Brain
Hypnosis shown to reduce symptoms of dementia
A scientist at the University of Liverpool has found that hypnosis can slow down the impacts of dementia and improve quality of life for those living with the condition.
Forensic psychologist, Dr Simon Duff, investigated the effects of hypnosis on people living with dementia and compared the treatment to mainstream health-care methods. He also looked at how hypnosis compared to a type of group therapy in which participants were encouraged to discuss news and current affairs.
They found that people living with dementia who had received hypnosis therapy showed an improvement in concentration, memory and socialisation compared to the other two treatment groups. Relaxation, motivation and daily living activities also improved with the use of hypnosis.
Obsessive compulsive disorder linked to brain activity
Cambridge researchers have discovered that measuring activity in a region of the brain could help to identify people at risk of developing obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
As the current diagnosis of OCD is based on a clinical interview and often does not occur until the disorder has progressed, this could enable earlier more objective detection, and intervention.
The scientists, funded by the Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust, have discovered that people with OCD and their close family members show under-activation of brain areas responsible for stopping habitual behaviour. This is the first time that scientists have associated functional changes in the brain with familial risk for the disorder. Their findings are reported in the 18 July edition of Science.
Alcoholism-associated molecular adaptations in brain neurocognitive circuits
After many years of heavy drinking, alcohol produces pathological alterations in the brain. In many alcoholics these changes culminate in massive social deterioration and disorders of memory and learning. Severe cognitive impairments occur in approximately 10% of heavy drinkers. Alcoholic dementia is the second leading course of adult dementia in the Western countries, accounting for 10% of the cases, and still represents an unresolved problem. So far no effective pharmacotherapy for memory problems in alcoholics is available.
Nowadays this problem can be approached by innovative research using molecular and epigenetic analyses, which yield new insight into brain pathophysiology.
Molecular dysregulations in endogenous opioids – a neurotransmitter system in the brain that is central to reward function and pain control – are supposed to play a critical role in the development of alcoholism and associated cognitive impairment.
‘Mind’s eye’ influences visual perception
Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world. New research from Vanderbilt University has found that mental imagery - what we see with the “mind’s eye” - directly impacts our visual perception.
The research was published online June 26 by the journal Current Biology in a paper titled, “The Functional Impact of Mental Imagery on Conscious Perception.”
“We found that imagery leads to a short-term memory trace that can bias future perception,” says Joel Pearson, research associate in the Vanderbilt Department of Psychology. and lead author of the study. “This is the first research to definitively show that imagining something changes vision both while you are imagining it and later on.”
New oral drug curbs MS disease activity
In people with multiple sclerosis, or MS, treatment with a new immune-modulating drug called laquinimod can significantly reduce disease activity seen on brain MRI scans, a multinational team reports in The Lancet medical journal.
Currently approved drugs that target the inflammation associated with MS are all given by injection, point out Dr. Giancarlo Comi, from the University Vita-Salute in Milan, Italy, and colleagues. By contrast, laquinimod can be taken more conveniently, by mouth.
In a mid-stage clinical trial involving 306 patients with relapsing-remitting MS, Comi’s team investigated the effects of two laquinimod doses—0.3 and 0.6 milligrams daily—compared to an inactive placebo.
Known Genetic Risk for Alzheimer’s in Whites Also Places Blacks at Risk
A commonly recognized gene that places one at risk for Alzheimer’s disease does not discriminate between blacks and whites, according to new research led by Florida State University.
FSU Psychology Professor Natalie Sachs-Ericsson and graduate student Kathryn Sawyer have found that the gene APOE epsilon 4 allele is a risk factor for African-Americans as well as whites. Until now, it has been a mainstream belief that the gene is only a risk factor for whites.
“The results of our study have clear implications for research and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease,” Sachs-Ericsson said. “The APOE test might be used as one tool in identifying people who are at risk for Alzheimer’s. We now know that African- Americans and Caucasians alike need to be considered for such risk assessments.”
Non-whites Receive Harsher Sentences for Inflicted Traumatic Brain Injury of Children
Non-white defendants are nearly twice as likely to receive harsher prison sentences than white defendants in North Carolina criminal cases stemming from inflicted traumatic brain injury of young children.
That’s the conclusion reached by researchers from the Injury Prevention Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who tracked down what happened in every such case prosecuted in North Carolina in 2000 and 2001. Their study appears in the June issue of the journal Pediatrics.
Inflicted traumatic brain injury is a specific form of child abuse, which includes but is not limited to shaken baby syndrome.
Alzheimer’s brain plaques cleared in mice
Protein accumulations, or plaques, characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease can be eliminated from the brains of mice, researchers report, by encouraging scavenger immune cells called macrophages to do their work.
The activity of macrophages is damped down by a naturally occurring compound called TGF-beta, to stop runaway reactions, and prior research has shown that brain levels of TGF-beta are increased in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the report in the research journal Nature Medicine.
