Neuroscience posts
- December 23, 2009
- 02:30 AM
- 1,821 views
Deep Brain Stimulation for Schizophrenia?
by Dr Shock in Dr Shock MD PhD
In short, a recent article proposed to do deep brain stimulation for schizophenia. Schizophrenia has positive-, negative- and cognitive symptoms (see the figure above). The authors propose the DBS for positive symptoms. Their approach is based on current models of the neurocircuitry of psychosis .
They hypothesize:
that chronic, high frequency electrical stimulation (HFS) of [...]
Related posts:New Innovations in Deep Brain Stimulation Surgery A great step forward, patients don’t hav........ Read more »
Mikell, C., McKhann, G., Segal, S., McGovern, R., Wallenstein, M., & Moore, H. (2009) The Hippocampus and Nucleus Accumbens as Potential Therapeutic Targets for Neurosurgical Intervention in Schizophrenia. Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, 87(4), 256-265. DOI: 10.1159/000225979
Bakay, R. (2009) Deep Brain Stimulation for Schizophrenia. Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, 87(4), 266-266. DOI: 10.1159/000225980
- December 22, 2009
- 05:00 PM
- 887 views
The Brain in CRPS-More Barriers or New Opportunities
by Lorimer Moseley in BodyInMind
From a biological perspective, I find CRPS very perplexing. So do many other people—the community of scientists that are pursuing better treatments, through a better understanding of the basic mechanisms, or by developing better animal models of CRPS, or by undertaking clinical investigations and clinical trials, stretches across many countries and many scientific and clinical disciplines. With all of those supposedly clever people working on it, one might expect that by now [........ Read more »
Lorimer Moseley. (2009) The Brain in CRPS-More Barriers or New Opportunities. Bodyinmind.com.au. info:/
- December 22, 2009
- 11:42 AM
- 783 views
Adult neurogenesis modulates the hippocampus-dependent period of associative fear memory
by Jason Snyder in Functional Neurogenesis
A review of the Cell paper by Kitamura, Inokuchi and colleagues on the role of adult-born neurons in systems consolidation of memory.... Read more »
Kitamura T, Saitoh Y, Takashima N, Murayama A, Niibori Y, Ageta H, Sekiguchi M, Sugiyama H, & Inokuchi K. (2009) Adult neurogenesis modulates the hippocampus-dependent period of associative fear memory. Cell, 139(4), 814-27. PMID: 19914173
- December 21, 2009
- 12:19 AM
- 714 views
When Dec 25th Isn't Christmas Day
by Evil Monkey in Neurotopia
In celebration of the holiday season, Sci went looking for something seasonal. But referring constantly to things like how many calories we eat around this time (Sci is no exception) is really a downer. So this season, Sci decided to find out what would happen if you plug the word "christmas" into pubmed.
It turns out there are a lot of people named Christmas.
But Sci ALSO came across this study, which she found to be a really really cool phenomenon of SCIENCE! And so, as her holiday gift ........ Read more »
CAPPELLETTI, M., JANSARI, A., KOPELMAN, M., & BUTTERWORTH, B. (2008) A case of selective impairment of encyclopaedic numerical knowledge or ‘when December 25th is no longer Christmas day, but ‘20 5’ is still 25’. Cortex, 44(3), 325-336. DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2006.07.005
- December 19, 2009
- 01:55 PM
- 646 views
Probable vCJD in an individual who was heterozygous at codon 129 of PRNP
by Brian Appleby in CJD Blogger
This week’s Lancet features an article entitled, “Variant CJD in an individual heterozygous for PRNP codon 129” by Kaski and colleagues. The authors report the first case of probable variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in an individual who is heterozygous at codon 129 of the prion protein gene (PRNP). To date, all symptomatic cases have occurred in individuals who are homozygous for methionine at codon 129. As we know from other studies (Brown P, 1994), the incubatio........ Read more »
Kaski, D., Mead, S., Hyare, H., Cooper, S., Jampana, R., Overell, J., Knight, R., Collinge, J., & Rudge, P. (2010) Variant CJD in an individual heterozygous for PRNP codon 129. The Lancet, 374(9707), 2128-2128. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61568-3
- December 18, 2009
- 11:32 AM
- 629 views
Two Drugs Are Better Than One?
