http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. German neurobiologists have found that certain receptors for the neurotransmitter glutamate determine the architecture of nerve cells in the developing brain. Individual receptor variants lead to especially long and branched processes called dendrites, which the cells communicate with. The researchers also showed that the growth-promoting property of the receptors is linked to how much calcium they allow to flow into the cells. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-architects-brain-scientists-decipher-role.html Neuroscience Wed, 26 Oct 2011 11:04:21 EST news238845848 Cannabis use is associated with disturbances in concentration and memory. New research by neuroscientists at the University of Bristol, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, has found that brain activity becomes uncoordinated and inaccurate during these altered states of mind, leading to neurophysiological and behavioural impairments reminiscent of those seen in schizophrenia. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-cannabis-cognitive-chaos-brain.html Neuroscience Tue, 25 Oct 2011 17:48:25 EST news238783686 Auditory working memory and attention, for example the ability to hear and then remember instructions while completing a task, are a necessary part of musical ability. But musical ability is also related to verbal memory and literacy in childhood. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Behavioral and Brain Functions shows how auditory working memory and musical aptitude are intrinsically related to reading ability, and provides a biological basis for this link. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-musical-aptitude-ability.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 17 Oct 2011 05:00:01 EST news238044344 (Medical Xpress) -- In a first ever demonstration of a two-way interaction between a primate brain and a virtual body, two monkeys trained at the Duke University Center for Neuroengineering learned to employ brain activity alone to move an avatar hand and identify the texture of virtual objects. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-monkeys-virtual-brains.html Neuroscience Wed, 05 Oct 2011 13:00:06 EST news237037882 (Medical Xpress) -- Scientists at The University of Nottingham are developing microscopic organic medical imaging systems to support a new generation of breakthrough treatments for currently incurable diseases and chronic life-threatening illnesses. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-medical-imaging-disease-track-medication.html Medical research Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:38:58 EST news237029925 Newly discovered subtle markers of heart damage hidden in plain sight among hours of EKG recordings could help doctors identify which heart attack patients are at high risk of dying soon. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-ekg-anomalies-heart-fatal.html Cardiology Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:00:06 EST news236432792 The heartbeat is the result of rhythmic contractions of the heart muscle, which are in turn regulated by electrical signals called action potentials. Action potentials result from the controlled flow of ions into heart muscle cells (depolarization) through channels in their membranes, and are followed by a compensating reverse ion current (repolarization), which restores the original state. If the duration of the repolarization phase is not just right, the risk of ventricular arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death increases significantly. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-rhythm-ion-channels-heart.html Cardiology Fri, 09 Sep 2011 09:45:51 EST news234780336 In the late 1990s, Jane Anderson was working as a landscape architect. That meant she didn't work much in the winter, and she struggled with seasonal affective disorder in the dreary Minnesota winter months. She decided to try meditation and noticed a change within a month. "My experience was a sense of calmness, of better ability to regulate my emotions," she says. Her experience inspired a new study which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, which finds changes in brain activity after only five weeks of meditation training. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-neurons-meditate.html Psychology & Psychiatry Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:06:31 EST news229277175 For the first time researchers have been able to watch what happens to the brain as it loses consciousness. Using sophisticated imaging equipment they have constructed a 3-D movie of the brain as it changes while an anaesthetic drug takes effect. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-d-movie-brain-consciousness.html Neuroscience Sat, 11 Jun 2011 03:51:27 EST news226983063 University of Pittsburgh researchers have reproduced the brain's complex electrical impulses onto models made of living brain cells that provide an unprecedented view of the neuron activity behind memory formation. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-brain-cell-networks-recreated-view.html Medical research Wed, 25 May 2011 14:14:18 EST news225551633 There is a significant need for objective tests that could improve clinical prediction of future psychosis. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-brain-schizophrenia.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 17 May 2011 11:15:41 EST news224849728 A single interneuron controls activity adaptively in 50,000 neurons, enabling consistently sparse codes for odors. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-giant-interneuron-sparse-coding.html Neuroscience Fri, 13 May 2011 10:41:40 EST news224502069 Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered that electrical oscillations in the brain, long thought to play a role in organizing cognitive functions such as memory, are critically important for the brain to store the information that allows us to navigate through our physical environment. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-electrical-oscillations-critical-spatial-memories.html Neuroscience Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:00:10 EST news223216019