Using brain organoids, UC San Diego researchers discover mutational commonalities between muscular dystrophy type 1 and Rett syndrome, suggesting the potential of a similar treatment for both.
Tag: Neuroscience
Oxytocin Spreads Cooperation in Social Networks
Administering oxytocin to the central members of a social network spreads cooperation via increased punishment of uncooperative behavior, according to new research published in JNeurosci.
UCSF Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building Opens to Patients
UCSF is welcoming its first patients to the Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building, a one-of-a-kind treatment center that aims to redefine mental health services and make a bold statement against stigma.

Supernumerary Virtual Robotic Arms Can Feel Like Part of Our Body
Research teams at the University of Tokyo, Keio University and Toyohashi University of Technology in Japan have developed a virtual robotic limb system which can be operated by users’ feet in a virtual environment as extra, or supernumerary, limbs.
Knocking Out Nausea
A new study in mice describes how different cell types in the brain work together to suppress nausea
Inhaled Toxic Particles Take Direct Route From Lungs to Brain – Study
Breathing in polluted air could lead to toxic particles being transported from lungs to brain, via the bloodstream – potentially contributing to brain disorders and neurological damage, a new study reveals.
COVID-19 on the Brain: Neurological Symptoms Persist in Majority of Long-Haulers
A UC San Diego study describes the short- and long-term neurological symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and identifies a new group of COVID-19 long-haulers with advanced motor and cognitive symptoms.
Brain Signal Irregularity May Provide Clues to Understanding Epileptic Process
Researchers from the UPF Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC) propose a new method to differentiate signals from the epileptic focus from those recorded in other parts of the brain without the presence of an epileptic seizure.
Chronic Pain in Gulf War Veterans Linked to Brain Structure Changes
The brains of Gulf War Veterans with chronic pain possess larger pain processing regions and smaller pain regulation regions compared to their healthy peers, according to new research published in JNeurosci.
Brain Differences in Pain Modulation in People with Self-Injury Behaviour
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden might have found an explanation for why people with self-injury behaviour generally feel less pain than others.
For Communication Between Brain Areas, Milliseconds Matter
Understanding how brain areas communicate is one of the oldest questions in neuroscience.
New Study Shows How Having Had COVID-19 May Negatively Impact Your Performance at Work
Individuals who contract COVID‐19 often experience memory, attention, and concentration problems, even after recovering from the initial illness.
How does the brain process heat as pain?
A team of researchers at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine believe they’ve found an answer to how thermal pain is sensed.
Temperature Plays a Role in Brain Activity Related to Episodic Memory and Planning
Article title: Brain temperature affects quantitative features of hippocampal sharp wave ripples Authors: Peter C. Petersen, Mihály Vöröslakos, György Buzsáki From the authors: “Here, we show that features of hippocampal ripples, including the rate of occurrence, peak frequency, and duration…
Broad Spectrum of Autism Depends on Spectrum of Genetic Factors
UC San Diego researchers report significant progress in understanding how the combined effects of rare mutations and common genetic variation in determining whether a child will develop ASD and its consequential effects.
Both nature and nurture contribute to signatures of socioeconomic status in the brain
Your education, your job, your income, the neighborhood you live in: Together these factors are considered to represent socioeconomic status (SES) and contribute to a variety of health and social outcomes, from physical and mental health to educational achievement and cognitive capacities.
Scientists See Signs of Traumatic Brain Injury in Headbutting Muskox
Scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai saw for the first time hallmarks of concussions and other head trauma in the brains of deceased headbutting animals—muskoxen and bighorn sheep. The results published in the journal Acta Neuropathologica may contradict the commonly-held belief that ramming animals do not suffer brain injuries and support the notion that studies on animals with brains evolutionarily similar to those of humans may help researchers understand and reduce traumatic brain injuries.
University of Minnesota technology allows amputees to control a robotic arm with their mind
A team of biomedical engineering researchers and industry collaborators have developed a way to tap into a patient’s brain signals through a neural chip implanted in the arm, effectively reading the patient’s mind and opening the door for less invasive alternatives to brain surgeries.
