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Entirely different signal paths and parts of the brain are involved when you try to remember something and when you just happen to remember something, prompted by a smell, a picture, or a word, for instance.

Scientists have identified a double agent in the eye that, once triggered, can morph from neuron protector to neuron killer. The discovery has significant health implications since the neurons killed through this process results in vision loss and blindness.

A new study identifies for the first time a brain protein called SynDIG1 that plays a critical role in creating and sustaining synapses, the complex chemical signaling system responsible for communication between neurons.

New research into how the brain controls the movements of limbs could prompt major advances in understanding the human brain and the development of prosthetic limbs.

One of the holy grails of local anesthesia is the ability to achieve a long-lasting nerve block that eliminates pain sensation while not affecting motor function. Now, researchers have discovered an anesthetic approach that seems to do just that.

Scientists have discovered a molecular link between Parkinson’s disease and defects in the ability of nerve cells to communicate. The study provides new insight into the mechanisms underlying Parkinson’s disease, and could lead to innovative new therapeutic strategies.

Neurobiologists have discovered information about how the brain processes sound that challenges previous understandings of the auditory cortex. Their research shows our brains are a lot more chaotic than previously thought, and that this might be a good thing.

Expert sportsmen are quicker to observe and react to their opponents’ moves than novice players, exhibiting enhanced activation of the cortical regions of the brain. More experienced sports players are better able to detect early anticipatory clues from opposing players’ body movements, giving them a split second advantage in preparing an appropriate response.

In a novel study that used historical tape of a thrilling overtime basketball game between Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, brain researchers at Duke have found that fans remember the good things their team did much better than the bad.

New research provides insight into why fragile X syndrome, the most common known cause of autism and mental retardation, is associated with an extreme hypersensitivity to sounds, touch, smells, and visual stimuli that causes sensory overload and results in social withdrawal, hyperarousal, and anxiety. The study uncovers a previously unknown developmental delay in a critical brain circuit that processes sensory information in a mouse model of fragile X syndrome.

Why do people with fragile X syndrome, a genetic defect that is the best-known cause of autism and inherited mental retardation, recoil from hugs and physical touch? New research has found in fragile X syndrome there is delayed development of the sensory cortex, the part of the brain that responds to touch, according to a study from Northwestern University. This delay may trigger a domino effect and cause further problems with wiring of the brain.

Researchers are conducting the first FDA-approved clinical trial to determine whether an infusion of stem cells from umbilical cord blood can improve the quality of life for children with cerebral palsy.

Mice that lack a particular antioxidant enzyme show impairment of cell energy centers called mitochondria. This leads to smaller and weaker muscles, and may help scientists better understand age-related muscle atrophy and other neuromuscular diseases.

New insights on what causes Alzheimer’s disease could arise from a recent discovery made by bioengineers. The finding concerns the infamous amyloid beta peptides (A²) — fragments of which form plaques thought to play a role in Alzheimer’s disease. The bioengineers found that amyloid beta peptides spontaneously trigger calcium waves in purified cultures of astrocyte cells extracted from the cortex region of rat brains and grown in the lab.

Neurotoxins from cone snails and spiders help neurobiologists to investigate the function of ion channels in neurons. They have developed a system which for the first time allows the targeted, long-lasting investigation of ion channel function in mammals and also their blockade with neurotoxins. In transgenic mice they succeeded in blocking chronic pain by introducing a toxin gene into the organism.

Researchers have made a major breakthrough in our understanding of nerve impulse generation within the brain. Brain cells communicate with each other by firing electrical impulses, which in turn rely upon special ion channels that are positioned at strategic locations in their membranes.

Scientists have found that adding a humanized monoclonal antibody called daclizumab to standard treatment reduces the number of new or enlarged brain lesions in patients with relapsing multiple sclerosis.

