Neuroscience

Study: Butterfly Memory Can Recall Uglier Caterpillar Days

Butterflies and moths are well known for their striking metamorphosis from crawling caterpillars to winged adults. In light of this radical change, not just in body form, but also in lifestyle, diet and dependence on particular sensory cues, it would seem ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 4 2008 - 9:52pm

Krispy Kremes: The Borg Of Dieting Neuroscience?

It's what you always feared. Your brain actually does react differently to donuts, according to fMRI-based research led by Marsel Mesulam, M.D., a neurologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Krispy Kremes, in perhaps their first starring role in ne ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 6 2008 - 2:19pm

Melanocortin Discovery May Lead To New Eating Disorder Treatments

The discovery of the brain’s so-called melanocortin system and its central role in controlling appetite has paved the way for entirely new possibilities for treating obesity and anorexia. In the latest issue of the prestigious journal Nature Reviews Drug D ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 7 2008 - 10:21am

Alzheimer's Patients May Benefit From Cannabis-Derived Medicines

LONDON, March 7 /PRNewswire/-- Cannabis-derived medicines may one day be used in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease which affects 417,000 people in the UK. Professor Raphael Mechoulam of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, will present new ...

Article - Anna Ohlden - Mar 10 2008 - 1:50am

GABA Receptor Implicated In Epilepsy

Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have published new research in Molecular Pharmacology identifying the structure of a receptor in the brain implicated in conditions such as epilepsy and pre-menstrual t ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 9 2008 - 11:33pm

Research: Visual Illusions Only Look Convincing If We Want Them To

New research suggests that humans are not as fooled as they seem when viewing visual illusions. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Psychologist Tzvi Ganel, writing in the March issue of Psychological Science, says we process images in two very distinct way ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 10 2008 - 10:37am

Investigation: Epigenetic Changes In Major Psychosis

Scientists have discovered epigenetic changes (i.e. chemical changes to a gene that do not alter the DNA sequence) in individuals with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. This is the first epigenome-wide investigation in psychiatric research, and this grou ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 11 2008 - 11:12am

GluR6 Gene Discovery Leads To Mouse Model For Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar Disorder (BPD or manic-depressive illness) is one of the most serious of all mental disorders, affecting millions of individuals worldwide. Affected individuals alternate between states of deep depression and mania. While depression is characterize ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 11 2008 - 11:01pm

Vocal Learning Evolution Discovery Aided By Bird Brains

Though they perch far apart on the avian family tree, birds with the ability to learn songs use similar brain structures to sing their tunes. Neurobiologists at Duke University Medical Center now have an explanation for this puzzling likeness. In all three ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 11 2008 - 11:06pm

Basic Science Discovery: BNDF Gene Implicated In Mood Disorders

Individual genes do not cause depression, but they are thought to increase the probability of an individual having a depression in the face of other accumulating risk factors, such as other genes and environmental stressors. One gene that has been shown to ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 12 2008 - 7:13pm