Doctors are hoping for something to use during routine exams, where most dementia symptoms are evaluated.

New research suggests ketogenic diet may play a role in treating schizophrenia.

Summary: A new deep learning algorithm is able to detect how well a STEM student understands a concept based on their brain activity.

In a search for clues to what may delay or prevent Alzheimer’s disease, Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists report that smarter, more educated people aren’t protected from the disease, but do get a cognitive “head start” that may keep their minds functioning better temporarily.

Exercise-induced changes to synaptic function may increase brain connectivity. 

UW researchers created a method for two people help a third person solve a task using only their minds.

Scientists are investigating a better test of consciousness in brain-injured patients. If it becomes widely available, it could help with agonizing decisions about withdrawal of life support.

A research team at the University of California, Riverside, has found that electronic cigarettes, often targeted to youth and pregnant women, produce a stress response in neural stem cells, which are critical cells in the brain. Present throughout life, stem cells become specialized cells with more specific functions, such as brain cells, blood cells, or bone. Far more sensitive to stress than the specialized cells they become, stem cells provide a model to study exposure to toxicants, such as cigarette smoke. 

In experiments on pig organs, scientists at Yale made a discovery that could someday challenge our understanding of what it means to die.

OHSU research discovers a gene in mice that’s activated by brief periods of exercise.

"There is no Goldilocks decade during which you can say, 'This is when I get my chance to short sleep.'"

A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, in collaboration with the University of Minnesota, has made a breakthrough in the field of noninvasive robotic device control. Using a noninvasive brain-computer interface (BCI), researchers have developed the first-ever successful mind-controlled robotic arm exhibiting the ability to continuously track and follow a computer cursor.

Changes in a chemical called serotonin were found 15 to 20 years in advance of symptoms.

Processed Foods May Hold Key to Rise in Autism | Read more about UCF Colleges & Campus News, Health & Medicine, Research, Science & Technology, Orlando and Central Florida news.

Summary: DMT, an active compound of the psychedelic Ayahuasca, is naturally occurring in the mammalian brain, researchers have discovered.

As mice become obese, neurons that tamp down on feeding get quiet

New artwork created by artificial intelligence does weird things to the primate brain. When shown to macaques, AI-generated images purposefully caused nerve cells in the monkeys’ brains to fire more than pictures of real-world objects. The AI could also design patterns that activated specific neurons while suppressing others, researchers report in the May 3 Science.

Boston University neuroscientist Steve Ramirez and collaborators have published a new paper showing memories are pliable if you know which regions of the brain’s hippocampus to stimulate, which could someday enable personalized treatment for people with PTSD, depression and anxiety.

Summary: Music specially composed for preterm babies helps strengthen the development of neural networks and may help to limit neurodevelopmental delays often experienced by those born prematurely.

The protocol uses EEG to control virtual avatars and robotic exoskeleton walkers while the patient wears a “tactile shirt” that offers sensory feedback.

Neuroscientists identify a brain circuit that helps break decisions down into smaller pieces.

Experiences such as poverty, residential instability, or parental divorce or substance abuse, can affect executive function and lead to changes in a child’s brain chemistry.

The pursuit of science is usually an unending stream of embarrassments for the human ego. No, the sun doesn’t revolve around us. No, we’re not all that different from common animals. No, we’re not even the only humans. But, in some ways at least, our brains really are special.

Two proteins central to the pathology of Alzheimer’s disease act as prions – spreading through tissue like an infection by forcing normal proteins to adopt the same misfolded shape. 

Summary: A new neuroimaging study provides an insight into the neurobiology of those willing to commit terrorist acts.

Does music serve as an alternative medicine enhancement?

Pract Neurol doi:10.1136/practneurol-2015-001139

An over-reliance on using computers and search engines is weakening people's memories, according to a study. It showed many people use computers instead of memorising information. Many adults who could still recall their phone numbers from childhood could not remember their current work number or numbers of family members.

Meet the woman from Perth whose super sense of smell could change the way Parkinson's disease is diagnosed. Joy Milne's husband, Les, died in June, aged 65. He worked as a consultant anaesthetist before being diagnosed with Parkinson's at the age of 45.

A company called EnChroma has built a pair of glasses that claims to restore colour vision for the colourblind. Predictably, the internet has erupted with excitement. But it’s not the first... By Diane Kelly and Maddie Stone.

“Hey, we need the police stat, to the hospital. We have a family member with a gun.” This is the call that a staff member at Tomball Regional Medical Center put in 11 months ago, when George Pickering of Pinehurst, Tex., angrily pulled out a 9 mm handgun while standing at his son’s hospital bedside. Gary Hammond, Tomball police’s head of criminal investigations, told the Houston Chronicle at the time that Pickering was “distraught” over the care his son...

Need to remember something important? Take a break. A proper one – no TV or flicking through your phone messages. It seems that resting in a quiet room for 10 minutes without stimulation can boost our ability to remember new information. The effect is particularly strong in people with amnesia, suggesting that they may not have lost the ability to form new memories after all.

Scientists showed that they could alter brain activity of rats and either wake them up or put them in an unconscious state by changing the firing rates of neurons in the central thalamus, a region known to regulate arousal. (Dec. 17)

Could hypnosis help to reduce the psychological trauma associated with “awake craniotomy” for brain cancers? A new “hypnosedation” technique offers a new alternative...