The nervous system is an organ system containing a network of specialized cells called neurons that coordinate the actions of an animal and transmit signals between different parts of its body. In most animals the nervous system consists of two parts, central and peripheral. The central nervous system contains the brain and spinal cord.
Inspiration strikes when you least expect it. For Wei Jiang, M.D., a professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), inspiration came in 2018 on a smoke-filled boat tour around Amsterdam during an international conference.
Regular deep meditation, practised for several years, may help to regulate the gut microbiome and potentially lower the risks of physical and mental ill health, finds a small comparative study published in the open access journal General Psychiatry.
Heavy metals such as lead and cadmium are present in batteries, cosmetics, food and other things that are part of everyday life.
For the first time, researchers at the University of Helsinki in Finland examined the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on the epigenome and gene function of the placenta. The epigenome is a molecular coating on a DNA strand that controls how genes are expressed.
Autism and epilepsy are two highly prevalent conditions that fall under the umbrella of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD), which affect 1–3% of the world’s population just in terms of cognitive disabilities.
A grasshopper hatched in a crowded environment may look and behave differently than a grasshopper hatched in isolation -; even if they have the same genes.
The Drs Ayeez and Shelena Lalji & Family ALS Endowed Award for Innovative Healing was given to Clive Svendsen, PhD, a pioneer in regenerative medicine, for his significant contributions to the field of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (AL) at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS.
Florida State University College of Medicine researchers have linked aspartame, an artificial sweetener found in nearly 5,000 diet foods and drinks, to anxiety-like behavior in mice.
Microglia, the brain’s own immune cells, are present in the central nervous system.
Neurons are the fundamental units of the brain and nervous system, the cells responsible for receiving sensory input from the external world, for sending motor commands to our muscles, and for transforming and relaying the electrical signals at every step in between.
Rutgers researchers examined the impact of COVID-19 on patients’ microbiomes, the group of microbes that live in and on the human body.
Octopuses are not much like humans -; they are invertebrates with eight arms, and more closely related to clams and snails.
Transplanting blood stem cells is a new but incredibly successful treatment for multiple sclerosis. Now, a study directed by the University of Zurich has looked closely at how the autoimmune disease is controlled by the treatment and how the immune system recovers afterward.
Not just three, but even five proteins share important roles in the formation and function of synapses and can substitute for each other. This discovery was made by a team of the research focus "Mental Health & Neuroscience" of the Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences Krems (KL Krems) and the CavX PhD program of the Medical University of Innsbruck.
For gene therapy, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) poses a formidable obstacle. The BBB, which is made up of cells that are closely packed together, prevents poisons and pathogens from accessing brain tissue while also blocking potential treatments for diseases that impact the CNS.
Researchers have opened a new avenue for investigations of neurological development, disease, and therapies that cannot be undertaken in living people by employing stem cells to grow small brain-like structures in the lab.
A recent study led by the University at Buffalo proposes a novel role for the huntingtin protein (HTT), which leads to Huntington’s disease when mutated.
For the neuronal cell types’ categorization as more complicated creatures, the genetic fingerprint of Nematostella vectensis—the sea anemone—reveals that the members of this evolutionarily very ancient animal phylum employ identical gene cascades.
The first large-scale genomic study of musicality revealed 69 genetic variations linked with beat synchronization, which denotes the ability to move in time with the beat of the music.
Solitary bees that ingested the pesticide clothianidin when foraging from rapeseed flowers became slower. In addition, the strawberries pollinated by these bees were smaller. This is shown by a new study from Lund University in Sweden.