Women who have migraine headaches with visual symptoms (or aura) may be at increased risk for stroke compared to women who do not have migraines, researchers reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association. The risk association between stroke and migraines also increases when other factors are added, such as recent onset of these headaches, smoking and oral contraceptive use.
In a study published in the August issue of Nature Neuroscience, researchers at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Maryland found that there are separate adaptable networks controlling each leg and there are also separate networks controlling leg movements, e.g., forward or backward walking.
Purdue University researchers have developed new miniature devices designed to be implanted in the brain to predict and prevent epileptic seizures and a nanotech sensor for implantation in the eye to treat glaucoma.
The usefulness of established molecular imaging/nuclear medicine approaches in identifying the “hows” and “whys” of brain dysfunction and its potential in providing immediately useful information in treating depression are emphasized in a study in the August Journal of Nuclear Medicine.
Scientists have discovered that leptin, one of the key hormones responsible for reducing hunger and increasing the feeling of fullness, also controls our fondness for food.
While the thyroid has long been linked to metabolism, cutting-edge research underway at Rutgers University-Camden is investigating the possibility that thyroid hormones have an important role in sleep regulation.
Scientists have provided new insight into how a gene is related to schizophrenia. In a study to be published in the August 17 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Amanda J. Law, Medical Research Council Fellow and Associate Professor at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and Visiting Scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), along with colleagues at NIH describe for the first time a genetic variation that causes a gene to be overexpressed in the human brain.
When it comes to generating neurons, researchers have found that not all embryonic stem (ES) cell lines are equal. In comparing neurons generated from two NIH-approved embryonic stem cell lines, scientists have uncovered significant differences in the mature, functioning neurons generated from each line.
University of Cincinnati (UC) neurovascular researchers have identified a gene that?when suppressed or completely absent?may predispose a person to brain aneurysms.
Brain areas that control attention were thinnest in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who carried a particular version of a gene in a study by the National Institutes of Health?s (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). However, the areas, on the right side of the brain?s outer mantle, or cortex, normalized in thickness during the teen years in these children, coinciding with clinical improvement. Although this particular gene version increased risk for ADHD, it also predicted better clinical outcomes and higher IQ than two other common versions of the same gene in youth with ADHD.