Some researchers believed that the high levels of TGF-beta were simply an attempt to quiet the inflammatory response associated with Alzheimer plaques. However, the new findings contradict that notion.
When your memories can no longer be trusted
You went to a wedding yesterday. The service was beautiful, the food and drink flowed and there was dancing all night. But people tell you that you are in hospital, that you have been in hospital for weeks, and that you didn’t go to a wedding yesterday at all.
The experience of false memories like this following neurological damage is known as confabulation. The reasons why patients experience false memories such as these has largely remained a mystery. Now a new study conducted by Dr Martha Turner and colleagues at University College London, published in the May 2008 issue of Cortex offers some clues as to what might be going on.
The authors studied 50 patients who had damage to different parts of the brain, and found that those who confabulated all shared damage to the inferior medial prefrontal cortex, a region in the centre of the front part of the brain just behind the eyes.
Neural cell transplants may help those with Parkinson’s disease
The current issue of CELL TRANSPLANTATION (Vol. 17:4) features a number of publications by researchers seeking new ways to treat Parkinson’s disease (PD), a neurological disease characterized by muscle rigidity, tremor and slowed physical movements related to insufficient levels of dopamine (DA) in the basal ganglia of the brain, by using primate models to examine the potential therapy role of transplanted cells.
One research team looked at the ability of human neural progenitor cells (hNPCs) as a potential therapy when hNPCs were engineered to produce glial derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) in the brain following hNPC transplants.
“Localized delivery is essential for aiming therapeutic molecules when treating neurodegenerative disorders,” said Maria Emborg, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “There are currently a number of clinical trials underway using direct gene therapy approaches to deliver potent trophic factors throughout the basal ganglia.”
Weight-loss drugs may harm developing brain: study
A drug from a new class of weight-loss treatments disrupted wiring needed for brain development in young mice, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday, raising concerns about using such medications in children.
Mark Bear and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studied the effects of a chemical that suppresses appetite by blocking cannabinoid receptors in the brain, the same brain mechanisms that make people hungry when they smoke marijuana.
“I think that the cautionary note is that these mechanisms play an important role in ... brain development,” said Bear, whose study appears in the journal Neuron.
Drinking dulls the brain’s response to threats
Drinking alcohol dulls the brain’s ability to detect threats, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday in a study that helps explain why people who are drunk cannot tell when the guy at the end of the bar is angling for a fight.
They said the study is the first to show how alcohol affects the human brain as it responds to threats.
“You see this all of the time. People get into confrontations when they are intoxicated that they probably wouldn’t get into when they are sober,” said Jodi Gilman of the National Institutes on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, whose study appears in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Research Seeks to Understand Memory Loss in Older People
Today, one out of very 12 people aged 65 and older will experience a decline in their ability to remember, think clearly, reason and make daily decisions. The decline in memory and mental abilities may be subtle, but it limits quality of life and oftentimes leads to depression.
Misericordia University researchers are leading a team of students and faculty from two regional institutions of higher education in a six-month study to better understand how to treat people with memory problems and who have a decreased ability to think clearly.
James Siberski, M.S., assistant professor, Geriatric-Care Manager Certificate Program director and coordinator of the Gerontology Education Center for Professional Development at Misericordia University; and his colleague, Margie Eckroth-Bucher, R.N., associate professor of nursing at Bloomsburg University; are spearheading the research with Misericordia students Jamie Donahue, Mehoopany, Pa.; Grant Greenberg, Douglaston, N.Y.; Pam Roberts, Shavertown, Pa.; Cheryl Wilson, Shohola, Pa.; and Emily Getz, Kunkletown, Pa., at the Maria Joseph Manor’s Continuing Care Community in Danville.
Ground-breaking new insight into the development of Alzheimer’s disease
Leuven, Belgium ¨C According to estimates there are 85,000 Alzheimer patients in our country and approximately 20,000 new cases every year. This spectacular increase is due to the increasing ageing population. Unfortunately it is still unclear precisely which ageing process forms the basis of this spectacular rise in the occurrence of the disease. VIB scientists affiliated to K.U.Leuven have discovered an important molecular link between Alzheimer’s disease and the development of the typical plaques in the brains of Alzheimer patients. This discovery is an important breakthrough in the fundamental research into the cause of Alzheimer’s disease.
Aerobic Exercise Boosts Older Bodies and Minds, Review Suggests
Aerobic exercise could give older adults a boost in brainpower, according to a recent review of studies from the Netherlands.
“Aerobic physical exercises that improve cardiovascular fitness also help boost cognitive processing speed, motor function and visual and auditory attention in healthy older people,” said lead review author Maaike Angevaren.
Around age 50, even healthy older adults begin to experience mild declines in cognition, such as occasional memory lapses and reduced ability to pay attention. Convincing evidence shows that regular exercise contributes to healthy aging, but could the types of exercise a person does influence his or her cognitive fitness?