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
According to a study just out in the American Journal of Psychiatry, starting depressed people on two antidepressants leads to much better results than starting them on just one - Combination of Antidepressant Medications From Treatment Initiation for Major Depressive Disorder. But how reliable is it?Currently accepted practice is to prescribe one antidepressant to begin with, and if the patient doesn't feel better after about 6 weeks, to either change to a different antidepressant (switching) o........ Read more »
Blier, P., Ward, H., Tremblay, P., Laberge, L., Hebert, C., & Bergeron, R. (2009) Combination of Antidepressant Medications From Treatment Initiation for Major Depressive Disorder: A Double-Blind Randomized Study. American Journal of Psychiatry. DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2009.09020186
- December 17, 2009
- 08:30 PM
- 1,232 views
What’s More Potent, Testosterone or the Power of Belief?
by David DiSalvo in Neuronarrative
When most people think of testosterone, words like “aggression,” “dominance,” and “violence” usually come to mind. Those words are memetically linked with testosterone the way “expensive” is linked with diamonds, and most of us have adopted the linkage without thinking much about it. Collectively, we’ve adopted a “folk hypothesis” about testosterone–a generalized presupposition grounded in folk wisdom assumed to be correct........ Read more »
Abbott, A. (2009) Testosterone link to aggression may be all in the mind. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/news.2009.1131
- December 17, 2009
- 04:54 PM
- 1,037 views
Feeling the pain of others
by Mo in Neurophilosophy
HOW do you react when you see somebody else in pain? Most of us can empathize with someone who is sick or has been injuered - we can quite easily put ourselves "in their shoes" and understand, to some extent, what they are feeling. We can share their emotional experience, because observing their pain activates regions of the brain which are involved in processing the emotional aspects of pain.
But can seeing somebody else in pain actually cause pain in the observer? People with mirror-touch syna........ Read more »
Osborn, J., & Derbyshire, S. (2009) Pain sensation evoked by observing injury in others. Pain. DOI: 10.1016/j.pain.2009.11.007
- December 17, 2009
- 06:26 AM
- 480 views
The ever-changing world of dendritic spines
by kubke in Building Blogs of Science
Santiago Ramón y Cajal originally described spines in the dendrites of neurons in the cerebellum back in the late 19th century, but it wasn’t until the mid 1950’s with the development of the electron microscope that these structures were shown to be synaptic structures. Although it has been known that the number of dendritic spines [...]... Read more »
Yang, G., Pan, F., & Gan, W. (2009) Stably maintained dendritic spines are associated with lifelong memories. Nature, 462(7275), 920-924. DOI: 10.1038/nature08577
Xu, T., Yu, X., Perlik, A., Tobin, W., Zweig, J., Tennant, K., Jones, T., & Zuo, Y. (2009) Rapid formation and selective stabilization of synapses for enduring motor memories. Nature, 462(7275), 915-919. DOI: 10.1038/nature08389
Ziv, N., & Ahissar, E. (2009) Neuroscience: New tricks and old spines. Nature, 462(7275), 859-861. DOI: 10.1038/462859a
- December 16, 2009
- 02:40 AM
- 626 views
No More Drama
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
No more pain (no more pain)No more pain (no more pain)No drama (no more drama in my life, no ones gonna make me hurt again)No more in my lifeNo More Drama-----Mary J. BligeWomen who are victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) can suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), cognitive impairments (Twamley et al., 2009), and alterations in brain activity when anticipating aversive or threatening events (Simmons et al., 2008).In a neuroimaging study, 15 women with IPV-related PTSD were co........ Read more »
SIMMONS, A., PAULUS, M., THORP, S., MATTHEWS, S., NORMAN, S., & STEIN, M. (2008) Functional Activation and Neural Networks in Women with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Related to Intimate Partner Violence. Biological Psychiatry, 64(8), 681-690. DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.05.027
TWAMLEY, E., ALLARD, C., THORP, S., NORMAN, S., HAMI CISSELL, S., HUGHES BERARDI, K., GRIMES, E., & STEIN, M. (2009) Cognitive impairment and functioning in PTSD related to intimate partner violence. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 15(06), 879. DOI: 10.1017/S135561770999049X
- December 15, 2009
- 06:05 PM
- 1,050 views
Glimpsing memory traces in real time
by Mo in Neurophilosophy
MEMORY is one of the biggest enduring mysteries of modern neuroscience, and has perhaps been researchered more intensively than any other aspect of brain function. The past few decades have yielded a great deal of knowledge about the cellular and molecular mechanisms of memory, and it is now widely believed that memories are formed as a result of biochemical changes which ultimately lead to the strengthening of connections between nerve cells.
