Scientists identified a type of immune cell that helps clear waste products in the brain, suggesting new strategies for preventing and treating Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders.
Category: neuroscience – Page 650
Acid produced by the brain could drive disease-related psychosis
A chemical called kynurenic acid may play a role in diseases characterised by cognitive impairments or psychosis, including schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease and bipolar disorder. Newly developed drugs that reduce this acid in the brain show promise in reducing symptoms of these conditions.
Study explores how emotions elicited
Some neuroscience studies suggest that distinct human emotional states are associated with greater activity in different regions of the brain. For instance, while some parts of the brain have been associated with all emotional responses, the hypothalamus has often been linked to sexual responses and feelings of intimacy, the hippocampus to the retrieval of emotion-eliciting memories, and the amygdala to fear and anger.
Humans can experience emotional responses to an extremely wide range of sensory and environmental stimuli, including the food they consume. So far, however, relatively few studies have explored the link between emotional states elicited by different food flavors and activity in different parts the cortex (i.e., the part of the brain responsible for higher cognitive processes).
Researchers at Niigata University, Hyogo College of Medicine, Meiji University, the Sakagami Dental Clinic and Otemae Junior College have recently carried out a study investigating the emotional responses elicited by differently flavored chewing gums and the cortical activity associated with these responses. Their findings, published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, highlight the potential role of the left prefrontal cortex in eliciting emotional states during the consumption of palatable (i.e., pleasant-tasting) or less flavorful foods.
A key enzyme in brain function shuts off randomly, study reveals
The finding could have implications on drug development beyond neuroscience.
A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Copenhagen has found that V-ATPase, an enzyme thought to be a key component of brain function, switches off randomly, even for hours at a time. This discovery has the potential to change our understanding of how our brain functions, according to a press release.
V-ATPase is an enzyme that can break down ATP molecules, the cell’s energy currency, as they pump protons across cellular membranes.
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Simply put, the enzyme is responsible for providing energy to fill up the membrane bladders between neighboring neurons with chemicals that are needed to transfer a message between them. Therefore, the enzyme is quite crucial for neuronal communication, or that’s what researchers have thought so far.
FDA just approved the world’s most expensive drug that costs $3.5 million
It could actually be cheaper than other treatment options.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved a new drug Hemgenix, to be used in patients with hemophilia B, a blood clotting disorder. Since the condition is rare, it will be used only in a small group of patients worldwide.
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Since Hemophilia patients lack enough clotting factor, so they are at risk of complications of prolonged bleeding that can also affect joints, internal organs, and the brain, an FDA document said. Treatment for such individuals constitutes intravenous infusions of clotting Factor IX to prevent bleeding episodes, which must be conducted over the patient’s lifetime.
Dynamic molecular switches with hysteretic negative differential conductance emulating synaptic behaviour
To realize electronic operations beyond the von Neumann bottleneck, a new type of switch that can mimic self-learning is needed. Here, the authors demonstrate all-in-one-place logic and memory operations based on dynamic molecular switch that can emulate brain-like synaptic and Pavlovian response, bringing the field a step closer to molecular-scale hardware.
Study sheds new light on the link between oral bacteria and diseases
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have identified the bacteria most commonly found in severe oral infections. Few such studies have been done before, and the team now hopes that the study can provide deeper insight into the association between oral bacteria and other diseases. The study is published in Microbiology Spectrum.
Previous studies have demonstrated clear links between oral health and common diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. However, there have been few longitudinal studies identifying which bacteria occur in infected oral-and maxillofacial regions. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now analyzed samples collected between 2010 and 2020 at the Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden from patients with severe oral infections and produced a list of the most common bacteria.
This was a collaborative study that was performed by Professor Margaret Sällberg Chen and adjunct Professor Volkan Özenci’s research groups.
Study: MRI scans show widespread brain changes in children with ADHD
Nov. 23 (UPI) — Researchers said Wednesday they found changes in almost all the regions of the brain they investigated via MRI scan data of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Children with ADHD had abnormal connectivity in the brain networks involved in memory processing and auditory processing, a thinning of the brain cortex, and significant white matter microstructural changes, especially in the frontal lobe of the brain.
The results of the new research on brain biomarkers of ADHD — based on analysis of data from MRI exams of 7,805 children — is scheduled to be presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.