Lifeboat Foundation

We as human have to live with a lot of unfortunate realities, including the fact that a lot of the things we love end up being bad for us. We all know by now that if we binge on tasty treats too much we’ll end up eating ourselves into an early grave, but in recent years it’s become increasingly clear that coffee, a well known vice of millions and millions of people, is actually pretty good for you.

Recent studies have shown that being a regular coffee drinker can reduce your risk of all kinds of ailments, including heart attack and stroke. Now, a new research effort reveals that dark roast coffee is particularly good at warding off some nasty brain conditions, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

We humans are intelligent, other living species are also intelligent but we build bridges and cars, we describe the universe and develop several languages while other species don’t. Well it seems the reason is that: we have a different hardware.

Neurons in human and rat brains carry electrical signals in different ways, scientists find.

Continue reading “Electrical properties of dendrites help explain our brain’s unique computing power” »

Scientists can’t see a disembodied brain and know whether it belonged to a man or a woman. So what’s up with stereotypes about men’s and women’s abilities?

LSD changes the communication patterns between regions of the brain, a new study by researchers of the University of Zurich and Yale University shows. The study also provides insights into how mental health disorders develop and how these could be treated.

The researchers used brain imaging technology to examine the effects of LSD on the brains of healthy study participants. The data suggests that LSD triggers a reduction in the communication between the brain regions that are responsible for planning and decision making. At the same time, LSD increases the connectivity in brain networks associated with sensory functions and movement.

Through a new approach dubbed AMBAR, the biotechnology company Grifols has attempted to reduce the amount of harmful, Alzheimer’s disease-causing amyloid beta in the brain by collecting it with a blood protein called albumin and draining it out of the bloodstream. This approach differs from the previous antibody and catabody approaches and offers new hope for sufferers of this neurodegenerative disease.

What is Alzheimer’s disease?

Alzheimer’s disease, named after its discoverer, is a slow and progressive disease that causes the degradation of the brains of its sufferers. This leads to memory loss, a decrease in problem-solving abilities, changes in personality, and other symptoms. It is associated with the accumulation of tau and amyloid beta in the brain.

Your perceptions of your parents directly affects your physical health and wellness, according to new research. And regardless if they are true, you might be stuck with them for life.

“There are things that happen to us in life that can alter our perceptions of the past, but it’s not always the objective—or what actually happened—that really affects us,” says lead author William Chopik, psychology professor at Michigan State University.

“What really impacts adults is how we psychologically interpret things and create memories. In short: our memories of our childhood predicted health and depression even though they may not even be based in reality,” Chopik says.

Rutgers scientists have created a tiny, biodegradable scaffold to transplant stem cells and deliver drugs, which may help treat Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, aging brain degeneration, spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injuries.

Stem cell transplantation, which shows promise as a treatment for central nervous system diseases, has been hampered by low cell survival rates, incomplete differentiation of cells and limited growth of neural connections.

So, Rutgers scientists designed bio-scaffolds that mimic natural tissue and got good results in test tubes and mice, according to a study in Nature Communications. These nano-size scaffolds hold promise for advanced stem cell transplantation and neural tissue engineering. Stem cell therapy leads to stem cells becoming neurons and can restore neural circuits.

Researchers have tended to overlook the cerebellum because of the difficulty in getting good scan data from the underside of the brain. That’s a mistake.

When the brain gets ready to process something we see, some neurons prepare for work, while others remain in a resting state.