However, it is also clear that memories are not enco........ Read more »
Chen, G., Wang, L., & Tsien, J. (2009) Neural Population-Level Memory Traces in the Mouse Hippocampus. PLoS ONE, 4(12). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008256
- December 15, 2009
- 04:48 PM
- 680 views
Stress Now, Mental Illness Later
by Neuropsych15 in The MacGuffin
Routinely, I enjoy crapping on the common biological explanations of various mental illnesses (e.g., monoamine hypothesis). However, this does not mean that I do not believe in the importance biology plays in the development of mental illness.To say that a specific mental illness is the result of a "chemical imbalance" or one "bad gene" is ridiculous. The problem with biological explanations of mental illness is that they neglect the psycho/social aspects of illness development (they are also po........ Read more »
Lupien, S., McEwen, B., Gunnar, M., & Heim, C. (2009) Effects of stress throughout the lifespan on the brain, behaviour and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 10(6), 434-445. DOI: 10.1038/nrn2639
- December 15, 2009
- 02:06 AM
- 1,836 views
The Neurobiology of Love
by Dr Shock in Dr Shock MD PhD
Previously we discussed the neurobiology of falling in love. But this is only the beginning, the process of attraction followed by the attachment process. This process can develop and last for a while or in some cases for ever. Biologically is falling in love the first step in pair formation.
Falling in love is more accompanied [...]
Related posts:The Neurobiology of Falling in Love Falling in love is the most overwhelming of all...Love is Great for Creativity, Sex for Analytical Thinking M........ Read more »
ZEKI, S. (2007) The neurobiology of love. FEBS Letters, 581(14), 2575-2579. DOI: 10.1016/j.febslet.2007.03.094
Esch T, & Stefano GB. (2005) The Neurobiology of Love. Neuro endocrinology letters, 26(3), 175-92. PMID: 15990719
- December 14, 2009
- 09:08 AM
- 776 views
In the Brain, Acidity Means Anxiety
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
According to Mormon author and fruit grower "Dr" Robert O. Young, pretty much all diseases are caused by our bodies being too acidic. By adopting an "alkaline lifestyle" to raise your internal pH (lower pH being more acidic), you'll find that
if you maintain the saliva and the urine pH, ideally at 7.2 or above, you will never get sick. That’s right you will NEVER get sick!
Wow. Important components of the alkaline lifestyle include eating plenty of the right sort of fruits and vegetables, id........ Read more »
Ziemann, A., Allen, J., Dahdaleh, N., Drebot, I., Coryell, M., Wunsch, A., Lynch, C., Faraci, F., Howard III, M., & Welsh, M. (2009) The Amygdala Is a Chemosensor that Detects Carbon Dioxide and Acidosis to Elicit Fear Behavior. Cell, 139(5), 1012-1021. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2009.10.029
- December 14, 2009
- 12:01 AM
- 1,128 views
Cell phones and cancer again, or: Oh, no! My cell phone’s going to give me cancer! (revisited)
by David Gorski in Science-Based Medicine
It’s been about a year and a half since I’ve written about this topic; so I thought I’d better update the disclaimer that I wrote at the beginning:
Before I start into the meat of this post, I feel the need to emphasize, as strongly as I can, four things:
I do not receive any funding from [...]... Read more »
Myung, S., Ju, W., McDonnell, D., Lee, Y., Kazinets, G., Cheng, C., & Moskowitz, J. (2009) Mobile Phone Use and Risk of Tumors: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Clinical Oncology, 27(33), 5565-5572. DOI: 10.1200/JCO.2008.21.6366
Deltour, I., Johansen, C., Auvinen, A., Feychting, M., Klaeboe, L., & Schuz, J. (2009) Time Trends in Brain Tumor Incidence Rates in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, 1974-2003. JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute. DOI: 10.1093/jnci/djp415
- December 13, 2009
- 09:01 PM
- 600 views
Spindle Neurons in Elephants and Dolphins: Convergent Evolution in Large-Brained Mammals?
