More than 16 million people in the U.S. take care of people with dementia. Could we learn something from how other cultures view dementia as more of a social disease rather than a lonely one?
In an epileptic brain, the neurons fire wildly.
Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock.com
During epileptic seizures, neurons in the brain fire without rhyme or reason. New research identifies a possible way to wrest back control by stopping these signals before they can get started.
Cells that transmit nerve impulses in the part of elephants’ brains responsible for functions such as learning and memory are structured differently from those of any other mammal.
Like the day’s newspaper, the brain has a temporary way to keep track of events.
TonTonic/Shutterstock.com
How do brains convert experiences into memories? New research explores the chain of events by focusing on what genes shift into gear when neurons are firing.
Psychedelic drugs have inspired great songs and works of art. But they may also have potential for treating disease like depression and PTSD by helping to regrow damaged regions of the brain.
Marius Wernig, Thomas C. Südhof and their colleagues created these “Induced neuronal (iN) cells” from adult human blood cells.
Marius Wernig
Figuring out what causes diseases like autism, schizophrenia and depression is tricky. Now Stanford University researchers are turning blood into brain cells to study these diseases in a dish.
HIV becomes dormant in the body and can hide in brain cells.
Joseph Lebowitz, Dr. Min Lin, and Dr. Habibeh Khoshboue
While drugs have been developed to treat HIV and AIDS, the virus can still lie dormant in the brain, increasing the risk for brain disease such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases.
Could it be that a baby has all the brain cells she ever will?
Jv Garcia on Unsplash
Neuroscience labs around the world may need to reevaluate some of their assumptions about whether what works in animals will really produce meaningful treatments for people.
A lone new neuron (green) in a 13-year-old’s hippocampus.
Sorrells et al
The scientists behind a controversial new study were surprised by their own results. But they carefully did all they could to ‘prove a negative,’ and their neurogenesis study is shaking up the field.
Harmful proteins spread between connected neurons much like flu spreads through a social network. The finding may provide future opportunities for halting Alzheimer’s.
What’s going on in there when you decide?
Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock.com
Shelly Fan, University of California, San Francisco
Tinkering with the brain’s electrical field shows tantalizing promise for boosting memory, but it doesn’t always work. A new study offers one reason why.
Enzymes, the catalysts of biology, can engulf and break down hundreds of nerve agent molecules per second.
Image: Pymol. PDB 4E3T rcsb.org
Scientists invented chemical weapons; some are now working to destroy them. New biomolecular design techniques let researchers design proteins that can destroy nerve agents in bodies.
A noninvasive brain-computer interface based on EEG recordings from the scalp.
Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering (CSNE), Photo by Mark Stone
Brain-computer interfacing is a hot topic in the tech world, with Elon Musk’s announcement of his new Neuralink startup. Here, researchers separate what’s science from what’s currently still fiction.