Neuroscience

Hearing voices that other people can’t is a meaningful experience. Like dreams, they can usually be understood in terms of one’s life experiences. Within mental health services, however, the prevailing medical model means some practitioners pay attention only to their presence, not their meaning. Psychiatry’s diagnostic bibles, the American DSM-5 and the World Health Organisation’s ICD-10, portray auditory hallucinations as symptoms of a mental disorder called schizophrenia, which most psychiatrists believe is caused by biochemical and genetic factors rather than a meaningful response to…

A novel computational approach to design has created a new compound that in laboratory studies has reduced deficits and neurodegenerative symptoms that underlie Parkinson’s disease. In their study, the researchers describe how their compound, dubbed NPT100-18A, prevents the binding and accumulation of alpha-synuclein or α-syn in neuronal membranes, now considered a hallmark of Parkinson’s disease and a related disorder called dementia with Lewy bodies. Parkinson’s disease, which affects more than 10 million people worldwide, is characterized by impairment or deterioration of neurons in the…

A new review of acupuncture evidence published in Acupuncture in Medicine claims acupuncture may help to improve mild cognitive impairment, the memory loss that may precede the development of dementia - at least if medicine is also used. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is an effort to quantify a transitional state between normal aging and dementia, whereby an affected person typically exhibits a subtle deterioration in memory capacity beyond what would be expected for his/her age. Around 5% of MCI cases will evolve into dementia so MCI is basically as clinically irrelevant as prediabetes,…

Back in the good old days, most deaths were due to infectious diseases. Today, thanks to modern technology,life expectancy has increased and the pattern of deaths has changed.  According to the CDC, today’s top ten leading causes of death only include two due toinfection. Both are infections of the lungs  - one is a mixture of infections (#3) and the other is influenza plus pneumonia (#8). Leading causes of death 2015 (CDC) Number of deaths in USA: 2,596,993 Death rate: 821.5 deaths per 100,000 population Life expectancy: 78.8 years 1. Heart disease 614,348 2. Cancer…

In humans and other mammals, the cerebral cortex is responsible for sensory, motor, and cognitive functions. Understanding the organization of the neuronal networks in the cortex should provide insights into the computations that they carry out. A study shows that the global architecture of the cortical networks in primates (with large brains) and rodents (with small brains) is organized by common principles. Despite the overall network invariances, primate brains have much weaker long-distance connections, which could explain why large brains are more susceptible to certain mental illnesses…

For many years, scientists have believed that there is a connection between severe antisocial behavior and abnormal brain development. But there has been very little research testing this idea. In a recent study, we used MRI to study the brains of teenagers diagnosed with conduct disorder, a psychiatric disorder involving severe antisocial behavior and aggression. Our results suggest that the brain develops differently in young people with conduct disorder compared with young people without behavior problems. They also provide further evidence that conduct disorder is a real psychiatric…

Why does delaying bedtime create chronic sleepiness? We may be creeping a little closer to knowing, thanks to a paper on fruit flies in Cell. Fruit flies have sleep remarkably similar to people and researchers say they found a group of brain cells in charge of so-called sleep drive that becomes more active the longer flies are kept awake. The same mechanism, they say, also plays a role in putting the flies to sleep and keeping them that way.  In their search for sleep-regulating cells the researchers used genetic engineering to turn on small numbers of neurons in more than 500…

Our brains work on inductance, that is why electricity can take us to a very weird place. But safe levels of electrical stimulation can enhance your capacity to think more creatively, according to a new paper in Cerebral Cortex. If that sounds disturbingly like probiotics, but with far more risk of things going wrong, you are not wrong. Yet the scholars writing about Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) to stimulate an area of the brain known to be associated with creativity in combination with giving test subjects verbal cues to think more creatively says they are onto…

A study finds that the brains of young adult marijuana users react differently to social exclusion than do those of non-users.  Activation of the insula, a region of the brain that is usually active during social rejection, was reduced in young marijuana users when they were being excluded from participation in virtual game of catch.  Several studies have indicated that adolescents and young adults who use marijuana are more likely than older individuals to become dependent or develop problems with thinking and learning. But while young adults often use marijuana in social setting…

Left and right brained makes a difference, even for those good at math. Large numbers are processed in the left side of the brain while small numbers are processed in the right side of the brain, according to a new paper.  The brain is divided into two halves - the left side controls the right half of the body, and vice versa. Generally, one side of the brain is more dominant than the other. For example, people who are right-handed tend to have more activity in the left side of their brains. Previous studies have highlighted the general region where the brain handles numbers - in an area…