Neuroscience
A study out today says has confirmed a link between antipsychotic medication and a measurable, decrease in brain volume in patients with schizophrenia.
The research say this is the first time research has been able to examine whether this decrease is harmful for patients' cognitive function and symptoms, and noted that over a nine year follow-up, this decrease did not appear to have any effect.
As we age, our brains naturally lose some of their volume – in other words, brain cells and connections. This process, known as atrophy, typically begins in our thirties and continues into old age.…
A new paper has found that drug paraphernalia triggers the reward areas of the brain differently in dependent and non-dependent marijuana users.
The 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug in the United States. According to a 2013 survey from the Pew Research Center, 48 percent of Americans ages 18 and older have tried marijuana. The National Institute on Drug Abuse states that 9 percent of daily users will become dependent on marijuana.
The study in Drug and Alcohol Dependence found that different areas of the brain activated when…
Taking B vitamins doesn't slow mental decline nor will it prevent Alzheimer's disease, according to clinical trial data involving 22,000 people.
High levels in the blood of a compound called homocysteine have been found in people with Alzheimer's disease, and people with higher levels of homocysteine have been shown to be at increased risk of Alzheimer's disease.
Taking folic acid and vitamin B-12 are known to lower levels of homocysteine in the body, so this gave rise to the 'homocysteine hypothesis' that taking B vitamins could reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease.
But a new analysis…
A decreased ability to identify odors might indicate the development of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease, according to results of research reported at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference 2014 in Copenhagen.
Examinations of the eye could also indicate the build-up of beta-amyloid, a protein associated with Alzheimer's, in the brain.
In two of the studies, the decreased ability to identify odors was significantly associated with loss of brain cell function and progression to Alzheimer's disease. In two other studies, the level of beta-amyloid detected in the…
Pornography triggers brain activity in people with compulsive sexual behavior – sex addiction – similar to that triggered by drugs in the brains of drug addicts, according to new paper.
Some psychologists claim up to 4 percent of adults is affected by compulsive sexual behavior, an obsession with sexual thoughts, feelings or behavior which they are unable to control. This is different than the usual level of sexual thinking, called 'being a man'.
Like any compulsion, it can have an impact on a person's personal life and work, leading to significant distress and feelings of shame.…
What's a concussion? Since 10 doctors can give 10 different answers it's unclear, but they are the subject of a lawsuit by former NFL football players, and thus concern has trickled down to school age children and there needs to be a consistent evidence-based definition.
A research review has identified the clinical indicators most strongly associated with concussion as an important first step in the process of developing evidence-based guidelines for concussion diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment.
Based on analysis of the best available research data, a multidisciplinary panel of experts…
As with people, some chimpanzees are smarter than others, and as with people, a lot of that variation in intelligence depends on the genes that individuals carry and pass on from one generation to the next.
A new study found no effect of either sex or rearing history on the cognitive skills of chimpanzees. That is, chimpanzees raised by human caretakers performed no better on cognitive tests delivered to them by humans than did individuals raised by their chimpanzee mothers.
The role of genetics in intelligence has long been debated in scientific circles, the researchers say. It is now…
Feelings are personal and subjective, just like all of psychology, but the human brain turns them into a standard code that objectively represents emotions across different senses, situations and even people, according to a new paper.
The authors set out to gain insight into how the brain represents our innermost feelings – what they call the last frontier of neuroscience – and upend the long-held view that emotion is represented in the brain simply by activation in specialized regions for positive or negative feelings.
"We discovered that fine-grained patterns of neural activity…
A new study found that using cinnamon, the common food spice and flavoring material, can reverse the biomechanical, cellular and anatomical changes that occur in the brains of mice with Parkinson's disease.
Parkinson's disease is a slowly progressive disease that affects a small area of cells within the mid-brain known as the substantia nigra. Gradual degeneration of these cells causes a reduction in a vital chemical neurotransmitter, dopamine. The decrease in dopamine results in one or more of the classic signs of Parkinson's disease that includes: resting tremor on one side of the…
24 hours of sleep deprivation can lead healthy people to a condition similar to the symptoms of schizophrenia, which could serve as a model system for the development of drugs to treat psychosis.
In psychosis, there is a loss of contact with reality and this is associated with hallucinations and delusions. The chronic form is referred to as schizophrenia, which likewise involves thought disorders and misperceptions. Affected persons report that they hear voices, for example.
An international team of researchers has found out that after 24 hours of sleep deprivation in healthy patients,…