Neuroscience posts
- December 15, 2015
- 10:56 PM
- 172 views
The neurobiology of headaches
by neurosci in Neuroscientifically Challenged
Headaches are one of the most common neurological complaints; most people will experience headaches at some point in their life and close to 50% of the world's population is estimated to be suffering from a headache disorder at any point in time. The World Health Organization considers headaches to be one of the most disabling conditions people experience based on the impact chronic headaches can have on quality of life.There are more than 200 different types of headaches, which are broadly clas........ Read more »
Burstein, R., Noseda, R., & Borsook, D. (2015) Migraine: Multiple Processes, Complex Pathophysiology. Journal of Neuroscience, 35(17), 6619-6629. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0373-15.2015
- December 14, 2015
- 04:40 PM
- 371 views
Emotion processing in the brain changes with tinnitus severity
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
Tinnitus, otherwise known as ringing in the ears, affects nearly one-third of adults over age 65. The condition can develop as part of age-related hearing loss or from a traumatic injury. In either case, the resulting persistent noise causes varying amounts of disruption to everyday life. While some tinnitus patients adapt to the condition, many others are forced to limit daily activities as a direct result of their symptoms. A new study reveals that people who are less bothered by their tinnitu........ Read more »
Fatima T. Husain et al. (2015) Increased frontal response may underlie decreased tinnitus severity. PLOS ONE. info:/10.1371/journal.pone.0144419
- December 12, 2015
- 05:47 PM
- 486 views
This Week in Neuroblunders: Optogenetics Edition
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Recent technological developments in neuroscience have enabled rapid advances in our knowledge of how neural circuits function in awake behaving animals. Highly targeted and reversible manipulations using light (optogenetics) or drugs have allowed scientists to demonstrate that activating a tiny population of neurons can evoke specific memories or induce insatiable feeding.But this week we learned these popular and precise brain stimulation and inactivation methods may produce spurious links to ........ Read more »
Althaus J. (1876) A Lecture on the Prognosis of Cerebral Haemorrhage. British medical journal, 2(812), 101-4. PMID: 20748269
Otchy, T., Wolff, S., Rhee, J., Pehlevan, C., Kawai, R., Kempf, A., Gobes, S., & Ölveczky, B. (2015) Acute off-target effects of neural circuit manipulations. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature16442
Reardon, S. (2015) Brain-manipulation studies may produce spurious links to behaviour. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature.2015.19003
Südhof, T. (2015) Reproducibility: Experimental mismatch in neural circuits. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature16323
- December 12, 2015
- 04:59 PM
- 356 views
Discovery puts designer dopamine neurons within reach
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
For decades, the elusive holy grail in Parkinson’s disease research has been finding a way to repair faulty dopamine neurons and put them back into patients, where they will start producing dopamine again. Researchers have used fetal material, which is difficult to obtain and of variable quality. Embryonic stem cells represented a tremendous innovation, but making dopamine neurons from stem cells is a long process with a low yield.... Read more »
Jiang, H., Xu, Z., Zhong, P., Ren, Y., Liang, G., Schilling, H., Hu, Z., Zhang, Y., Wang, X., Chen, S.... (2015) Cell cycle and p53 gate the direct conversion of human fibroblasts to dopaminergic neurons. Nature Communications, 10100. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10100
- December 11, 2015
- 03:39 PM
- 420 views
To Study OCD, Scientists Get Their (Rubber) Hands Dirty
by Elizabeth Preston in Inkfish
The rubber hand illusion is a classic experiment that reveals how our brains build a sense of our bodies. For the latest twist on the illusion, researchers simulated OCD-like feelings of disgust in subjects by starting with rubber hands and adding fake blood, vomit and feces.
