.

27 Nov 2007

Study looks at progesterone for Alzheimer's

The first study on progesterone and Alzheimer's disease has found no clear preventive benefit for the widely prescribed hormone in an animal model.

27 Nov 2007

Hundreds of strokes avoidable, says study

Hundreds of strokes could be prevented each year if patients suffering 'mini strokes', known as transient ischaemic attacks or TIAs, were assessed sooner by specialist clinicians.

From The University of Manchester 22 Nov 2007

New discoveries about nitric oxide can provide drugs for schizophrenia

Problems with memory and social function in patients with schizophrenia may result from an imbalance in the brain’s nitric oxide system.

21 Nov 2007

Scientists find what we see depends on the patterns of neural activity in our brains

Vase or face" When presented with the well known optical illusion in which we see either a vase or the faces of two people, what we observe depends on the patterns of neural activity going on in our brains.

21 Nov 2007

Dyslexia expert Dr. Bruce McCandliss awarded Presidential honor

Dr. Bruce McCandliss, a psychologist at the Sackler Institute for Developmental Psychobiology and associate professor of psychology in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College, has received a commendation by the President of the United States in the form of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

20 Nov 2007

New non-addictive pain-killers

Two University of Adelaide pharmacologists working with one the world's leading neuroscientists have helped pave the way for the development of new pain-killing drugs that are not addictive.

20 Nov 2007

Study shows how men and women differ in their neural responses to psychological stress

According to a study that appears in the current issue of SCAN (Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience), researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine discuss how men and women differ in their neural responses to psychological stress.

20 Nov 2007

New computational theory of brain function

Carnegie Mellon University neuroscientist Marcel Just and Stanford postdoctoral fellow Sashank Varma have put forward a new computational theory of brain function that provides answers to one of the central questions of modern science:

16 Nov 2007

Abnormal glutamine repeats interfere with key transcription factor, leading to neurodegeneration

Although repeating sequences of three nucleotides encoding some of the bodies' 20 amino acids are a normal part of protein composition, abnormal expansion of trinucleotide repeats is the known cause of multiple inherited neurodegenerative disorders, including Huntington disease.

14 Nov 2007

Life-threatening gene defect related to thoracic aortic disease discovered

A research team led by scientists at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston has identified a defective gene that affects vascular smooth-muscle cells in people who suffer from hereditary thoracic aortic disease, which can kill victims with little warning in the prime of their lives.

13 Nov 2007

Anti-inflammation molecule helps fight MS-like disease

An immune system messenger molecule that normally helps quiet inflammation could be an effective tool against multiple sclerosis (MS). Neurology researchers led by Abdolmohamad Rostami, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Neurology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University and the Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience in Philadelphia, have found that the protein interkeukin-27 (IL-27) helped block the onset or reverse symptoms in animals with an MS-like disease.

13 Nov 2007

Omega-3 rich oils lower risk of memory problems, omega-6 rich oils may increase risk

A diet rich in fish, omega-3 oils, fruits and vegetables may lower your risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, whereas consuming omega-6 rich oils could increase chances of developing memory problems, according to a study published in the November 13, 2007, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

13 Nov 2007