Archive for the ‘Neurology’ Category
The hypothalamus has cells that act on the basis of the nutrients ingested. This finding would include specific nutrients in the diet of some patients during the sleep-wake cycle to optimize their diets.
“The brain, specifically the hypothalamus, contains not only cells able to detect the energy, but also others that can measure the dietary balance”, said Denis Burdakov, a researcher at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and author of the study published this week in the Neuron journal.
“This is hypocretinergic cells, which contain a molecule – the neuropeptide hypocretin-expressed in approximately 10,000 neurons in the hypothalamus, a brain region involved in controlling food intake, circadian rhythm, the sleep wake cycle and endocrine regulation”, says Luis de Lecea Read the rest of this entry »
Enters a new phase of the research, which began last year and which we reported about the remote control of ion channels, neurons and even animal behavior, using hot clusters of magnetic nanoparticles, acting in cell membranes.
Now, the research team, from the University at Buffalo (State University of New York), has received the American National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) $ 1.3 million to verify the possible ways of using these particles on the remote control of neurons, firstly in brains of mice.
If this project gets positive results, then the research team will be able to develop a powerful new tool for neurologists: a noninvasive technique to promote activity at high deep in the brain. Read the rest of this entry »
A new ultrasonic technique allows reaching the neurons through the blood brain barrier and applies safely and noninvasively appropriate drugs. Until now, scientists thought that the only way to reach ultrasonic these neurons was using long pulses, which, unfortunately, can cause significant side effects.
In contrast, this new study, a team of researchers led by Elisa Konofagou, professor of biomedical engineering and radiology at Columbia University in New York, has proven that very short ultrasonic pulses can open the blood-brain barrier, and also has the added advantage of not involving hazards and allow the application of the drug interest evenly.
This is a great step forward. Devastating diseases such as Alzheimer and Parkinson diseases, affecting millions of people today can not be treated as effectively as would be possible if there would be a safe and accurate way to apply drugs at specific points of brain. Read the rest of this entry »
A study of conscious dreamers, who can control their own dreams, shows that brain areas associated with planning and ordering the same actions are activated during sleep than during wakefulness.
The authors believe that in the future, the ability of these individuals, combined with neuroimaging and patterns of brain activity, will predict the content of dreams. There are people that, while they sleep, are aware they are dreaming and can control their actions. This complex condition is known as ‘lucid dreaming’ or conscious. People with this skill, you can learn and train, even access to his memory while building the dream. Read the rest of this entry »
Although considered a sign of boredom or fatigue, yawning could also serve to cool the brain when it is hot and the environment is cold enough air. A study led by Andrew Gallup, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University in the United States indicates that the frequency of yawning varies with the season, and that people are less likely to yawn when the outdoor heat exceeds the body temperature.
Gallup and Omar Eldakar (University of Arizona) believe that this seasonal disparity denotes that yawning can serve as a method to regulate the temperature of the brain. Gallup and Eldakar documented the frequency of yawning of 160 people during the winter and summer, in Tucson, Arizona, with a total of 80 people by each station. Read the rest of this entry »
The recent discovery of certain molecular-scale changes in the brains of women with major depressive disorder linking two hypotheses about the biological mechanisms that promotes this disease.
Although women are twice as likely as men to develop depression and have more severe symptoms and frequently, very few investigations to date have focused on them or in female mammals.
The psychiatrist team of Etienne Sibille, University of Pittsburgh, USA, examined brain tissue samples post-mortem of 21 women with depression and 21 similar women without a history of depression. Read the rest of this entry »
You could say that some people feel the need to pet any dog, cat or other animal they see on the street, while others simply startle appear on the screen to see a shark or a snake.
Whether you belong to the first group, and the second as the space between them, their reaction to the animals is based largely on a specific region of your brain that is prepared to rapidly detect non-human creatures. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) enrolled 41 patients with epilepsy in Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Read the rest of this entry »
Working memory or short-term memory is what gives us the ability to manipulate and use information briefly stored in the mind, while keeping it out of things that may be distracting.
This memory use for a phone number or email address just to see that we can remember long enough to type without having to write them down and consult.
Many psychologists explain the working memory with memory models based short-term care: A flexible system of the brain directs attention to the stimuli and tasks that are important, and delete the rest.
According to this theory, the capacity of working memory is limited by our ability to pay attention to one thing at a time. Read the rest of this entry »
A new study shows that neural networks in the brains of middle-aged and elderly have weaker connections and emit signals weaker than those of the young. That explains in large part, why older people often have a greater tendency to forget things, compared to younger people.
But the really amazing about this study is that we found suggests that memory could be corrected weakened.
As people age, they tend to forget things more easily distracted and experience more difficulty with the mental functions of executive.
They have long known of these deficiencies associated with age, but not well known cellular basis of these common cognitive difficulties. Read the rest of this entry »
Prolonged exposure to air pollution can lead to physical changes in the brain and cause learning and memory, and even anxiety. This is suggested by the results of new research on mice.
While other studies have shown the harmful effects of polluted air in the lungs and heart, this is the first to show the negative impact on the brain.
The team of Laura Fonken, Randy Nelson, Qinghua Sun and Sanjay Rajagopalan, the Ohio State University, USA, has spread to the brain a previous line of research which found that fine particulate matter floating in the air mainly because of air pollution caused by humans, causes swelling in much of the body, and may be related to high blood pressure problems, diabetes and obesity.
Fonken and colleagues exposed mice to filtered air or six hours each day, five days a week, over a period of 10 months, almost half the average life span of mice. Read the rest of this entry »