The basic rubber hand experiment is simple to set up. It requires a fake hand, two paintbrushes, a table, and something to use as a little wall. A subject sits with both hands flat on the table, one of them farther o... Read more »
Jalal, B., Krishnakumar, D., & Ramachandran, V. (2015) “I Feel Contaminated in My Fake Hand”: Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder like Disgust Sensations Arise from Dummy during Rubber Hand Illusion. PLOS ONE, 10(12). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0139159
- December 11, 2015
- 02:58 PM
- 368 views
Healthy or sick? Tiny cell bubbles may hold the answer
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
Rutgers scientists have uncovered biological pathways in the roundworm that provide insight into how tiny bubbles released by cells can have beneficial health effects, like promoting tissue repair, or may play a diabolical role and carry disease signals for cancer or neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.... Read more »
Juan Wang, Rachel Kaletsky, Malan Silva, April Williams, Leonard A. Haas, Rebecca J. Androwski, Jessica N. Landis, Cory Patrick, Alina Rashid, Dianaliz Santiago-Martinez, Maria Gravato-Nobre, Jonathan Hodgkin, David H. Hall, Coleen T. Murphy, Maureen M. B. (2015) Cell-Specific Transcriptional Profiling of Ciliated Sensory Neurons Reveals Regulators of Behavior and Extracellular Vesicle Biogenesis. Current Biology. info:/10.1016/j.cub.2015.10.057
- December 11, 2015
- 06:56 AM
- 476 views
A Paradigm Shift for the Motor Cortex?
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic_Discover
Many people will be familiar with this rather strange image:
It's a depiction of the motor homunculus, which is essentially a "map" of the body located in the brain. The image shows how different spots of the primary motor cortex control different parts of the body.
So, for instance, the spot I've highlighted in red corresponds to the muscles in the thumb. If you were to stimulate this spot, say using an electrode, it would cause the thumb to twitch. By stimulating different points and... Read more »
Graziano MS. (2015) Ethological Action Maps: A Paradigm Shift for the Motor Cortex. Trends in cognitive sciences. PMID: 26628112
- December 10, 2015
- 08:36 PM
- 567 views
LSD changes consciousness by reorganizing human brain networks
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
LSD is known to cause changes in consciousness, including “ego-dissolution”, or a loss of the sense of self. Despite a detailed knowledge of the action of LSD at specific serotonin receptors, it has not been understood how this these pharmacological effects can translate into such a profound effect on consciousness.... Read more »
Lebedev, A., Lövdén, M., Rosenthal, G., Feilding, A., Nutt, D., & Carhart-Harris, R. (2015) Finding the self by losing the self: Neural correlates of ego-dissolution under psilocybin. Human Brain Mapping, 36(8), 3137-3153. DOI: 10.1002/hbm.22833
- December 8, 2015
- 03:28 PM
- 445 views
Self-consciousness: Beyond the looking-glass and what dogs found there
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
That man’s best friend has a conscience is what every owner would be willing to bet, without even thinking about it for a moment. This means that dogs have self-consciousness. But the problem in science is that ideas and assumptions must be demonstrated. It is not enough for someone to have an inkling of something for it to be considered a scientific fact. Self-awareness, or self-consciousness, has been studied mainly by examining the responses of animals and children to their reflection in th........ Read more »
Cazzolla Gatti, R. (2015) Self-consciousness: beyond the looking-glass and what dogs found there. Ethology Ecology , 1-9. DOI: 10.1080/03949370.2015.1102777
- December 7, 2015
- 06:58 PM
- 357 views
False Positive fMRI Revisited
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic_Discover
A new paper reports that one of the most popular approaches to analyzing fMRI data is flawed. The article, available as a preprint on arXiv, is from Swedish neuroscientists Anders Eklund et al.
