When peaking at your brain may help with mental illness
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In recent years, researchers have begun using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) not just to better understand the neural bases of psychiatric illness, but also for experimental treatment of depression, ADHD, anxiety, PTSD, substance use disorder, and schizophrenia with real-time fMRI neurofeedback. But how well does it work?
A group of people with sleep disorders have helped researchers from Aarhus make an important discovery about Parkinson's disease. The study could pave the way for new diagnostic tools and forms of treatment in the future
A mutation that replaces a single amino acid in a potent tumor-suppressing protein makes it prone to nucleating amyloid fibrils implicated in many cancers as well as neurological diseases.
Texas A&M University College of Medicine ressearchers have recently discovered that cytisine -- a smoking cessation drug commonly used in Europe -- reduces the loss of dopamine neurons in females. These findings provide potential evidence for the use of the drug to treat Parkinson's disease or stop its progression in women.
Researchers have developed a method based on artificial intelligence that rapidly identifies currently available medications that may treat Alzheimer's disease. The method also reveals potential new treatment targets for the disease.
A preclinical study from the laboratory of Dr. Huda Zoghbi, professor at Baylor College of Medicine and director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital, provides experimental evidence that supports the use of antisense oligonucleotides as a feasible strategy to treat MDS. The study also offers crucial insights into the pharmacodynamics of this approach, which will serve as an important guide for the design and implementation of future clinical trials for this disorder.
Glycine can stimulate or inhibit neurons in the brain, thereby controlling complex functions. Unraveling the three-dimensional structure of the glycine transporter, researchers have now come a big step closer to understanding the regulation of glycine in the brain. These results, which have been published in Nature, open up opportunities to find effective drugs that inhibit GlyT1 function, with major implications for the treatment of schizophrenia and other mental disorders.
Computational biologists dig into the origins of the single unique protein in the SARS-CoV-2 lineage; pair of new Berkeley Lab reports explores direct and indirect costs of power interruptions to enable better decision making.
Inflammation is a hallmark of chronic pain, and scientists at the UNC School of Medicine have discovered that anti-inflammatory cells called MRC1+ macrophages are dysfunctional in an animal model of neuropathic pain. Returning these cells to their normal state could offer a route to treating debilitating pain caused by nerve damage or a malfunctioning nervous system.
In nematode worms, a key controller allows the worm to sense when it needs food and when it feels full, and then changes its behavior accordingly. Jennifer Tullet of the University of Kent and colleagues report these new findings in a paper published March 4th in PLOS Genetics. They propose that a similar factor may control feelings of fullness in humans.