Meningitis :: FDA clears rapid test for meningitis
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared for marketing a test that uses molecular biology to quickly detect the presence of viral meningitis.
Brain
Sleep Apnea :: Obstructive sleep apnea patients show silent brain infarction lesions
Patients with moderate to severe sleep apnea who have significantly higher serum levels of inflammatory markers that serve as precursors to coronary artery disease, as well as lesions associated with silent brain infarction, have an elevated risk of stroke, according to a group of Japanese medical researchers.
Erectile Dysfunction :: Erectile dysfunction in diabetes is due to selective defect in the brain
A new study sheds additional light on how erectile dysfunction (ED) interacts with diabetes. The study is another step in uncovering the link between the two disorders, and may lead to improved efficacy in treatments.
Video Games :: Video games shown to improve vision
According to a new study from the University of Rochester, playing action video games sharpens vision. In tests of visual acuity that assess the ability to see objects accurately in a cluttered space, game players scored higher than their non-playing peers.
Depression :: Stress and nerve cells survival in rats, finding may open window for depression treatment
A single, socially stressful situation can kill off new nerve cells in the brain region that processes learning, memory and emotion, and possibly contribute to depression, new animal research shows.
Smoking :: A short walk helps smokers quit
Smokers should do short bouts of exercise to help them resist the temptation to light up, say experts at the University of Exeter. A review, recently published in the international journal “Addiction,” concludes that when smokers abstain from smoking, exercise can help them to manage withdrawal symptoms and resist the urge to smoke.
Smell :: Penn study on olfactory nerve cells shows why we smell better when we sniff
Unlike most of our sensory systems that detect only one type of stimuli, our sense of smell works double duty, detecting both chemical and mechanical stimuli to improve how we smell. This finding, plus the fact that both types of stimuli produce reaction in olfactory nerve cells, which control how our brain perceives what we smell, explains why we sniff to smell something, and why our sense of smell is synchronized with inhaling.
Health Care :: Health care system for aging nerve cells
Uncontrolled neuronal death in the brain often gives rise to neurodegenerative illnesses like Parkinson or Alzheimer disease. Whether or not neurons have a long and healthy life is, apart from other factors, determined by the presence of neurotrophic factors. Scientists of the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology have now provided unambiguous proof that the presence of the neurotrophic factor GDNF and its receptor Ret are essential for the survival of neurons in a specific brain region.
Stroke :: Tracing broken wiring in stroke patients
Researchers have used a technique to trace the functional disruption in brain circuitry that causes stroke patients to show a lack of awareness or response to the side of the body opposite to the side of the stroke lesion in the brain. The researchers said their findings shed new light on the neurological details of this “spatial neglect.”
Learning :: Associative memory – Learning at all levels
“Green” means “go,” but what does “red” mean? Just about everybody says “stop” since we all have learned to imbue certain colors with meaning (or we would be road kill by now). Long thought to be limited to higher levels of information processing, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies successfully traced this type of associative learning to early stages of the visual processing pathway.