Tag: brain

It is important to remember that no two persons with brain cancer tend to show same symptoms or signs. In addition, brain tumors and cancers may be sometimes difficult to diagnose as most of their symptoms and signs are commonplace and sometimes overlap with other ailments. That said, the severity and extent of symptoms caused

Anxiety is an adaptive response that is of great benefit to all life forms. It triggers fear learning, i.e., survival instincts that alert an organism to its surroundings and the dangers that prevail in it. However, extreme anxiety that is inappropriate to a circumstance and is prolonged is a negative emotion, labeled as a social

As a society, Westernized people are increasingly conscious of the types of food we consume and the effect they have on weight and health. More and more people are following diet plans to manage their weight. The ketogenic or keto diet is one commonly followed plan which shares some features with other well-known diets such

Patients in a coma are described as being in a state of unconsciousness from which they cannot be woken and are unresponsive. Typical causes of coma include stroke, seizures, severe head injury, infection of the brain such as encephalitis, or alcohol poisoning. Those with diabetes pose an additional risk of falling into a coma if

Skip to: A Promise for PTSD Patients Warm Acupuncture for A Restful Night’s Sleep Scalp Acupuncture to Stimulate Brain Activation in the Elderly The exact means by which acupuncture affects the central nervous system is unclear. The practice of acupuncture is widespread – both in the world, and across the body. It can be applied

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by the presence of beta-amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles of tau, that together lead to the progressive neurodegeneration of neurons in the brain leading to the symptoms of dementia. Image Credit:Atthapon Raksthaput Recent research has revealed that patients and animal models of Alzheimer’s disease display significant disturbances to brain blood flow

SORLA is a protein trafficking receptor that has been mainly studied in neurons, but it also plays a role in cancer cells. Professor Johanna Ivaska's research group at Turku Bioscience observed that SORLA functionally contributes to the most reported therapy-resistant mechanism by which the cell-surface receptor HER3 counteracts HER2 targeting therapy in HER2-positive cancers. Removing

Scientists have long tried to find out what was going wrong in the brains of people with schizophrenia, but with so little success for so long that for some years the popular saying among specialists was that "schizophrenia is the graveyard of neuropathologists." The advent of brain imaging using computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance

What makes one person drive above the speed limit while another navigates steadily in the right lane? What motivates someone to leave a job with a steady paycheck to launch their own business while the other sticks to one employer for an entire career? “People have different tendencies to engage in behavior that risks their

Neurons, the fundamental units of the brain, are complex computers by themselves. They receive input signals on a tree-like structure—the dendrite. This structure does more than simply collect the input signals: it integrates and compares them to find those special combinations that are important for the neurons’ role in the brain. Moreover, the dendrites of

The human brain has about as many neurons as glial cells. These are divided into four major groups: the microglia, the astrocytes, the NG2 glial cells, and the oligodendrocytes. Oligodendrocytes function primarily as a type of cellular insulating tape: They form long tendrils, which consist largely of fat-like substances and do not conduct electricity. These

For many years, neuroscientists worldwide have been trying to understand the neural and cognitive processes underpinning artistic expression. While past findings have identified a number of brain areas that could be associated with the creation of different forms of art, scientists have yet to attain a full and comprehensive picture of the neural processes behind

A post-mortem analysis of brain tissue from people who had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may help explain enduring mysteries about the disorder, such as why women are more susceptible to it and whether a dampened immune system response plays a role in dealing with stress, a team headed by Yale University researchers

A genetic modification in the ‘coat’ of a brain infection-causing virus may allow it to escape antibodies, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. They say testing people for this and other viral mutations may help identify patients at risk for developing a fatal brain disease. Dr. Aron Lukacher, professor and chair of the

When Imogen Golder was four years old, she began to have life-threatening seizures. It took 12 years for her to finally get a diagnosis of rasmussen’s encephalitis, a rare inflammatory neurological disease that can cause dementia. Sufferers of the illness experience frequent and severe seizures, loss of motor skills and speech, weakness on one side

Synapses are specialized brain structures where learning and memory occur. The efficient transmission of synaptic signals relies on the delicate structure and complex molecular composition of the synapses. However, the small size (several hundred nanometers in diameter) and heterogeneous nature of the synapses pose significant challenges in direct observation of the molecules inside synapses. Based

The attentional control that organisms need to succeed in their goals comes from two abilities: the focus to ignore distractions and the discipline to curb impulses. A new study by MIT neuroscientists shows that these abilities are independent, but that the activity of norepinephrine-producing neurons in a single brain region, the locus coeruleus, controls both

When you are faced with a choice — say, whether to have ice cream or chocolate cake for dessert — sets of brain cells just above your eyes fire as you weigh your options. Animal studies have shown that each option activates a distinct set of neurons in the brain. The more enticing the offer,

Parkinson’s disease usually is thought of as a movement disorder. People with Parkinson’s typically first develop a tremor in one hand, followed by slowed movement, stiffness and loss of balance. But within 10 years of diagnosis, more than three-quarters of Parkinson’s patients also develop cognitive problems such as difficulty with memory and with performing sequential

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a method for concentrating and releasing drugs in the brain with pinpoint accuracy. This could make it possible in the future to deliver psychiatric and cancer drugs and other medications only to those regions of the brain where this is medically desirable. Today, this is practically impossible—drugs traveling through