A single protein plays a major role in deadly prion diseases by smashing up clusters of these infectious proteins, creating the “seeds” that allow fatal brain illnesses to quickly spread, new Brown University research shows.
A University of Adelaide study has found that most pregnant women are failing to take adequate folic acid supplements, leaving their unborn child at risk of brain abnormalities and spinal cord defects such as spina bifida.
A motor protein called myosin X runs the main road of a developing neuron, delivering to its tip a receptor that enables it to communicate with other neurons, scientists say.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have been awarded a three-year $2.1 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to develop a new drug to treat bipolar disorder.
Duke University Medical Center researchers have discovered that activation of a particular brain region predicts whether people tend to be selfish or altruistic.
Folic acid and folate supplements can boost the cognitive powers among older adults. Researchers in Holland say that the powers attributed to folic acid supplements regarding their ability to increase the powers of cognition among older adults are real.
Folic acid supplements can improve the memory and brain power of ageing brains. Men and women aged 50 to 70 who took daily supplements had similar mental abilities to contemporaries almost five years younger, The Lancet study found.
For the first time, a set of screening guidelines for the detection of carotid stenosis, the thickening of the blood vessel that supplies blood to the brain and a leading cause of stroke, has been developed by a multidisciplinary committee of internationally recognized neurologists and surgeons.
Obesity is one of the main risk factors for developing type II diabetes. Previous studies have shown that mice lacking a protein known as SH2B1 throughout their body are obese and develop diabetes. However, a new study now shows that replacing SH2B1 only in the brain of these mice rescues them from obesity, indicating that SH2B1 in the brain might be a new target for the development of treatments for obesity and type II diabetes.
Building on newly discovered genetic threads in the rich tapestry of biochemical signals that cause cancer, a Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center team has dramatically killed brain cancer cells by blocking those signals with a statin and an experimental antitumor drug.