Archive for the ‘Health’ Category
A new and fascinating investigation suggests that can be possible to use technology that act on the brain to achieve things as for example to learn to touch the guitar, to reduce the mental stress or to improve the aim, with little or no conscious effort, a technological capacity that seems in concept to it shown in the movies of the saga of “Matrix” and in other histories of science fiction.
The experiments carried out in the Boston University in United States, and the Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Japan, have shown that through the person’s visual cortex, researchers using brain interest patterns obtained through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), can induce bosses of mental activity in the brain of the subject, of such way that those bosses agree with them exhibited in certain states mental associates to the execution of the tasks that intends to teach, and improve the efficiency of the apprentice with that task. Read the rest of this entry »
When a person breaks his arm and let it hang motionless, his brain regions occupied other arm activities increase in size, while decreasing the related disabled members. A study by the University of Zurich shows that immobilization induces rapid reorganization of the sensor motor system.
The human brain is an organ in constant evolution. For example, if it is reduced sensation and mobility of some parts of the body, plastically transforms to adapt to new conditions. A group of researchers at Zurich of University have studied how brain structure changed from 10 right-handers who had broken his right arm and had to wear a splint or cast for at least 14 days.
After immobilizing we note a reduction in the amount of the white and grey matter on the left side of the brain. In addition, it increased motor skills of the left hand, which are related to an increase of these substances in the right-hand motor area. Read the rest of this entry »
Although many mental illnesses occur only in humans, animals sometimes exhibit abnormal behaviors similar to those seen in people with certain psychological disorders.
Now researchers at California Institute of Technology have found that mice lacking a gene encoding a particular protein present in brain synapses show a set of abnormal behaviors similar to those occurring in humans with schizophrenia, and as in people suffering from autism spectrum disorders.
Mary Kennedy’s team observed the effect in mice that lack the gene for a protein has densina-180, abundant in brain synapses, which are the connections between a neuron and electrochemical other connections that allow networking between them. Read the rest of this entry »
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 »
Most people understand that to lose weight significantly you must change the attitude towards what we choose to eat and how often you exercise. But what if you simply chewing gum after meals may contribute to this purpose? That is the question that a team of scientists is trying to answer.
In a pioneering study, the team of chemist Robert Doyle from the Syracuse University in New York has demonstrated for the first time an important hormone that helps people feel “full” after eating can be carried into the bloodstream by mouth. The research scientists have also worked at Murdoch University in Australia. Read the rest of this entry »
Electric cigarette are smokeless, and some also call it smokeless cigarettes. The e-cigarette in contrast to the traditional burning cigarette (you know the drill: tobacco + Fire => Smoke) – Let off steam, because nothing is burning. Therefore, the User by e-cigarette (or by e-cigars and e-pipes) spared from carbon monoxide, tar and more than 60 cancer-causing additives. The nicotine is highly toxic to him here by alternative methods of helping.
The e-cigarette consists of three main parts. The replaceable battery provides the energy required from the evaporator. Depending on the model of the liquid (liquid, “Juice”) in the cartridge (depot, cartridge) vaporized by heat or ultrasound. The liquid is often based on propylene glycol and contains the flavor and nicotine. For all electronic cigarette reviews electronic cigarette comparison is a nice site that you may visit.
Components of the e-cigarette:When sucking on the mouthpiece (custodian), the control electronics, a piezoelectric element to vibrate offset so that the atomized liquid carrier and a slightly heated aerosol is generated. Only lasts as long as the resulting negative pressure by the suction, the battery power is removed, which ensures a long operating life and corresponds to approximately one pack of cigarettes. Of course, the battery can be recharged with an external charger.
Depending on the size and model of the e-cigarette are the replaceable cartridge (or tank) 60-30 conventional cigarettes.
Among the causes of development of heart disease, smoking is one of the most important. Smokers have an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes in general, and death from such diseases, although the risk varies between individuals. So far, there has been no simple method to measure sufficiently detailed so the different effects of smoking on heart disease.
A team of researchers at Southwestern Medical Center, part of the University of Texas, has determined that a blood test may one day quantify the degree of toxicity to the lungs of a person and their risk of heart disease. The lung protein levels in the blood of smokers may indicate the risk of excessive accumulation of atheromatous plaques in blood vessels. 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 »