An estimated 3.4 million people suffer a concussion each year in the US. “Concussions can contribute to long-term changes within the brain and these changes are the result of cell death, which may be caused by oxidative stress,” explained Brandon Lucke-Wold of West Virginia University (Morgantown) in a press release. Lucke-Wold hypothesized that antioxidants mightContinueContinue reading “Antioxidant counters long-term concussion damage”
Tag Archives: nervous system
Refining HDAC inhibition to restore memory
Alzheimer disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that impairs memory and mental function. It is the most common form of dementia, accounting for 60–70% of cases, and its prevalence is increasing worldwide, a trend that is expected to continue for the next few decades. Memory loss in Alzheimer disease is driven by the loss ofContinueContinue reading “Refining HDAC inhibition to restore memory”
Neurons that fire when predicting others’ behavior
Cooperative social interactions require an individual to anticipate another’s actions when determining his or her own actions. For example, a person might choose to collaborate with a partner if he anticipates that the partner will also choose to collaborate but not if he anticipates that the partner will not choose to collaborate. These choices formContinueContinue reading “Neurons that fire when predicting others’ behavior”
A biocompatible neural implant
The mechanical mismatch between soft neural tissues and stiff neural implants hinders the use of these devices. To overcome this obstacle, researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland) led by Grégoire Courtine and Stéphanie Lacour sought to create neural implants with mechanical properties matching those of host tissues. They fashioned implants to mimic theContinueContinue reading “A biocompatible neural implant”
Thirst neurons identified in mice
Thirst is the fundamental instinct to drink water in response to dehydration. Neurons in a specific brain region called the subfornical organ (SFO) are activated by dehydration, leading investigators at Columbia University (New York, NY) to suspect that this region is involved in thirst regulation. Yuki Oka, Mingyu Ze and Charles Zuker explored this notionContinueContinue reading “Thirst neurons identified in mice”
Adaptive immunity in stress resilience
Mood and behavior are controlled by reciprocal associations between the central nervous system and peripheral systems including the immune system. Lymphocytes, the cells of the adaptive immune system, are affected by chronic stress, but it is not known how ‘stressed’ lymphocytes affect behavior in return. Miles Herkenham and his team at National Institutes of HealthContinueContinue reading “Adaptive immunity in stress resilience”
A nap to remember
Sleep and memory are closely related. In fruit flies, rodents and humans, sleep deprivation impairs memory consolidation, whereas sleep improves memory. But the physiological nature of the relationship between sleep and memory is poorly understood. Does the mechanism that promotes sleep also consolidate memory, or are there two separate processes at work? Paula Haynes, BethanyContinueContinue reading “A nap to remember”
A spinal neural circuit keeps mice moving
Among many other jobs, the nervous system uses streams of information gathered from multiple senses to guide movement. The eyes detect obstacles. Balance gauges in the ears keep the head level. And sensors in the muscles and joints monitor limb position. Much of the resulting flood of information is preprocessed by sensory circuits before itContinueContinue reading “A spinal neural circuit keeps mice moving”
Chicks go left for less, right for more
Most humans think of numbers as being ranged along a horizontal line, called the mental number line (MNL), with smaller values located to the left and larger values to the right. Relativity is a fundamental characteristic of the MNL: for example, in the numerical range of 1–9, 9 is located on the right, whereas inContinueContinue reading “Chicks go left for less, right for more”
The insect equivalent of the amygdala
Animals’ survival depends on their ability to gather information about their environment, process and evaluate that information, and then modify their behavior in response. In the vertebrate brain, the amygdala has a key role in evaluating sensory information. Scientists led by Silke Sachse (Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany) recently reported that aContinueContinue reading “The insect equivalent of the amygdala”
Fluent in Science 