2022 Bressler Prize Awarded to Dr. Sheila Nirenberg for Outstanding Accomplishments in Vision Science
Lighthouse Guild announced today that Sheila Nirenberg, PhD, has been awarded the 2022 Bressler Prize for her outstanding advances in vision science, including deciphering the retina’s neural code which is the key to restoring meaningful vision in people who are blind from retinal degeneration.
EMT Receives Life-Saving Stroke Care from JFK University Medical Center Colleagues
January 5, 2022 started off just like any other workday for Hackensack Meridian JFK University Medical Center Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) Michael (Mike) DiMeglio, 28. Although Mike had been diagnosed with COVID-19 13 days before, he was fully recovered and ready to start his noon-to-midnight shift.
But when Mike was doing a pre-shift rig check on his emergency medical services (EMS) vehicle at his station, he noticed something odd.
Circuit model may explain how deep brain stimulation treats Parkinson’s disease symptoms
People with Parkinson’s disease and their doctors confront many unknowns, including the answer to exactly how deep brain stimulation (DBS) relieves some of the motor symptoms patients experience.
When unconscious, the brain is anything but “silent”
The cerebral cortex is thought to be the seat of conscious processing in the brain.
Scientists Detect Common Fungicide in Pregnant Women and Children
For the first time, UNC-Chapel Hill scientists have measured the concentration of a biomarker of the commonly used fungicide azoxystrobin in the urine of pregnant women and children. They also documented maternal transfer of the chemical to mouse embryos and weaning-age mice.
Active phase calorie restriction enhances longevity, UT Southwestern neuroscience study reveals
A new study in mice led by neuroscientists at UT Southwestern’s Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute shows that it’s not just calories that count.
Researcher explores the role of musical timbre or tone in emotional response
How can people interpret the same sounds so differently? One answer is timbre, according to Zachary Wallmark, an assistant professor of musicology at the University of Oregon.
Cognitive impairment from severe COVID-19 equivalent to 20 years of ageing, study finds
Cognitive impairment as a result of severe COVID-19 is similar to that sustained between 50 and 70 years of age and is the equivalent to losing 10 IQ points, say a team of scientists from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London.
Dopamine involved in recognizing emotions
The neurotransmitter dopamine, famous for its role in reward, is also involved in recognizing emotions, according to new research published in JNeurosci.

Gene Therapy Reverses Effects of Autism-Linked Mutation in Brain Organoids
UC San Diego scientists use lab-grown human brain tissue to identify neural abnormalities in Pitt-Hopkins Syndrome and show gene therapy tools can rescue neural structure and function.
Tufts University Researchers Discover New Function Performed by Nearly Half of Brain Cells
Researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine have discovered a previously unknown function performed by a type of cell that comprises nearly half of all cells in the brain.
The scientists say this discovery in mice of a new function by cells known as astrocytes opens a whole new direction for neuroscience research that might one day lead to treatments for many disorders ranging from epilepsy to Alzheimer’s to traumatic brain injury.
Where the mind is without fear: Scientists discover mechanism behind the chemically induced suppression of fearful memories
Tragic events like wars, famines, earthquakes, and accidents create fearful memories in our brain. These memories continue to haunt us even after the actual event has passed.
For Neurons, Where They Begin Isn’t Necessarily Where They End
Scientists at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children’s Institute of Genomic Medicine describe novel methods for inferring the movement of human brain cells during fetal development by studying healthy adult individuals who have recently passed away from natural causes.
Attention to objects in peripheral vision is not driven by tiny eye movements
New research by National Eye Institute (NEI) investigators shows that while microsaccades seem to boost or diminish the strength of brain signals underlying attention, the eye movements are not drivers of those brain signals.
Scientists see what research participants picture in their mind’s eye
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Now, researchers from Japan have found that even a mental picture can communicate volumes.
On repeat: Listening to favorite music improves brain plasticity, cognitive performance of Alzheimer’s patients, Toronto researchers find
Researchers at the University of Toronto (U of T) and Unity Health Toronto have demonstrated that repeated listening to personally meaningful music induces beneficial brain plasticity in patients with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer’s disease.
