Brain & Cognition

A similarity in brain disturbance between insects and people suffering from migraines, stroke and epilepsy points the way toward new drug therapies to address these conditions.

Genetic vulnerability to schizophrenia can be explained by the combined effect of a large number of common genes, according to a new study published in the prominent journal Nature. These genes are also linked to bipolar disorder.

We are all familiar with the fact that cognitive function declines as we get older. Moreover, recent studies have shown that the specific kind of daily activities we engage in during the course of our lives appears to influence the extent of this decline. A team of researchers from Technische Universität Berlin are studying how division of labour among honey bees affects their learning performance as they age.

One of the most important ways of preventing neurological disability and life-threatening complications in the event of stroke is to make sure patients receive adequate care within the first few hours of onset.

A human growth factor that stimulates blood stem cells to proliferate in the bone marrow reverses memory impairment in mice genetically altered to develop Alzheimer's disease, researchers at the University of South Florida and James A. Haley Hospital found.

I see that among the first papers published by the recently-launched journal of Cognitive Computation, they sportingly included one arguing that we shouldn’t be seeing cognition as computational at all.

New research, to be published July 1 in the journal PLoS One, shows that men under stress may be more likely to take risks, correlating to such real-life behavior as gambling, smoking, unsafe sex and illegal drug use.

Scientists from Brown University and the University of Cincinnati found that a portion of the brain that handles decision-making also helps decipher different sounds. Details are in the July issue of the journal Psychological Science.

A new neuropsychological memory test is helping to uncover how Parkinson's disease can alter people's ability to learn about the consequences of the choices they make.

Pioneering therapeutic trials to investigate the effectiveness of deep brain stimulation (DBS) in hard-to-treat depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and Tourette’s syndrome are underway at multiple medical centers around the world, according to a review in the June 2009 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

Experimental devices that read brain signals have helped paralyzed people use computers and may let amputees control bionic limbs. But existing devices use tiny electrodes that poke into the brain. Now, a University of Utah study shows that brain signals controlling arm movements can be detected accurately using new microelectrodes that sit on the brain but don't penetrate it.

Alcohol's inebriating effects are familiar to everyone. But the molecular details of alcohol's impact on brain activity remain a mystery. A new study by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies brings us closer to understanding how alcohol alters the way brain cells work.

Hot or not? Men agree on the answer. Women don't. There is much more consensus among men about whom they find attractive than there is among women, according to a new study by Wake Forest University psychologist Dustin Wood.

To many, New York Gov. Eliott Spitzer's fall from grace seemed to make no sense at all. But a new Northwestern University study offers provocative insights that possibly could relate to why the storm trooper of reform -- formerly known as the Sheriff of Wall Street -- seemingly went from saint to sinner overnight.

For the first time, researchers from Heidelberg prove the rapid, but reversible changes alcohol causes in human brain cells.