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Fig. 1 (Hakeem et al., 2009). Photomicrographs of VENs in the brain of the African elephant. A: VENs in frontoinsular cortex (area FI). Scale = 25 μm.Spindle neurons, or Von Economo neurons (VENs), are a unique type of large, bipolar neuron found in layers III and V in the anterior cingulate cortex and the frontoinsular cortex of humans. In 1999, Nimchinsky and colleagues discovered that among the 28 nonhuman primate species they examined, only great apes had VENs (see Spindle Neurons: The Nex........ Read more »
Butti, C., Sherwood, C., Hakeem, A., Allman, J., & Hof, P. (2009) Total number and volume of Von Economo neurons in the cerebral cortex of cetaceans. The Journal of Comparative Neurology, 515(2), 243-259. DOI: 10.1002/cne.22055
Hakeem, A., Sherwood, C., Bonar, C., Butti, C., Hof, P., & Allman, J. (2009) Von Economo Neurons in the Elephant Brain. The Anatomical Record: Advances in Integrative Anatomy and Evolutionary Biology, 292(2), 242-248. DOI: 10.1002/ar.20829
- December 11, 2009
- 03:40 AM
- 395 views
Getting the timing right for song control
by kubke in Building Blogs of Science
Songbirds have evolved special areas in the brain that are used for song learning and song production. Two types of output connections from a cortical area known as HVC (proper name) each go to two ‘separate’ pathways. Some HVC neurons connect directly with neurons in a brain area called RA (robust nucleus of the archopallium), [...]... Read more »
Leblois, A., Bodor, A., Person, A., & Perkel, D. (2009) Millisecond Timescale Disinhibition Mediates Fast Information Transmission through an Avian Basal Ganglia Loop. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(49), 15420-15433. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3060-09.2009
- December 10, 2009
- 09:00 AM
- 1,558 views
Yet another bad day for the anti-vaccine movement
by Orac in Respectful Insolence
Arguably, the genesis of the most recent iteration of the anti-vaccine movement dates back to 1998, when a remarkably incompetent researcher named Andrew Wakefield published a trial lawyer-funded "study" in the Lancet that purported to find a link between "autistic enterocolitis" and measles vaccination with the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) trivalent vaccine. In the wake of that publication was born a scare over the MMR that persists to this day, 11 years later. Although peer reviewers forced the........ Read more »
Mrożek-Budzyn D, Kiełtyka A, & Majewska R. (2009) Lack of Association Between Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination and Autism in Children: A Case-Control Study. The Pediatric infectious disease journal. PMID: 19952979
- December 9, 2009
- 11:48 PM
- 670 views
Parasites in the Brain
by Daniel Hawes in Ingenious Monkey | 20-two-5
"In 1896, the Scientific American published an article, Is Insanity Due to a Microbe?''," and thus started a lively discussion on infectious causes of schizophrenia, epilepsy and other diseases of the mind...... Read more »
da Silva RC, & Langoni H. (2009) Toxoplasma gondii: host-parasite interaction and behavior manipulation. Parasitology research, 105(4), 893-8. PMID: 19548003
- December 9, 2009
- 08:08 AM
- 760 views
Testosterone, Aggression... Confusion
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Breaking news from the BBC -Testosterone link to aggression 'all in the mind' Work in Nature magazine suggests the mind can win over hormones... Testosterone induces anti-social behaviour in humans, but only because of our own prejudices about its effect rather than its biological activity, suggest the authors. The researchers, led by Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich, Switzerland, said the results suggested a case of "mind over matter" with the brain overriding body chemistry. "Whe........ Read more »
Eisenegger, C., Naef, M., Snozzi, R., Heinrichs, M., & Fehr, E. (2009) Prejudice and truth about the effect of testosterone on human bargaining behaviour. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature08711
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