After several decades of pre-clinical development, cell- and gene-based therapies for Parkinson's disease (PD) are now actively being explored. In this special supplement to the Journal of Parkinson's Disease on "Repairing the Parkinsonian Brain," experts highlight some of the current strategies being pursued to restore lost function and replace what is lost in the PD […]
Our visual memory system has a phenomenally large capacity. Flick through the image gallery on your phone, or fast forward through a previously watched movie, and notice how the briefly presented images trigger memories with little or no effort on your part. Well, my colleagues and I have harnessed this passive visual memory system to […]
In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers have examined the persistent effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection on the vascular function of otherwise healthy young adults. The research, published in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology, was chosen as an APSselect article for September. “It is intriguing that those with persistent [COVID-19] symptoms exhibited peripheral vascular dysfunction, […]
Reasoning is an ability that is unique to human cognition. However, despite our advances in neuroimaging techniques, we cannot clearly map the neural regions involved in human reasoning. In a new study, researchers from Korea came up with a new approach to understand the foundations of both inductive and deductive reasoning and identify the major […]
Imagine working on your computer and typing the same long password you have used for years to access your email. By habit, you perform this sequence almost unconsciously. But then, one day, you stumble upon a shortcut. It's faster but involves learning and remembering a new set of keystrokes. In a study of rodents, scientists […]
A set of brain signals known to help memories form may also influence blood sugar levels, finds a new study in rats. Researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine discovered that a peculiar signaling pattern in the brain region called the hippocampus, linked by past studies to memory formation, also influences metabolism, the process by […]
Why we sleep, and the processes behind sleep, are amongst the most interesting questions in modern neuroscience. Researchers at the University of Oxford have now uncovered a new target for sleep investigations within the mammalian brain – the cerebral cortex. The paper was published today in Nature Neuroscience. The cerebral cortex makes up about 80% […]
Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common type of dementia, causes the death of neurons and leads to shrinking of the brain. Patients with AD will eventually experience gradual deterioration in memory, thinking, behavior and the ability to perform everyday activities. Yet, scientists do not fully understand what causes this disease. A recent study conducted by […]
Might external stimuli—audiovisual and haptic—be used to train the brain to improved sleep patterns to treat insomnia? That’s the question a research team from India hopes to answer in work published in the International Journal of Medical Engineering and Informatics. E. Karuppathal and R. Kalpana of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Rajalakshmi Engineering College […]
A study analyzing the association between a wide variety of prenatal and childhood exposures and neuropsychological development in school-age children has found that organic food intake is associated with better scores on tests of fluid intelligence (ability to solve novel reasoning problems) and working memory (ability of the brain to retain new information while it […]
