Neuroscience

Magnetic fields such as those generated by overhead power lines are considered a potential health risk because epidemiological papers correlate them to neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Like other concepts that catch the attention of a certain segment of the public, such as GMOs causing cancer, vaccines causing autism, or cell phones causing cancer, it relies on a kernel of scientific truth that is extrapolated out to be a broad effect: Our bodies run on our internal electricity and magnetic fields shape how electricity behaves.…

Today most people do not get enough sleep. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has called insufficient sleep an epidemic. While we are finally paying attention to the importance of sleep, the need for dark is still mostly ignored. That’s right. Dark. Your body needs it too. Being exposed to regular patterns of light and dark regulates our circadian rhythm. Disruption of this rhythm may increase the risk of developing some health conditions including obesity, diabetes and breast cancer Light regulates our sleep and wake patterns The physiological processes that control the…

1 to 1.5 percent of the global population has epilepsy, about 50 million people, but various epidemiological data indicate that between 20 to 35 percent of children with autism have epilepsy. If there are neurobiological causes of this comorbidity, they are unknown.  Researchers at the University of Veracruz in Mexico have been searching for neurobiological reasons why a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is 20-30 percent more susceptible to seizures that a child without ASD. Angel Alberto Puig Lagunes, a doctoral student in Brain Research, works with two experimental models,…

Human beings are information seekers. We are constantly taking in details – big and small – from our environment. But the majority of the stuff we encounter in a given day we rarely need to remember. For instance, what are the chances that you need to remember where you ate lunch with a friend last Wednesday? But what if later on you learned that there was something important to remember about that lunch? The brain has a remarkable ability to store information that seems inconsequential at the time. So, if you learn that your friend got sick from what they ordered at lunch last week, then…

A new study suggests a possible role for caffeine treatment Alzheimer's disease (AD) treatment, by showing a link between caffeine and reductions in the beta amyloid plaque accumulation characteristic of Alzheimer's disease. The latest evidence linking beta amyloid protein to Alzheimer's disease and exploring the relationship between caffeine and beta amyloid are featured in a review article in Journal of Caffeine Research. In the article "Caffeine as Treatment for Alzheimer's: A Review," Abhishek Mohan, MD, PhD, Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA), and coauthors identify the potential…

The little voice inside your head telling you to eat that whole bag of Doritos is actually a cluster of about 10,000 specialized brain cells. But there may be help in eating just one - the discovery of tiny 'triggers' inside those cells that give rise to this "voice", and keep it speaking throughout life.  You'll have to take personal responsibility for a little while longer, the study was done in fish and mice, but it reveals how tiny bits of DNA can have a big influence on how the body regulates appetite and weight. It's the first documentation of exactly how a brain cell gene…

A new study using stem cells derived from patients who have  Parkinson's disease (PD) has confirmed for the first time what scientists have long suspected - that the most common mutation linked to both sporadic and familial Parkinson's disease (PD) wreaks its havoc by altering the function of mitochondria in neurons that produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. Mitochondria are energy-producing organelles found in large numbers in most cells and are necessary for life. Zeng says the Park2 mutation altered mitochondrial structure and function in dopamine producing neurons, causing them to…

If you want babies to learn faster, forget those "Baby Einstein" videos and defy their expectations a little. A new study has found  that babies learn new things by leveraging the core information they are born with. When something surprises a baby, like an object not behaving the way a baby expects it to, the baby not only focuses on that object, but ultimately learns more about it than from a similar yet predictable object. The study upcoming in Science involved four experiments with pre-verbal 11-month-old babies, designed to determine whether babies learned more effectively about…

Researchers have captured images of the underlying biological activity within brain cells and their tree-like extensions, or dendrites, in mice that show how their brains sort, store and make sense out of information during learning.  In a new study, neuroscientists tracked neuronal activity in dendritic nerve branches as the mice learned motor tasks such as how to run forward and backward on a small treadmill. They concluded that the generation of calcium ion spikes -- which appeared in screen images as tiny "lightning bolts" in these dendrites -- was tied to the strengthening or…

Patients with carpal tunnel syndrome are more than twice as likely to have migraine headaches, reports a study in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery--Global Open. The association also runs in the other direction, with migraine patients having higher odds of carpal tunnel syndrome. The researchers analyzed data from nearly 26,000 Americans responding to a national health survey. Among other questions, participants were asked whether they had had carpal tunnel syndrome during the past year or "severe headache or migraine" during the past three months. Patients with carpal tunnel syndrome have…