A brain researcher has discovered the workings of a process that had been completely overlooked until now, and that allows nerve cells in the brain to grow and form complex networks. The study shows that an enzyme which usually controls the destruction of protein components has an unexpected function in nerve cells: it controls the structure of the cytoskeleton and thus ensures that nerve cells can form the tree-like extensions that are necessary for signal transmission in the brain.

Highly fit multiple sclerosis patients perform significantly better on tests of cognitive function than similar less-fit patients, a new study shows. In addition, MRI scans of the patients showed that the fitter MS patients showed less damage in parts of the brain that show deterioration as a result of MS, as well as a greater volume of vital gray matter.

Humans and animals are able to perceive even the slightest vibration and touch of the skin. Mechanosensitive ion channels play a crucial role in the mediation of these sensations. Researchers have now discovered that the presence of a protein filament causes the ion channels to open and shut like a tethered gate.

Scientists are gaining a better understanding of the molecular mechanism at play in mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), commonly called concussions. Although mTBI affects over one million people each year in the United States, it is generally ignored as a major health issue.

Researchers have found that a new synthetic magnesium compound works on both young and aging animals to enhance memory or prevent its impairment. Their study was carried out over a five-year period and has significant implications for the use of over-the-counter magnesium supplements.

Researchers have found that elevated cerebrospinal fluid levels of phosphorylated tau231, a damaged tau protein found in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, may be an early diagnostic biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease in healthy adults.

People can reduce their sensitivity to pain by thickening their brain, according to a new study. Researchers have made their discovery by comparing the gray matter thickness of Zen meditators and non-meditators. They found evidence that practicing the centuries-old discipline of Zen can reinforce a central brain region (anterior cingulate) that regulates pain.

When a gene implicated in human autism is disabled in mice, the rodents show learning problems and obsessive, repetitive behaviors, researchers have found.

Researchers have demonstrated in rats that transplanting genetically modified adult stem cells into an injured spinal cord can help restore the electrical pathways associated with movement.

A paralyzed patient implanted with a brain-computer interface device has allowed scientists to determine the relationship between brain waves and attention. Characteristic activity patterns known as beta and delta oscillations have been observed in various regions of the brain since the early 20th century, and have been theoretically associated with attention. The unique opportunity to record from human motor cortex allowed researchers to investigate this relationship more thoroughly than ever before.

The use of virtual reality Wii game technology holds the promise as a safe and feasible way to help patients recovering from stroke improve their motor function. Researchers said it’s too early to recommend it as standard stroke rehabilitative therapy.

In reports of two new studies, researchers say they have identified the mechanisms rooted in two anatomical brain abnormalities that may explain the onset of schizophrenia and the reason symptoms don’t develop until young adulthood. Both types of anatomical glitches are influenced by a gene known as DISC1, whose mutant form was first identified in a Scottish family with a strong history of schizophrenia and related mental disorders.

Researchers hope they have begun paving a new pathway in the fight against drug dependence. Their hypothesis — that increasing the normally occurring process of making nerve cells might prevent addiction — is based on a rodent study demonstrating that blocking new growth of specific brain nerve cells increases vulnerability for cocaine addiction and relapse.

Hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP) is the name given to a group of inherited neurological disorders characterized by progressive stiffness or tightness of the muscles (spasticity) in the lower limbs. Although mutations at over 40 genetic sites have been shown to cause HSP, more than 50% of HSP cases are caused by mutations in one of just three genes: SPG3A, which makes the protein atlastin-1; SPG31, which makes the protein REEP1; and SPG4, which makes the protein spastin.

Schizophrenia is an incredibly complex and profoundly debilitating disorder that typically manifests in early adulthood but is thought to arise, at least in part, from pathological disturbances occurring during very early brain development. Now, a new study manipulates a known schizophrenia susceptibility gene in the brains of fetal mice to begin to unravel the complex link between prenatal brain development and maturation of information processing and cognition in adult animals.

