Alzheimer’s tagged posts

Dreaming. REM sleep is understood to be a critical component of sleep in all mammals, including humans. Credit: © Anton Maltsev / Fotolia

For decades, scientists have fiercely debated whether rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – the phase where dreams appear – is directly involved in memory formation. Now researchers provide evidence that REM sleep does, indeed, play this role – at least in mice. “We already knew that newly acquired information is stored into different types of memories, spatial or emotional, before being consolidated or integrated,” says Sylvain Williams, a researcher and professor of psychiatry at McGill.

“How the brain performs this process has remained unclear – until now...

A new Salk study is the first to closely follow the development of new neurons in the adult brain, giving insight into neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. By genetically engineering new neurons to fluoresce green, researchers were able to see when the new cells grew and branched surrounded by other cell nuclei (blue) in the brain. Credit: Salk Institute

A new study is first to closely follow development of new neurons in the adult brain, giving potential new insight into neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. New brain cells began with a period of overgrowth, sending out a plethora of neuronal branches, before the brain pruned back the connections. “We were surprised by the extent of the pruning we saw,” says Prof. Rusty Gage.

While most o...

Consequences of KP manipulation. KP metabolites and enzymatic steps are indicated in black, whereas the key KP enzymes TDO, KMO, and KATs are indicated in purple. The metabolites 3-HK and QUIN are neurotoxic (as indicated by red arrows), whereas KYNA and TRP are neuroprotective (as indicated by green arrows). Inhibition of TDO results in increased TRP levels, and either TDO or KMO inhibition leads to a reduction in the 3-HK/KYNA ratio (highlighted in blue). The enzyme 3-hydroxyanthranilic acid dioxygenase is not present in flies, and thus QUIN is not synthesized.

Lab-based study discovers way of ‘reversing’ symptoms...

In the first experiment, two objects always appeared in the same position relative to the room’s boundary; the other two always appeared in the same spot relative to another object acting as a landmark. This image shows the boundary wall and a landmark object. Credit: University of Pennsylvania

Imagine a room or a landscape or a city street. Part of what differentiates that scene from a face or an object is the fact that it has boundaries, and Uni of Pennsylvania researchers Joshua Julian et al aimed to parse out which part of the brain helps perceive those borders. What they learned, through 2 experiments involving transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS, is that this function falls to the occipital place area, OPA.

The OPA, located near the top of the back of the head, is known for its st...