A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
We're not wired to feel safe all the time, but maybe one day we could be. A recent study investigating the neurological basis of anxiety in the brain has identified 'anxiety cells' located in the hippocampus – which not only regulate anxious behaviour but can be controlled by a beam of light. The findings, so far demonstrated [...]
Findings could help hunt for treatment for degenerative conditions such as Alzheimers, and psychiatric problems. Humans continue to produce new neurons in a part of their brain involved in learning, memory and emotion throughout adulthood, scientists have revealed, countering previous theories that production stopped after adolescence. The findings could help in developing treatments for neurological [...]
iStockphoto A new study out today in the journal Nature Communications shows that cells normally associated with protecting the brain from infection and injury also play an important role in rewiring the connections between nerve cells. While this discovery sheds new light on the mechanics of neuroplasticity, it could also help explain diseases like autism [...]
Flickr/ Credit: Ann Larie Valentine You might expect that neighboring neurons would be closely related to one another, or that entire regions would arise from the same ancestral cells. But that’s not the case. Christopher Walsh from Boston Children's Hospital has now shown that in one region, the prefrontal cortex, any given neuron [...]
Mitochondria. Credit: Wikipedia commons Two of the most enticing ideas in cells biology have recently converged to create a paradigm shift of epic proportions. The first is that not only is it possible for mitochondria to emigrate from their host cell, they are in fact exchanged among cells much more regularly than has [...]
Treating the brain with sound waves could be a radical new treatment for depression. New research shows short bursts of ultrasound (sound waves above the range of human hearing), at just 30 seconds a time, appear to boost mood and ease anxiety. Volunteers reported significant improvements in mental wellbeing within ten minutes of a single [...]
Compared to the monumental machines of science, things like the International Space Station or the Large Hadron Collider, the human brain doesn't look like much. However, this three-pound amalgam of squishy cells is one of the most complicated and complex structures in the known universe. - Evan Lerner via Researchers model neural structures on [...]
With subjective experience new cells are incorporated into the brain and new circuits are created, altered, strengthened or weakened. The static view of the brain has been disproven and it is now known that the brain is very active—constantly changing connections and growing circuits, thought-by-thought, minute-by-minute and day-by-day. Many different brain mechanisms alter neuronal connections—in [...]
