Sensations in Biological News

Restless legs syndrome affects nearly 2 percent of US/UK children

... is a neurological sleep disorder characterized by sensations in the legs that create an urge to move. Symptoms ... movement disorder also have RLS. Others lack the sensations in the legs that typify RLS. Most of what is ... dismiss childrens complaints about unusual sensations in their legs as nothing more than growing pains, ...

Genital stimulation opens door for cryptic female choice in tsetse flies

... that is typical of this species of tsetse fly and by smoothing a bristly surface by applying a coat of nail polish. In addition, they modified the sensations perceived by the female from these structures by altering the female sense organs on the portions of her body that these male structures contact ...

New findings in taste and smell

... AChemS, corporations, and the National Institutes of Health. Highlighted topics include: Thermal taste: association with perception of oral sensations and food and beverage behavior Plasticity in expression of chemoreceptor genes in Drosophila melanogaster Recognizing Taste Stimuli below the ...

Mayo Clinic researchers suspect a novel gene is causing restless legs syndrome in a large family

... at the Mayo Clinic campus in Florida, diagnosed restless legs syndrome. This common neurologic disorder interrupts sleep because of unpleasant sensations in the legs at rest, especially in the evening, that are temporarily relieved by movement. Restless legs syndrome affects between 5 and 11 ...

Penn biophysicists create new model for protein-cholesterol interactions in brain and muscle tissue

... and muscle cells causing the channel to open and allow ions to cross the membrane. Anesthetics, for example, close the channel, which can reduce sensations and cause the memory loss associated with being "put under." The receptor is a cation-selective channel central to both neuronal and muscular ...

Loneliness undermines health as well as mental well-being

... "We try to offer some help for those who've become stuck," said Patrick. "The process begins in rediscovering those positive, physiological sensations that come during the simplest moments of human contact. But that means overcoming the fear and reaching out." "Lonely people feel a hunger," ...

Veterinary college researcher studying brain tumors in people and animals

... Gliomas arise from glial cells, according to Rossmeisl, which play numerous supporting roles for neurons, brain cells that control thought, sensations and motion. Glial cells outnumber neurons by a factor of about ten to one in the brain, and they play an essential role in creating the architecture ...

Irritating smells alert special cells, NIH-funded study finds

... to the odors and relayed sensory information to trigeminal nerve fibers. Once stimulated, the trigeminal nerve will convey pain and burning sensations and can trigger protective reflexes such as gagging and coughing. The architecture of nasal tissue with solitary chemosensory cells on the surface ...

1 person out of every 1,000 has synaesthesia, in which an individual can smell a sound

... music, for instance). There are also cases, although fewer, where people can see colours in flavours, others perceive flavours or experience touch sensations when listening to different sounds, some link flavours to touch sensations, etc. An permanent vision These researchers from Granada ...

Wired for sound: How the brain senses visual illusions

... of rapid integration of auditory and visual sensations in the brain. Their findings, which provide new ... the field that show how integration of multiple sensations can happen much more rapidly than we thought ... that an almost-simultaneous integration of the sensations may actually take place in the brain." The ...

Women feel more pain than men, research shows

... for example concentrating on the physical sensations they experience. "Our research has shown that ... is the tendency to be fearful of anxiety-related sensations (e.g., rapidly beating heat), and seems to be ... believe that it is the fear of anxiety-related sensations and an increased tendency to negatively interpret ...

Rewarding fat rats

... and, hence, their leptin levels. They found that restricting the rats' diet to one meal per day not only made them lose weight, but also made reward sensations stronger. Conversely, increasing the level of leptin in the brain weakened the reward sensation. Their work has appeared in notable journals such as ...

Are scientists making progress in being able to regenerate bone tissue?

... major problems with such grafts—for example, removing bone from a different part of the body can lead to post-operative pain, infection, and abnormal sensations at the removal site. An alternative is to use bone given by a donor—but such bone grafts from donors are less successful and there is a risk of ...

New brain-chemistry differences found in depressed women

... the depressed women, too, in some areas of the brain. In the rostral anterior cingulate, which is involved in mood regulation and the integration of sensations and emotions, women who later responded to antidepressant treatment had far lower mu-opioid responses than women who did not respond to medication. ...

Smokers invite to test vaccine against nicotine addiction

... smoking. Normally when a smoker inhales, nicotine is carried by the bloodstream to the brain, where it triggers neuro-receptors to generate positive sensations that can lead to addiction. The vaccine stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies that recognize the small nicotine molecule. Bound to these ...

UF scientists restore sight to chickens with blinding disease

... to be smiling at or looking at faces. Children may also poke or rub their eyes, behaviors clinically known as oculo-digital signs that may produce sensations of sight." Work remains to refine the viral delivery system that transfers the healthy genes to the photoreceptor cells. In addition, solutions ...

Obese people are more sensitive to pain, suggests study

... electrical shock to a patient's sural nerve, a nerve that extends along the ankle and into the calf. This kind of electrical stimulation causes sensations of tingling and mild pain in the lower leg. The researchers determined the body's response to sural nerve stimulation by measuring the reflex of ...

Brain differences could explain why males and females experience pain relief differently

... the Journal of Comparative Neurology, is the first report of specific differences in the parts of the brain responsible for the transmission of pain sensations in the body. The study used rat brains, but a host of clinical evidence suggests that similar differences occur in humans ?in other words, this ...

A link is found between morphine addiction and the tendency to explore

... to drugs become addicts, therefore there may be personality characteristics that influence their use. One such characteristic is the pursuit of new sensations found in people that like looking for risk at all times. Although some studies have already suggested a link between these people and a higher ...

Nose odors and mouth odors: The brain distinguishes

... they wrote. "For example, we may say that we like the 'taste' of a wine, because of its fruity or spicy notes. However, gustation refers only to the sensations of sweet, sour, salty, savory, and bitter, and thus the pleasant 'taste' to which we refer is actually a pleasant odor sensed retronasally." "The ...

Thinking the pain away? Study shows the brain's painkillers may cause 'placebo effect'

... a medicine (in fact, a placebo) that might relieve pain. Every 15 seconds during the scans, they were asked to rate the intensity of their pain sensations on a scale of 0 to 100, and they gave more detailed first-person ratings after the experiment. The researchers correlated the participants' ratings ...

To translate touch, the brain can quickly rearrange its sense of the body

... had been previously thought and that such updates can happen very quickly, altering within a matter of seconds how body parts and individual touch sensations are perceived. The work is reported by researchers Frederique de Vignemont, Henrik Ehrsson, and Patrick Haggard at University College London. ...

Activation of thermoreceptors mediates raw garlic's burning pungency

... with its raw, uncooked state. Researchers this week report that this pungency, manifested as a characteristic mixture of burning and prickling sensations and flavor, can be ascribed largely to the effects of a particular compound and its ability to activate specific protein thermoreceptors in the ....

Scientists journey to southern Africa to unravel the secret world of elephant communication

... their keen senses of smell and hearing on unfamiliar noises and odors in the air. But O'Connell-Rodwell believes they could be responding to tactile sensations as well. "Bulls often lay their trunk on the ground when freezing," she observes. "We think they may be using it as a tool to detect vibrations in ...

Canada approves marijuana-based pain spray

... cent of people with MS suffer from chronic neuropathic pain. 2,3,4 The most common descriptions of neuropathic pain are of freezing, cold or burning sensations usually of the limbs and most often of the lower extremities.5 Many individuals with neuropathic pain respond inadequately to current treatment ...