Neuroskeptic readers may recall that I've blogged about Eklund et al.'s work before, first in 2012 and again earlier this year. In the previous two studies, Eklund et al. showed that the standard parametric statistical method for detecting brain activations in fMRI data is prone to false positi... Read more »
Anders Eklund, Thomas Nichols, & Hans Knutsson. (2015) Can parametric statistical methods be trusted for fMRI based group studies?. arXiv. arXiv: 1511.01863v1
- December 6, 2015
- 03:51 PM
- 369 views
Certain herpes viruses can infect human neurons
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
For years, researchers have noted a tantalizing link between some neurologic conditions and certain species of the herpes virus. In patients with Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and cerebellar ataxia, among other neuropathies, the cerebrospinal fluid teems with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). Yet, the nature of that link has remained unclear, as it has been assumed that EBV, as well as other viruses in the same sub-family, called gammaherpesviruses, cannot infect neurons.... Read more »
Jha, H., Mehta, D., Lu, J., El-Naccache, D., Shukla, S., Kovacsics, C., Kolson, D., & Robertson, E. (2015) Gammaherpesvirus Infection of Human Neuronal Cells. mBio, 6(6). DOI: 10.1128/mBio.01844-15
- December 6, 2015
- 03:17 PM
- 354 views
Fibro fog or losing your marbles: the effect of chronic pain on everyday executive functioning
by Bronwyn Thompson in Healthskills: Skills for Healthy Living
There are days when I think I’m losing the plot! When my memory fades, I get distracted by random thin—-ooh! is that a cat?!
We all have brain fades, but people with chronic pain have more of them. Sometimes it’s due to the side effects of medication, and often it’s due to poor sleep, or low mood – but whatever the cause, the problem is that people living with chronic pain can find it very hard to direct their attention to what’s important, or to shift thei........ Read more »
Baker, K., Gibson, S., Georgiou-Karistianis, N., Roth, R., & Giummarra, M. (2015) Everyday Executive Functioning in Chronic Pain. The Clinical Journal of Pain, 1. DOI: 10.1097/AJP.0000000000000313
- December 5, 2015
- 04:28 PM
- 399 views
No two faces are the same
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
For the very first time, researchers have been able to show that the causes of congenital face blindness can be traced back to an early stage in the perceptual process. These findings are crucial, not just for our understanding of face recognition, but also because they allow us to understand the processes behind the recognition of any visually presented object.... Read more »
Lueschow, A., Weber, J., Carbon, C., Deffke, I., Sander, T., Grüter, T., Grüter, M., Trahms, L., & Curio, G. (2015) The 170ms Response to Faces as Measured by MEG (M170) Is Consistently Altered in Congenital Prosopagnosia. PLOS ONE, 10(9). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0137624
- December 4, 2015
- 10:20 PM
- 400 views
How is a developing brain assembled?
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
As far as biologists have come in understanding the brain, much remains to be revealed. One significant challenge is determining the formation of complex neuronal structures made up of billions of cells in the human brain. As with many biological challenges, researchers are first examining this question in simpler organisms, such as worms.... Read more »
Christensen RP, Bokinsky A, Santella A, Wu Y, Marquina-Solis J, Guo M, Kovacevic I, Kumar A, Winter PW, Tashakkori N.... (2015) Untwisting the Caenorhabditis elegans embryo. eLife. PMID: 26633880
- December 4, 2015
- 01:54 PM
- 469 views
Do Bilingual People Have a Cognitive Advantage?
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic_Discover
For years, psychologists have been debating the "bilingual advantage" - the idea that speaking more than one language fluently brings with it cognitive benefits. Believers and skeptics in the theory have been trading blows for years, but matters recently came to a head in the form of a series of papers in the journal Cortex.
