Brain News and Research

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The human brain is the center of the human nervous system and is a highly complex organ. Enclosed in the cranium, it has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times as large as the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size.

Biophysicists uncover new features of molecular elevator

Biophysicists from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands have visualized a nearly complete transport cycle of the mammalian glutamate transporter homolog from archaea.

21 Apr 2020

A ‘virtual embryo’ for unprecedented single-cell studies

Researchers from EMBL Heidelberg and from the University of Padua School of Medicine have created the first complete description of early embryo development, accounting for every single cell in the embryo.

21 Apr 2020

Researchers use genome-wide CRISPR technology to identify leukemia's weakness

A team of researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center used CRISPR technology to identify key regulators of aggressive chronic myeloid leukemia, a type of cancer that remains difficult to treat and is marked by frequent relapse.

From UC San Diego 21 Apr 2020

Study pinpoints a key brain region for controlling binge drinking

A team of National Institutes of Health-funded researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina has found that deactivating a stress-signaling system in a brain area known for motivation and emotion-related behaviors decreases binge drinking.

20 Apr 2020

Autoimmunity Plays A Role In Parkinson's Disease

A new study co-led by scientists at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) adds increasing evidence that Parkinson's disease is partly an autoimmune disease.

20 Apr 2020

Study Reveals Bile Metabolite Of Gut Microbes Boosts Immune Cells

A study has discovered a novel means by which bacterial colonies in the small intestine support the generation of regulatory T cells.

20 Apr 2020

Rare structural genetic variants could play a role in schizophrenia

Most of the research focused on the genetics of schizophrenia has aimed at understanding the function played by genes in the development and heritability of schizophrenia.

17 Apr 2020

Synapses of the human nervous system

The glutamate receptors do not actually adhere to “distance keeping.” Now, high-resolution microscopic studies have revealed that the receptors often appear in small groups at the synapses and remain in contact with other proteins.

17 Apr 2020

Gene Variant Staves Off Alzheimer's In Some People

People with a gene that puts them at risk for Alzheimer's disease are protected from its debilitating effects if they also carry a variant of a different gene.

17 Apr 2020

Deadliest Malaria Strain Protects Itself From The Immune System

The parasite causing the most severe form of human malaria uses proteins to make red blood cells sticky, making it harder for the immune system to destroy it.

17 Apr 2020

Computer Model Predicts How Drugs Affect Heart Rhythm

UC Davis Health researchers have developed a computer model to screen drugs for unintended cardiac side effects, especially arrhythmia risk.

From The University of California, Davis 17 Apr 2020

Whole Genome Sequencing Reveals Secrets Of Schizophrenia

Most research about the genetics of schizophrenia has sought to understand the role that genes play in the development and heritability of schizophrenia.

17 Apr 2020

New optical imaging technology makes fluorescence microscopy more efficient

Scientists have been using fluorescence microscopy to study the inner workings of biological cells and organisms for decades.

16 Apr 2020

Why do artificial sweeteners fail to satisfy sugar cravings?

A small quantity of extra sugar would be enough to make people crave for almost everything, from coffee covered in whipped cream to condiments and cookies.

16 Apr 2020

Novel high-speed microscope successfully records neural activities

Our brain contains tens of billions of nerve cells (neurons) which constantly communicate with each other by sending chemical and electrical flashes, each lasting a short one millisecond (0.001 sec). In every millisecond, these billions of swift-flying flashes altogether traveling in a giant star-map in the brain that lights up a tortuous glittering pattern.

15 Apr 2020

Molecular causes of brain asymmetry revealed

Scientists may have solved one of the most puzzling and persistent mysteries in neuroscience: why some people are "right-brained" while others are "left-brained."

15 Apr 2020

Clock protein moves in sync with temperature to coordinate rhythms in shoots, roots

Five years ago, researchers from the Centre for Research in Agricultural Genomics led by the CSIC Research Professor Paloma Mas made the breakthrough discovery that the circadian clocks in the growing tip of the plant shoot function in a similar way to the clocks in the mammalian brain, which in both cases are able to synchronize the daily rhythms of the cells in distal organs.

14 Apr 2020