Tag: Brain
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Nation & World
Compound traces brain plaques in real time
Alzheimer’s disease is notoriously difficult to diagnose. Though sophisticated functional and cognitive tests can help, they often fail to distinguish between Alzheimer’s and other non-amyloid-based dementias, particularly frontotemporal dementia. The…
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Nation & World
Emotions change with direction
If someone looks directly at you with an angry expression, you usually assume that person is mad at you. If she or he looks away, you become unsure. The person…
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Nation & World
Study finds neural stem cells are not rejected when transplanted
Most transplanted tissues are seen by the recipient as foreign and are attacked by the immune system, but certain parts of the body do not mount attacks against foreign tissue…
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Nation & World
Childhood abuse hurts the brain
A thick cable of nerve cells connecting the right and left sides of the brain (corpus callosum) is smaller than normal in abused children, says Martin Teicher, associate professor of…
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Nation & World
Study finds frequent consumption of alcohol linked to lower risk of heart attack in men
Men who drank moderate amounts of alcoholic beverages three or more times a week had a risk of myocardial infarction 30 to 35 percent lower than nondrinkers. The observational study,…
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Nation & World
Stem cells reduce brain damage
Mice with the kind of brain damage caused by strokes or cerebral palsy received implants of stem cells that resulted in the spontaneous replacement of many of the missing cells,…
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Nation & World
Genes found that regulate brain size
A gene that builds bigger brains, called beta-catenin, was discovered in the laboratory of Christopher A. Walsh, Bullard Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Researchers there engineered increased activity…
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Nation & World
Alzheimer’s-associated enzyme elevated in key brain areas
A research report that appears in the September 2002 issue of the journal Archives of Neurology may improve understanding of the most common form of Alzheimer’s disease. “Our key finding…
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Nation & World
Brake on Axon regrowth discovered
Since nerve cell axons in the mature central nervous system do not regrow, neurologists have no way of fully treating paralysis due to injury. “About a hundred years ago, people…
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Nation & World
How the brain keeps extra calories from becoming extra pounds
What determines whether excess calories are turned into fat or are burned off? The key lies in a process known as diet-induced thermogenesis, an intricate system of communications masterminded by…
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Nation & World
Investigators discover method to stimulate brain rewiring after stroke
After a stroke, brain cells die and their connections to other parts of the brain are lost. In a study with rats conducted at Children’s Hospital in Boston, a naturally…
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Nation & World
Changes in brain shown with learning
Harvard Medical School researchers Vadim Bolshakov, Evgeny Tsvetkov, and Bill Carlezon, based at McLean Hospital, reported with colleagues in the April 11, 2002 issue of the journal Neuron that they…
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Nation & World
Link found between body rhythms and circadian clock, light
The brain’s circadian clock is a tiny cluster of neurons behind the eyes. This cluster of cells sends out signals that control the body’s daily rhythms. New research from Harvard…
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Nation & World
Lack of protein ApoE in brain may raise Alzheimer’s risk
Brain cells are protected from possible contamination by substances in circulating blood by what is known as “the blood-brain barrier.” Researchers have many questions about precisely how this protective mechanism…
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Nation & World
“Commoner” in brain crowns the cortex
With its role in higher cognitive functions, the cortex represents a significant evolutionary development in mammals, culminating in the enlarged hemispheres of humans and other primates. In the development of…
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Nation & World
Dopamine may play dual role in Parkinson’s disease
According to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, “Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a disorder of the central nervous system that affects between one and one-and-a-half million Americans. Because it is not contagious…
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Nation & World
How does the brain reinvent itself?
In order for us to use our minds for memory, for learning, and so forth, our brains must continually reinvent themselves. How do they do it? A Harvard Medical School…
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Nation & World
Walking rhythm offers gait-way to reduce falls
Over the past 10 years, Jeffrey Hausdorff has studied thousands of steps from hundreds of feet. The Harvard Medical School assistant professor says that complex patterns hidden in an ordinary…
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Nation & World
An alternate take on Alzheimer’s
Much of Alzheimer’s research has focused on the role of a protein, amyloid-beta, found at high levels in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients and which coagulates into plaques. Researcher Ashley…
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Nation & World
Scientists look people in the ‘I’
Harvard researchers seek a scientific answer to a question posed by 16th century philosopher René Descartes: “What is this ‘I’ that I know?” “Understanding the brain essence of self-awareness helps…
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Nation & World
Rules for music wired into the brain
“Music is in our genes,” says Mark Jude Tramo, a musician, prolific songwriter, and neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School. “Many researchers like myself are trying to understand melody, harmony, rhythm,…
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Nation & World
Brain hesitates in assembling mosaic of motion
Your brain must integrate information from many different neurons in the primary visual cortex to interpret movement. But how does this complicated process work? Richard Born and Christopher Pack of…
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Nation & World
Majority of Alzheimer’s plaques cleared from brains of living mice
Harvard Medical School researchers, working with scientists at Elan Pharmaceuticals, cleared 70 percent of Alzheimer’s plaques from the brains of mice by applying anti-plaque antibodies directly to the mouse brains…
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Nation & World
How embryonic stem cells become fine-tuned brains
Research by Michael Greenberg, Harvard Medical School professor of neurology at Children’s Hospital, begins to explain how the embryonic brain’s stem cells decide whether to mature into nerve or glial…
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Nation & World
First indications that aging may be regulated by brain
A little worm called Caenorhabditis elegans was the first creature to have all its genes sequenced, more than 19,000 of them. When the human genome was sequenced, researchers found that…
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Nation & World
Brain found to play unexpected role in Type II diabetes
Until now, the brain was assumed to be a side player in diabetes. “For the most part, diabetes researchers have not been looking at the brain,” said C. Ronald Kahn,…
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Nation & World
Mapping the brain’s response to breathlessness
In an experiment, healthy men were placed on ventilators, and their ability to take deep breaths was controlled. As their breathing was regulated, their brains were imaged using a PET…
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Nation & World
Hypnosis found to alter the brain
“Hypnosis has a contentious history,” notes Stephen Kosslyn, professor of psychology at Harvard and leader of a study in which people were hypnotized to see color where only shades of…
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Nation & World
Birth of new brain cells induced in birds
Stem cells that are naturally present in the brains of finches were induced to replace lost cells and restore the birds’ ability to sing their distinctive song. “Our results represent…