brain 2 3

Tag: "brain" at biology news

Role of noise in neurons

...hey show that noise effects in ion channels in the brain are much larger than previously assumed ?meaning t...mpromised. Neurons in the cerebral cortex of the brain can have a wiring density of up to 4km per mm3 by using incredibly thin axons as wires, with an aver...

Vaccine prevents prion disease in mice

An oral vaccine can prevent mice from developing a brain disease similar to mad cow disease, according to research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 59th Annual Meeting in Boston, April 28 ?May 5, 2007. Prion diseases, which include scrapie, mad cow disease, and chronic wasting ...

8 plants from South Africa may hold potential for treating high blood pressure

...od pressure but offer additional protection to the brain and heart. ACEI, in particular, provide beneficial properties to patients with type 1 diabetes. In an effort to identify indigenous plants consumed by the local population in Kwa-Zulu Natal that hold potential antihypertensive properties, the rese...

A frown or a smile? Children with autism can't discern

...hear and they see, of course, but the areas of the brain that normally respond to such visual cues simply d... and Human Behavior at UCLA, the research compared brain activity between 16 typically developing children and 16 high-functioning children with autism. Whil...

Traumas like Sept. 11 make brains more reactive to fear

According to a new brain study, even people who seemed resilient but were c...rs -- particularly the amygdalae, the parts of the brain that judge emotional intensity and make emotional memories -- more sensitive in cases of PTSD. The...

Brain's white matter -- More 'talkative' than once thought

...more than just ferry information between different brain regions, but in fact process information the way g...the March issue of Nature Neuroscience, shows that brain cells “talk?with each other in more ways than previously thought. “We were surprised to see thes...

Newborn neurons like to hang with the 'in' crowd

...new kid on the block that tries to fit in, newborn brain cells need to find their place within the existing...to the fray and preferentially reach out to mature brain cells that are already well connected within the established circuitry, report scientists at the Sal...

Genetic roots of bipolar disorder revealed by first genome-wide study of illness

... to get a foothold on the genetics of this complex brain disorder," said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, MD. Most people occasionally have mood swings, but the shifts that occur in bipolar disorder, and the changes in behavior and energy level that accompany them, are sometimes disabling. Lithium and th...

Toxoplasmosis infection trick revealed by scientists

...evere cases, toxoplasmosis can cause damage to the brain and eyes, and even death Now researchers from London and Geneva have determined, for the first time, the atomic structure of a key protein which is released onto the surface of the parasite just before it invades host cells in the human body. They ...

Sleepless for science: Flies show link between sleep, immune system in Stanford study

...rain's central clock, which is the area of the fly brain that exhibits circadian gene activity, was responsible for the changes seen in the sick flies. But the behavior of the ill flies looked a lot like that of flies known to have disruptions in their genes controlling circadian rhythm. So the next ste...

Implanting dopamine generators in brain cells obtains improvement in Parkinson's in monkeys

Implanting dopamine generators (dopaminergics) in brain cells has produced improvement in the symptoms in ...m by which the implants in the striate area of the brain of dopamine-generating cells manage to ameliorate Parkinson's appears to be related to the capacity ...

Do fruit flies have free will?

... that there must be an evolved function in the fly brain which leads to spontaneous variations in fly behav... be to use genetics to localize and understand the brain circuits responsible for the spontaneous behavior. This step could lead directly to the development ...

Fast and slow -- How the spinal cord controls the speed of movement

...rchers believe that a neurotransmitter released by brain cells may contribute to activating a system of ner...faster movement. They suspect that damage to these brain cells may disrupt the release of dopamine, further complicating free movement. Fetcho and his group ...

Revealing the machinery underlying the 'plastic' juvenile brain

...es of neurobiology is what properties of the young brain enable it to so adeptly wire itself to adapt to ex...sticity. The extraordinary plasticity of the young brain occurs only during a narrow window of time known as the critical period. For example, children depri...

Biodegradable microspheres deliver time release vaccines, stimulate different immune response

... was already being used as a delivery system for a brain cancer drug designed to inhibit tumor growth. "It's like an Everlasting Gobstopper or a bar of soap. It wears away slowly over time, delivering its payload," says Wilson-Welder. The researchers vaccinated mice with microspheres loaded with ova...

Brain maps online

...tlases ever constructed, with over 50 terabytes of brain image data directly accessible online. Users can e...cedented level of detail, from a broad view of the brain to the fine details of nerves and connections. The website also includes a suite of free, downloadab...

Get a whiff of this: Smell test could sniff out serious health problems

...ecause there is less neurological machinery in the brain devoted to processing the sense of smell. “So, that’s the reason it might be acting a little bit like the canary in the mineshaft. Because it’s more fragile, when you have insult to the brain, it may be sensitive to loss earlier in the disease proces...

Man's best friend lends insight into human evolution

...to solve social problems may have emerged once the brain systems mediating fear were altered ?and the same thing may have occurred in human evolution. Chimps, he says, are constrained in solving cooperative problems by their impulse to fear more dominant individuals and behave aggressively toward more subo...

Deconstructing brain wiring, one neuron at a time

...ave long said they won't be able to understand the brain until they can put together a "wiring diagram" ?a ...in the extraordinarily complex architecture of the brain and then correlate these neural circuits with such brain functions as perception and behavior. But t...

NIDA study identifies genes that might help some people abstain from smoking

...tein kinase gene, which plays a key role in normal brain development. In addition to genes implicated in intracellular signaling and intercellular interactions, a number of genes involved in other processes have also been identified. While many of the genes identified through this effort make sense becaus...

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10