Detective Receives Top Notch Stroke Care From JFK University Medical Center
When 49-year-old, Detective Roberta Harper was having trouble putting together a sentence on June 27, 2021, she had no idea she would end up at JFK University Medical Center having a massive stroke.
UC San Diego-Led Team Receives $9M to Advance Parkinson’s Disease Treatments
A new $9 million grant from Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) will enable advancement of UC San Diego’s discovery that inhibiting a single gene in mice converts other cell types directly into new neurons, alleviating all Parkinson’s symptoms.
Scientists look beyond the individual brain to study the collective mind
In a new paper, scientists suggest that efforts to understand human cognition should expand beyond the study of individual brains.
Gene Therapy Shows Early Promise as Angelman Syndrome Treatment
Scientists publish encouraging early tests of a gene therapy strategy against Angelman syndrome, a neurodevelopmental disorder that features poor muscle control and balance, hard-to-treat epilepsy, and intellectual disabilities.
Mount Sinai Launches the Brain and Body Research Center, Among the First in the U.S.to Focus Solely on How the Brain and Body Interact
Have you ever experienced a stressful time in your life and then caught a cold, or wondered why you feel sad and depressed when you’re sick? It turns out that it’s not all in your head.
Recent research spanning the fields of neuroscience and immunology suggests that when the brain senses a threat in the environment—whether it be physical, psychological, or social—it sends signals via a complex network of peripheral nerves that mobilize the immune system, readying it to protect us from injury.
UNLV Research Bolsters Link Between Diabetes and Alzheimer’s Disease
In a study published in the September issue of the journal Communications Biology, UNLV neuroscientists show that chronic hyperglycemia impairs working memory performance and alters fundamental aspects of working memory networks.
Preparing for exascale: Argonne’s Aurora supercomputer to drive brain map construction
Argonne researchers are mapping the complex tangle of the brain’s connections — a connectome — by developing applications that will find their stride in the advent of exascale computing.
Mount Sinai Neurobiologist Selected as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has selected Ian Maze, PhD, Associate Professor of Neuroscience, and Pharmacological Sciences, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, as an HHMI Investigator.
New research “sniffs out” how associative memories are formed
Has the scent of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies ever taken you back to afternoons at your grandmother’s house? Has an old song ever brought back memories of a first date? The ability to remember relationships between unrelated items (an odor and a location, a song and an event) is known as associative memory.
146th Annual Meeting of the ANA to Focus on Research and Development of Neurologic Disease Therapeutics
ANA’s Virtual Annual Meeting will offer scientific symposia highlighting cutting-edge research in neurology, Interactive Workshops that spotlight advances across the full spectrum of neurologic and neuroscience subspecialties, and Professional Development courses to help academic neurologists and neuroscientists at all career levels connect and excel.
Contrary to expectations, study finds primate neurons have fewer synapses than mice in visual cortex
A UChicago and Argonne National Laboratory study analyzing over 15,000 individual synapses in macaques and mice found that primate neurons have two to five times fewer synapses in the visual cortex compared to mice – and the difference may be due to the metabolic cost of maintaining synapses.
New Model for Solving Novel Problems Uses Mental Map
How do we make decisions about a situation we have not encountered before?
Gene Messengers, Rather Than Genes, May Provide Best Disease Clues
Genes can be expressed in different ways depending on how cells process their messengers, aka splicing isoforms. Genetic mutations can damage some splicing isoforms but not others. UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers found that splicing isoforms hit by…
Struggling to learn a new language? Blame it on your stable brain
A study in patients with epilepsy is helping researchers understand how the brain manages the task of learning a new language while retaining our mother tongue.
Neurons in visual cortex of the brain ‘drift’ over time
New research from Washington University in St. Louis reveals that neurons in the visual cortex — the part of the brain that processes visual stimuli — change their responses to the same stimulus over time.
Neuroactive Steroids May Induce Prolonged Antidepressant Effects by Altering Brain States
A new study by researchers from Tufts University School of Medicine and Sage Therapeutics discovered that neurosteroids (allopregnanolone analogs) may alter network states in brain regions involved in emotional processing, which may explain the prolonged antidepressant effects of these compounds.