The bilingual advantage hypothesis states that bilinguals excel at 'cognitive control' also known as 'executive function' - meaning that they find it easier to su... Read more »
Paap KR, Johnson HA, & Sawi O. (2015) Should the search for bilingual advantages in executive functioning continue?. Cortex. PMID: 26586100
- December 2, 2015
- 11:37 AM
- 269 views
Treatment Guidelines for Problem Gambling
by William Yates, M.D. in Brain Posts
Basal ganglia may be involving in gambling disorderProblem gambling effects a number of individuals who engage in gambling behavior.Gambling behavior that meets criteria as a Gambling Disorder according to the criteria of DSM-5 includes four or more of the following over a consecutive 12 month period of time:Increased quantity of money gambled to achieve excitementRestlessness/irritability when attempting to cut down gambling behaviorRepeated unsuccessful attempts to cut down or stop gamblingPre........ Read more »
Lee KM, Chan HN, Cheah B, Gentica GF, Guo S, Lim HK, Lim YC, Noorul F, Tan HS, Teo P.... (2011) Ministry of Health clinical practice guidelines: management of gambling disorders. Singapore medical journal, 52(6), 456. PMID: 21732000
- December 1, 2015
- 04:03 PM
- 430 views
Antidepressant medication protects against compounds linked to dementia
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
In addition to treating depression, a commonly used antidepressant medication also protects against compounds that can cause memory loss and dementia, a Loyola University Medical Center study has found. The study found that blood levels of two neurotoxic compounds dropped significantly in depressed patients after they were treated with the antidepressant escitalopram (Lexapro).... Read more »
Halaris, A., Myint, A., Savant, V., Meresh, E., Lim, E., Guillemin, G., Hoppensteadt, D., Fareed, J., & Sinacore, J. (2015) Does escitalopram reduce neurotoxicity in major depression?. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 118-126. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2015.04.026
- November 30, 2015
- 01:34 AM
- 549 views
Carving Up Brain Disorders
by The Neurocritic in The Neurocritic
Neurology and Psychiatry are two distinct specialties within medicine, both of which treat disorders of the brain. It's completely uncontroversial to say that neurologists treat patients with brain disorders like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. These two diseases produce distinct patterns of neurodegeneration that are visible on brain scans. For example, Parkinson's disease (PD) is a movement disorder caused by the loss of dopamine neurons in the midbrain.Fig. 3 (modified from Golds........ Read more »
Crossley, N., Scott, J., Ellison-Wright, I., & Mechelli, A. (2015) Neuroimaging distinction between neurological and psychiatric disorders. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 207(5), 429-434. DOI: 10.1192/bjp.bp.114.154393
David, A., & Nicholson, T. (2015) Are neurological and psychiatric disorders different?. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 207(5), 373-374. DOI: 10.1192/bjp.bp.114.158550
Insel TR, & Quirion R. (2005) Psychiatry as a clinical neuroscience discipline. JAMA, 294(17), 2221-4. PMID: 16264165
- November 28, 2015
- 03:20 PM
- 382 views
The silence of the genes, an epigenetic tale
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
Research led by Dr. Keiji Tanimoto from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, has brought us closer to understanding the mechanisms underlying the phenomenon of genomic imprinting. In this intriguing event, one copy of a gene is ‘turned off’, or silenced, depending on whether it was derived from the mother or the father.... Read more »
Matsuzaki H, Okamura E, Takahashi T, Ushiki A, Nakamura T, Nakano T, Hata K, Fukamizu A, & Tanimoto K. (2015) De novo DNA methylation through the 5'-segment of the H19 ICR maintains its imprint during early embryogenesis. Development (Cambridge, England), 142(22), 3833-44. PMID: 26417043
- November 27, 2015
- 03:05 PM
- 407 views
Synapse discovery could lead to new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease
by Dr. Jekyll in Lunatic Laboratories
A team of researchers led by UNSW Australia scientists has discovered how connections between brain cells are destroyed in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease – work that opens up a new avenue for research on possible treatments for the degenerative brain condition.... Read more »
Leshchyns’ka, I., Liew, H., Shepherd, C., Halliday, G., Stevens, C., Ke, Y., Ittner, L., & Sytnyk, V. (2015) Aβ-dependent reduction of NCAM2-mediated synaptic adhesion contributes to synapse loss in Alzheimer’s disease. Nature Communications, 8836. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9836
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