Brain News and Research

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The human brain is the center of the human nervous system and is a highly complex organ. Enclosed in the cranium, it has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times as large as the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size.

Scientists Develop Tiny Human Cerebellums to Decipher Disease and Design Therapies

In a first for USC Stem Cell scientists, the laboratory of Giorgia Quadrato, an assistant professor of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, has pioneered a novel human brain organoid model that generates all the major cell types of the cerebellum, a hindbrain region predominantly made up of two cell types necessary for movement, cognition, and emotion: granule cells and Purkinje neurons.

5 Jan 2024

Midshipman Fish Song Shows Midbrain's Role in Vocal Production

Talkative midshipman fish also referred to as “California singing fish,” rely heavily on the midbrain to initiate and organize the trains of sounds necessary for vocal communication.

4 Jan 2024

Unveiling Cytonemes, the Secret Messengers of the Nervous System

Researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital captured images of cytonemes, which are cellular projections that are involved in long-distance signal transmission during development.

3 Jan 2024

The Foundation of Gene Expression in Brain Development

Researchers from Osaka University and Shenzhen Bay Laboratory have uncovered the actions of proteins connected to memory and learning in human brain cells in a study that was just published in Cell Reports.

29 Dec 2023

Teneurin-3: Protein That Helps for Circadian Rhythm Stability in Mice

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have discovered a protein in mice’s visual systems that seems to be essential for regulating the body’s circadian rhythms by reducing the brain’s sensitivity to light.

29 Dec 2023

SpaceX Returns Vital Life Science Research Sponsored by the ISS National Lab

Dozens of science and technology development payloads returned to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) on December 22 as SpaceX’s 29th Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) mission, contracted by NASA, successfully concluded.

27 Dec 2023

Toxic Plant Toxin Gets a Safety Upgrade for New Drugs and Pesticides

Picrotoxinin, a plant-derived toxin that Asian fishermen traditionally have used to paralyze and catch fish, has long been seen as a possible starting point for new human therapeutics and other neuroactive products.

26 Dec 2023

Unveiling the Orchestration of Cells With Single-Cell Time Tracking

While physicists continue to argue about whether time is indeed an illusion, as Albert Einstein claimed, biologists have no doubt about its significance for understanding life as a dynamic system.

26 Dec 2023

NEMO Protein Promotes Degradation of Harmful Alpha-Synuclein Aggregates in Parkinson's Disease

Researchers have identified a mechanism that promotes the breakdown of harmful protein deposits. If it malfunctions, it can lead to Parkinson’s disease.

21 Dec 2023

Intermittent Energy Restriction Diet Alters Brain-Gut-Microbiome Axis

Worldwide, more than one billion people are obese. Obesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and some cancers.

21 Dec 2023

How Next-Gen Sequencing is Revolutionizing Infection Diagnosis

Scientists from Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital (AP-HP), the Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, Inserm, Université Paris-Est Créteil and the Alfort National Veterinary School, coordinated by Professor Marc Eloit and Dr. Anne Jamet in collaboration with Dr. Jacques Fourgeaud and Beatrice Regnault, studied the role of global genetic characterization of samples (or non-targeted metagenomics) using next-generation sequencing (mNGS) in diagnosing infections.

19 Dec 2023

Exploring Brain Communication Through Polysynaptic Pathways

In a comparative study of communication networks in the brains of humans, macaques, and mice, researchers from EPFL discovered that only human brains transmit information through multiple parallel pathways.

19 Dec 2023

Breathing Patterns Linked to Memory Consolidation During Sleep

How are memories consolidated during sleep? In 2021, researchers led by Dr. Thomas Schreiner, leader of the Emmy Noether junior research group at LMU's Department of Psychology, had already shown there was a direct relationship between the emergence of certain sleep-related brain activity patterns and the reactivation of memory contents during sleep.

19 Dec 2023