Latest Nervous system Stories

New way to image brain-cell activity could shed light on autism and other psychiatric disorders A team led by MIT neuroscientists has developed a way to monitor how brain cells coordinate with each other to control specific behaviors, such as initiating movement or detecting an odor. The researchers' new imaging technique, based on the detection of calcium ions in neurons, could help them map the brain circuits that perform such functions. It could also provide new insights into the...

-A new study examined what brain volume recovery may take place during the first 14 days of abstinence from alcohol. -Findings indicate that recovery of cerebral gray matter volume can begin for alcoholic patients after only a few days of detoxification. -Recovery may vary among brain regions. Chronic alcohol abuse can severely damage the nervous system, particularly cognitive functions, cerebral metabolism, and brain morphology. Building upon previous findings that alcoholics can...

In many pathologies of the nervous system, there is a common event - cells called microglia are activated from surveillant watchmen into fighters. Microglia are the immune cells of the nervous system, ingesting and destroying pathogens and damaged nerve cells. Until now little was known about the molecular mechanisms of microglia activation despite this being a critical process in the body. Now new research from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital – The Neuro - at McGill...

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Your first password was probably your pet’s name or the street you grew up on. Then they started requiring numbers and certain punctuation characters. If you are anything like me, and God help you if you are, you have numerous post-it notes littering your computer desk with current and former passwords for any number of websites, accounts and work databases. It took looking to science fiction and high-energy action movies for the...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Anatomically complex brains evolved earlier than previously thought and have changed little over the course of time, according to a new study by University of Arizona neurobiologist Nicholas Strausfeld. The specimen described in the study, which will be published in the October 11 issue of Nature, is the earliest known fossil to show a brain. The three inch long fossil was discovered embedded in mudstones deposited during the...

JUPITER, Fla., Oct. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Jerry Jacobson, biophysicist and inventor, announced today the results of studies on the effect of extremely low intensity electromagnetic fields on the restoration of forelimb grip strength, and radial nerve ultrastructure in mice with induced motor neuropathy. After administration of neurotoxin, mice persisted to exhibit a 56% decrease in grip strength; and radial nerve electron micrographs showed axonal demyelination, inactive...

New findings demonstrate potential to treat a wide variety of disorders that affect myelin Physician-scientists at Oregon Health & Science University Doernbecher Children's Hospital have demonstrated for the first time that banked human neural stem cells — HuCNS-SCs, a proprietary product of StemCells Inc. — can survive and make functional myelin in mice with severe symptoms of myelin loss. Myelin is the critical fatty insulation, or sheath, surrounding new nerve fibers and is...

...and we can tell The speed and degree to which the pupil of the eye responds is a standard test for alertness. It has also been used to assess how sleepy or exhausted a person is. Now, research to be published in the International Journal of Bioinformatics Research and Applications suggests that measuring pupil response alone is not enough and that a person's rate of blinking should also be incorporated to obtain a more precise measure of alertness. The work could be important in the...

ROCKVILLE, Md., Oct. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Neuralstem, Inc. (NYSE MKT: CUR) announced that it will present preclinical data in five poster presentations at Neuroscience 2012, the 42(nd) Annual Meeting for the Society for Neuroscience., October 13-17, in New Orleans (http://www.sfn.org/AM2012/). These posters will cover new data pertaining to Neuralstem's NSI-566 spinal cord stem cell line for cell therapy, and its patented, neurogenic small molecule compounds: NSI-144, NSI-150,...

ORLANDO, Fla. and DETROIT, Oct. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Chronic back and neck pain are the number one cause of lost workdays and the second most common cause of disability in the United States, costing the healthcare system $100 billion annually. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120925/FL80257LOGO ) Pure Healthy Back, Inc. (PHB) of Orlando, FL and Dynamic Rehabilitation of Detroit, MI, announce a strategic partnership, Dynamic HealthyBack, to help individuals and...