Neuroscience

Fibromyalgia is frequently considered an 'invisible syndrome' since musculoskeletal imaging is negative.  Some researchers have thought that the pain reported by fibromyalgia patients was the result of depression rather than symptoms of a disorder. According to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, fibromyalgia syndrome is a common and chronic disorder characterized by widespread muscle pain, fatigue and multiple tender points. Tender points are specific places—for example, on the neck, shoulders, back, hips, and upper and lower extremities—where…

A study in the Nov. 1 issue of the journal Sleep is the first demonstration of a specific neurochemical abnormality in adults with primary insomnia, providing greater insight to the limited understanding of the condition's pathology.  Results indicate that gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the most common inhibitory transmitter in the brain, is reduced by nearly 30 percent in individuals who have been suffering from primary insomnia for more than six months. These findings suggest that primary insomnia is a manifestation of a neurobiological state of hyperarousal, which is present during…

We all experience memory errors from time to time and research has suggested that 'false' memories may be a result of having too many other things to remember or perhaps if too much time has passed. Some studies have indicated that a specific type of false memory known as "boundary extension" -  a mistake that we often make when recalling a view of a scene, like insisting that the boundaries of an image stretched out farther than what we actually saw - occurs for different reasons.   Boundary extension error is very common and occurs in people of all ages (from young children to the…

People who view pictures of someone they hate display activity in distinct areas of the brain that, together, may be thought of as a ‘hate circuit’, according to new research by scientists at University College London. The study, by Professor Semir Zeki and John Romaya of the Wellcome Laboratory of Neurobiology at UCL, examined the brain areas that correlate with the sentiment of hate and shows that the ‘hate circuit’ is distinct from those related to emotions such as fear, threat and danger – although it shares a part of the brain associated with aggression. The circuit is also quite…

It seems not everyone can forget the "Friends" television show.   Angelina Jolie may have gotten Brad Pitt but Jennifer Aniston is the one with her own namesake neuron. Professor Rodrigo Quian Quiroga, neuroscientist and bio-engineer, whose research was recently cited among the top papers in the world, is to reveal details of his studies into what has been dubbed the ‘Jennifer Aniston neuron’ during a public presentation at the University of Leicester. Quiroga discovered that a remarkable type of neuron in the brain fired in an ‘abstract’ manner to completely different pictures of…

Applying electrical stimulation to the scalp and the underlying motor regions of the brain could make you more skilled at delicate tasks. Research published today in the open access journal BMC Neuroscience shows that a non-invasive brain-stimulation technique, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), is able to improve the use of a person’s non-dominant hand.  Drs. Gottfried Schlaug and Bradley Vines from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, tested the effects of using tDCS over one side or both sides of the brain on sixteen healthy, right-handed…

Is schizophrenia a disorder of glutamate hyperactivity or hypoactivity?  The predominant hypothesis for many years was that schizophrenia is a glutamate deficit disorder but there is evidence of glutamate hyperactivity as well.  A new study by Karlsson et al., appearing in the November 1st issue of Biological Psychiatry, reinforces this point with new data about the impact of deleting the gene for the glutamate transporter EAAT1.   EAAT1, implicated in schizophrenia, plays a critical role in inactivating glutamate by removing it from the synaptic and extracellular spaces.…

Have you grown up without the ability to recognize voices?    If so, University College London wants to hear from you (no pun intended).    The firs case study of phonagnosia, reported in Neuropsychologia, is of a woman who is unable to recognize people by their voice, including her own daughter whom she has great difficulty identifying over the phone.  The woman, known as KH, avoids answering the phone whenever possible, and for many years has only answered 'scheduled' calls.   KH schedules calls with friends or co-workers, so she knows who to expect when the…

Skin provides the first level of defense to infection, serving not only as a physical barrier, but also as a site for white blood cells to attack invading bacteria and viruses. The immune cells in skin can over-react, however, resulting in inflammatory skin diseases such as atopic dermatitis and psoriasis.  Stress can trigger an outbreak in patients suffering from inflammatory skin conditions. This cross talk between stress perception, which involves the brain, and the skin is mediated the through the "brain-skin connection". Yet, little is know about the means by which stress aggravates…

The birth of new neurons (neurogenesis) does not end completely during development but continues throughout all life in two areas of the adult nervous system, i.e. subventricular zone and hippocampus. Recent research has shown that hippocampal neurogenesis is crucial for memory formation. These studies, however, have not yet clarified how the newborn neurons are integrated in the existing circuits and thus contribute to new memories formation and to the maintenance of old ones. The team of researchers of CNR-LUMSA-EBRI at the European Centre for Brain Research, organization established in…