General

Gut-trained immune cells at CNS borders guard against meningitis and other infections. The membranes surrounding our brains are in a never-ending battle against deadly infections, as germs constantly try to elude watchful immune cells and sneak past a special protective barrier called the meninges. In a study involving mice and […]

Unrelated mutations, when present in the blood, can lead to false positive results in men with advanced prostate cancer who are undergoing liquid biopsies.  Such tests, which look for variants in the cell-free DNA that tumors shed into the blood plasma, help determine suitable treatment options. “You can actually measure […]

Problems with the sense of smell appear to be an early indicator of cognitive decline in people with type 2 diabetes. However, it’s unknown whether factors such as diet and obesity play a role in who develops these symptoms. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Chemical Neuroscience found that mice fed a moderate-fat, […]

Climate change will bring an acute toll worldwide, with rising temperatures, wildfires and poor air quality, accompanied by higher rates of cancer, especially lung, skin and gastrointestinal cancers, according to a new report from UC San Francisco. In an analysis of nearly five dozen published scientific papers, the researchers provided […]

When babies are born with congenital hydrocephalus (CH), a condition traditionally thought to be a result of a buildup of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the brain, neurosurgeons normally treat the condition by surgically implanting a shunt that drains fluid from the brain into the abdomen. “This neurosurgical treatment can be […]

The tsetse fly is an exception to the almost universal law of nature that babies are born smaller than their mothers. In an article published in BioEssays, Drs Sinead English and Antoine Barreaux from the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences, together with colleagues at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and the Universities of Greenwich, Stellenbosch and California […]

Since an average human spends one-third of their life asleep, it is apparent that the quality of sleep has an important impact on the overall life quality. Sleep has restorative power and improves human brain functioning, in particular memory and attention. Sleepy people have problems with concentration and commit more […]

Accuracy is everything when you’re studying and treating the brain. This is why scientists need very precise methods and tools to deal with various conditions such as brain cancer. Now scientists at the University of Waterloo took a significant step towards development of laser imaging technology, which could precisely guide […]

The attentional control that organisms need to succeed in their goals comes from two abilities: the focus to ignore distractions and the discipline to curb impulses. A new study by MIT neuroscientists shows that these abilities are independent, but that the activity of norepinephrine-producing neurons in a single brain region, […]

Researchers from Karolinska Institutet and the University of California have uncovered the role of a polysynaptic pathway that links cholinergic neurons together. The study was recently published in Nature Communications. Cholinergic neurons are instrumental in regulating activity in the Striatum. Their acetylcholine interacts with dopamine to create just the right […]

Vanderbilt pharmacologists have reported the first evidence that aberrant spontaneous release of neurotransmitters in the brain can cause a range of severe intellectual and neurodevelopmental disorders in infants and children. Ege Kavalali, who holds the William Stokes Chair in Experimental Therapeutics and is acting chair of pharmacology, and postdoctoral scholar Baris […]

Beth Reisboard, 76, was relieved in 2018 when she received the results from her annual mammogram: “Negative.” But her OB-GYN suggested she have a second screening. Reisboard has dense breasts, which means there are certain cancers that mammography may not be sensitive enough to detect. Surprised, Reisboard scheduled an appointment […]