Reversing a protein deficiency through gene therapy can correct motor function, restore nerve signals and improve survival in mice that serve as a model for the lethal childhood disorder spinal muscular atrophy, new research shows. This muscle-wasting disease results when a child’s motor neurons — nerve cells that send signals from the spinal cord to muscles — produce insufficient amounts of what is called survival motor neuron protein, or SMN.

Researchers have found a new mechanism by which a key protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease can spread within the human brain. The study provideas a new explanation of how the protein tau, a normal human protein that becomes toxic in Alzheimer’s patients, can appear in their cerebrospinal fluid.

Researchers are now a step closer to deciphering a leading cause of blindness in the United States — glaucoma. They found that the first sign of injury in glaucoma actually occurs in the brain. The findings show that glaucoma is very much like other neurodegenerative central nervous system diseases.

Neurobiologists are providing the first visual evidence that learning promotes brain health — and, therefore, that mental stimulation could limit the debilitating effects of aging on memory and the mind.

Amyloid-beta protein — the primary constituent of the plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients — may be part of the body’s first-line system to defend against infection. In a new study, researchers describe evidence that amyloid-beta protein is an antimicrobial peptide, part of the innate immune system.

Scientists have uncovered a vital clue into how the brain is wired, which could eventually steer research into nervous system disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and cognitive disorders including autism.

A new study may lead to new forms of treatment following a better understanding of how amyloid-beta found in cerebral plaques, typically present in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients, may lead to neurodegeneration.

Scientists investigating how prion diseases destroy the brain have observed a new form of the disease in mice that does not cause the sponge-like brain deterioration typically seen in prion diseases. Instead, it resembles a form of human Alzheimer’s disease, cerebral amyloid angiopathy, that damages brain arteries.

The signaling molecule CD95L, known as “death messenger,” causes an inflammatory process in injured tissue after spinal cord injuries and prevents its healing, according to a new study by scientists in Germany. In mice, the researchers found out that if they switch off CD95L, the injured spinal cord heals and the animals regain better ability to move. Therefore, substances which block the death messenger might offer a new approach in the treatment of severe inflammatory diseases.

Researchers have successfully reconstructed 3-D hand motions from brain signals recorded in a non-invasive way. This finding uses a technique that may open new doors for portable brain-computer interface systems. Such a non-invasive system could potentially operate a robotic arm or motorized wheelchair — a huge advance for people with disabilities or paralysis.

There is a link between repeated anesthesia in children and memory impairment, though physical activity can help to form new cells that improve memory, reveals new research.

It turns out that there is a striking similarity between how the human brain determines what is going on in the outside world and the job of scientists. Good science involves formulating a hypothesis and testing whether this hypothesis is compatible with the scientist’s observations. Researchers have now shown that this is what the brain does as well. A study shows that it takes less effort for the brain to register predictable as compared to unpredictable images.

Scientists have gained new insight into why a relatively short-term hearing deprivation during childhood may lead to persistent hearing deficits, long after hearing is restored to normal. The research reveals that, much like the visual cortex, development of the auditory cortex is quite vulnerable if it does not receive appropriate stimulation at just the right time.

Rhesus monkey babies born to mothers who had the flu while pregnant had smaller brains and showed other brain changes similar to those observed in human patients with schizophrenia, a study has found.

A clinical research trial of a new treatment to restore brain cells damaged by stroke has passed an important safety stage, according to the neurologist who led the effort.

Neural activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex can predict whether an individual will still be upset on the day after a conflict with his or her partner, according to new research. The findings point to the brain region’s role in emotion regulation, and suggest that greater activity in this area might lead to improvement in day-to-day mood.

Maternal behavior itself can trigger the development of new neurons in the maternal brain independent of whether the female was pregnant or has nursed, according to a new study. The study was performed in adult, virgin rats.

The human brain works at a far higher level of complexity than previously thought. What has been given little attention up to now in the information processing of neuronal circuits has been the time factor. “Liquid computing” — a new theory about how these complex networks of nerve cells actually work — has just passed its first test.