Archive for the ‘Medicine’ Category
In recent years, scientists have found several genetic mutations associated with an increased risk of suffering from mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
One such mutation, which affects the DISC1 gene, was first identified in a large Scottish family with high incidence of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression. Since then, studies have shown that mutations in the DISC1 can cause alterations in brain structure and cognition, but it was not known exactly how this occurred. Read the rest of this entry »
The patients, whose cholesterol levels are difficult to control with medication, could one day reduce your LDL “bad” with a needle, according to new research, which is in its first phase of preliminary tests in humans.
It has been shown that healthy volunteers who received the higher dose of the injection of this drug experienced a decrease in low density lipoprotein or “bad” cholesterol, which was, on average, 64 percent higher than that experienced by who received a placebo injection.
The injected material, led to a recently identified regulator of cholesterol, is a monoclonal antibody, that is, a human protein obtained in the laboratory. Monoclonal antibodies are already used to treat certain cancers and other diseases. Read the rest of this entry »
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 »
It has made significant progress toward the goal of creating a new class of drugs and vaccines to combat fungal infections that are resistant to conventional drugs.
Yeast infections represent the fourth most common cause of hospital-acquired infection, although healthy people are usually more associated with vaginal infections known as thrush or mouth. In extreme cases of vulnerable patients, these yeasts can circulate in the blood and spread throughout the body, causing systemic candidiasis. Read the rest of this entry »