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One of the many challenges with battling alcohol addiction and other substance abuse disorders is the risk of relapse, even after progress toward recovery. Even pesky fruit flies have a hankering for alcohol, and because the molecular signals involved in forming flies’ reward and avoidance memories are much the same as those in humans, they’re a good model for study. Continue reading “Just a few drinks can change how memories are formed”
Researchers have found an effective target in the brain for electrical stimulation to improve mood in people suffering from depression. As reported in the journal Current Biology on November 29, stimulation of a brain region called the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) reliably produced acute improvement in mood in patients who suffered from depression at the start of the study. Continue reading “Effective new target for mood-boosting brain stimulation found”
Aggressive treatment of hypertension in stroke patients could do more harm than good in the long term, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Georgia. Continue reading “Optimal blood pressure treatment for stroke patients”
When infants are playing with objects, their early attempts to pay attention to things are accompanied by bursts of high-frequency activity in their brain. But what happens when parents play together with them? New research, publishing December 13 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, by Dr Sam Wass of the University of East London in collaboration with Dr Victoria Leong (Cambridge University and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) and colleagues, shows for the first time that when adults are engaged in joint play together with their infant, their own brains show similar bursts of high-frequency activity. Intriguingly, these bursts of activity are linked to their baby’s attention patterns and not their own. Continue reading “Parents’ brain activity ‘echoes’ their infant’s brain activity when they play together”
As legal access to marijuana continues expanding across the U.S., more scientists are studying the effects of its active ingredient, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), in teens, adults and pregnant women. Continue reading “Exposure to cannabis alters the genetic profile of sperm”
Time spent sitting, sleeping and moving is determined in part by our genes, University of Oxford researchers have shown. Continue reading “Genetic changes associated with physical activity reported”
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