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Category: neuroscience – Page 865

Our Bodies Age in Three Distinct Shifts, According to More Than 4,000 Blood Tests

In terms of biological ageing, the body seems to shift gears three times during our lifespans, new research suggests – with 34 years, 60 years and 78 years the key thresholds.

In other words, we now have evidence that ageing isn’t one long, continuous process that moves at the same speed throughout our lives.

The findings might help us understand more about how our bodies start to break down as we get older, and how specific age-related diseases – including Alzheimer’s or cardiovascular disease – could be better tackled.

Common Genetic Link Between Autism and Tourette’s Discovered – Brain Communication Impaired

Lancaster University researchers have discovered, for the first time, how a genetic alteration that increases the risk of developing Autism and Tourette’s impacts on the brain.

Their research also suggests that ketamine, or related drugs, may be a useful treatment for both of these disorders.

Autism affects an estimated 2.8 million people in the UK while Tourette’s Syndrome — a condition that causes a person to make involuntary sounds and movements called tics –affects an estimated 300,000 people in the UK. The treatments available for both disorders are limited and new treatments are urgently required. Recent research has also shown that these disorders are genetically linked.

The neuroscience of isolation: A trip to Antarctica can shrink your brain

A striking new study has tracked the effects of extreme isolation on the brains of nine crew members who spent 14 months living on a remote research station in Antartica. The study presents some of the first evidence ever gathered to show how intense physical and social isolation can cause tangible structural changes in a person’s brain, revealing significant reductions in several different brain regions. Despite the small size of the study the conclusions echo years of research correlating solitary confinement and sensory deprivation with mental health issues, and suggest social isolation may fundamentally change the structure of a person’s brain.

The lonely brain

In 1969 Robert King was arrested and convicted for a robbery he maintained he did not commit. Three years later an inmate on King’s block was murdered. King was blamed for the murder, and despite his claims of innocence he was convicted of murder and sent to solitary confinement.

Key mystery about how the brain produces cognition is finally understood

Human behavior is often explained in terms of unseen entities such as motivation, curiosity, anxiety and confidence. What has been unclear is whether these mental entities are coded by specific neurons in specific areas of the brain.

Professor Adam Kepecs at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has answered some of these questions in new research published in Nature. The findings could lead to the development of more effective treatments for , compulsive gambling and other psychiatric disorders.

The team studied the , an area critical for decision-making in humans and animals alike. Damage to this region impairs decision-making. In a famous example, Phineas Gage, a railway worker, survived extreme damage to this area when an iron rod pierced his skull in an explosion. Gage survived but his personality and decision-making skills didn’t.

Does a Breached Blood-Brain Barrier Cause Seizures in AD?

In back-to-back papers in the December 4 Science Translational Medicine, scientists led by Daniela Kaufer, University of California, Berkeley, and Alon Friedman, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel, report that age-related cracks in the blood-brain barrier allow an influx of serum protein albumin into the brain, where they activate TGFβ receptors, overexcite neuronal networks, and impair cognition. Breaches correlated with localized slowing of cortical activity in epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease patients, and in mouse models of AD. Called paroxysmal slow-wave events, these activity changes correlated with cognitive impairment and interspersed with seizures in epilepsy patients.