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Morphine makes lasting -- and surprising -- change in the brain
04-25-2007 · EurekAlert!Morphine stops the synapse-strengthening process in the brain known as long-term potentiation at inhibitory synapses, according to new research conducted by Brown University brain scientist Julie Kauer. In Nature, Kauer explains this startlingly persistent effect, which could contribute to addiction and may provide a target for treatments of opioid addiction. The research also supports a provocative theory of addiction as a disease of learning and memory.
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- Making sense of the world through a cochlear implant
03-13-2007 · EurekAlert!
Scientists at University College London and Imperial College London have shown how the brain makes sense of speech in a noisy environment, such as a pub or in a crowd. The research suggests that various regions of the brain work together to make sense of what it hears, but that when the speech is completely incomprehensible, the brain appears to give up trying.
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- Sleep chemical central to effectiveness of deep brain stimulation
12-23-2007 · EurekAlert!
A brain chemical that makes us sleepy also appears to play a central role in the success of deep brain stimulation to ease symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease and other brain disorders. The surprising finding is outlined in a paper published online Dec. 23 in Nature Medicine.
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- Blame myelin for many neuropsychiatric disorders
11-20-2006 · EurekAlert!
Neurologist George Bartzokis argues that the brain's miles of myelin are a key evolutionary change that may make us vulnerable to highly prevalent neuropsychiatric disorders. He argues that viewing the brain as myelin-dependent may be key to developing new and novel treatments against disease.
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- Jefferson researchers' discovery may change thinking on how viruses invade the brain
04-19-2007 · EurekAlert!
A molecule thought crucial to ferrying the deadly rabies virus into the brain, where it eventually kills, apparently isn't. Instead, the protein complex LC8 is actually involved in virus reproduction. The surprising finding, say researchers at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, may change the way scientists think about how central nervous system-attacking viruses such as herpes viruses invade the brain and cause disease.
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- Fine as North Dakota wine
08-06-2007 · EurekAlert!
Faux wine labels suggesting a wine was from either California or from North Dakota had a surprising impact far beyond the taste of the wine. The Cornell University study showed that restaurant diners drinking what they thought was California wine rated the wine and food as tasting better, and ate 11 percent more of their food. They were also more likely to make return reservations.
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- Bottleneck in blood supply makes brain vulnerable to strokes
01-03-2007 · EurekAlert!
A team of University of California, San Diego physicists and neuroscientists has discovered a bottleneck in the network of blood vessels in the brain that makes it vulnerable to strokes. The finding may explain the origin of the puzzling damage to the brain's gray matter often detected in brain scans, especially among the elderly.
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- Damage to specific part of the brain may make smokers 'forget' to smoke
01-25-2007 · EurekAlert!
Preliminary research supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health, has found that some smokers with damage to a part of the brain called the insula may have their addiction to nicotine practically eliminated.
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- Smoking produces changes in human brain like those in animals using illicit drugs
02-20-2007 · EurekAlert!
New research shows for the first time that smoking produces long-lasting biochemical changes in the human brain similar to those changes previously seen in the brains of animals that used cocaine, heroin, and other illicit drugs.
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- Getting to the heart of the heart
11-22-2006 · EurekAlert!
Helping to change scientists' thinking about how the heart is formed, investigators at Children's Hospital Boston have identified a type of stem cell that gives rise to at least two different cell types that make up the heart's tissues. The findings, to be published in the Dec. 15 Cell, bring researchers a step closer to being able to regenerate tissues to repair congenital heart defects in children and damage caused by heart attacks in adults.
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- City ants take the heat
02-27-2007 · EurekAlert!
Most people remain unaware of the more rapid warming that has occurred within major cities. In fact, large cities can be more than 10 degrees hotter than their surroundings. These metropolitan hot spots, which scientists refer to as urban heat islands, can stress the animals and plants that make their home alongside humans. Until recently, biologists focused so much on the effects of global climate change, that they had overlooked the effects of urban warming.
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