http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. One of the brain's jobs is to help us figure out what's important enough to be remembered. Scientists at Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University have achieved some insight into how fleeting experiences become memories in the brain. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-when-being-scared-twice-is.html Neuroscience Tue, 12 Jun 2012 17:02:28 EST news258739339 (Medical Xpress) -- UCSF scientists have identified patterns of brain activity in the rat brain that play a role in the formation and recall of memories and decision-making. The discovery, which builds on the team's previous findings, offers a path for studying learning, decision-making and post-traumatic stress syndrome. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-rats-recall-daily-decisions.html Neuroscience Thu, 03 May 2012 14:30:01 EST news255273823 Scientists now have a better understanding of how precise memories are formed thanks to research led by Prof. Jean-Claude Lacaille of the University of Montreal's Department of Physiology. "In terms of human applications, these findings could help us to better understand memory impairments in neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's disease," Lacaille said. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-neuro-sharpen-memories.html Neuroscience Tue, 01 May 2012 17:20:01 EST news255107778 Testosterone, the primary male sex hormone, appears to have antidepressant properties, but the exact mechanisms underlying its effects have remained unclear. Nicole Carrier and Mohamed Kabbaj, scientists at Florida State University, are actively working to elucidate these mechanisms. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-exploring-antidepressant-effects-testosterone.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 02 Apr 2012 10:10:32 EST news252580223 If someone has trouble remembering where the car keys or the cheese grater are, new research shows that a memory training strategy can help. Memory training can even re-engage the hippocampus, part of the brain critical for memory formation, the results suggest. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-memory-brain-mild-cognitive-impairment.html Neuroscience Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:05:34 EST news249843923 Researchers at the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics have discovered an answer to the long-standing mystery of how brain cells can both remember new memories while also maintaining older ones. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-memory-formation-triggered-stem-cell.html Neuroscience Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:56:36 EST news249224191 When you experience a new event, your brain encodes a memory of it by altering the connections between neurons. This requires turning on many genes in those neurons. Now, MIT neuroscientists have identified what may be a master gene that controls this complex process. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-neuroscientists-master-memory.html Neuroscience Thu, 22 Dec 2011 17:45:25 EST news243798132 Atrophy in the hippocampus, the region of the brain known for memory formation and storage, is evident in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients with cognitive impairment, including early decline known as mild cognitive impairment (MCI), according to a study by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The study is published in the December issue of the Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-widespread-brain-atrophy-parkinson-disease.html Neuroscience Mon, 12 Dec 2011 16:37:26 EST news242930239 Can the nerve signaling inhibitor tomosyn help retain long-term memory? A new study by two University of Illinois at Chicago biologists points to the link. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-nerve-protein-linked-memory.html Medical research Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:00:06 EST news239284605 The latest results from an expedition to Mount Everest that looked at the body's response to low oxygen levels suggest that drugs or procedures that promote the body's production of a chemical compound called nitric oxide (NO) could improve the recovery of critically ill patients in intensive care. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-everest-nitric-oxide-benefits-intensive.html Medical research Thu, 06 Oct 2011 07:19:07 EST news237104331 Zinc plays a critical role in regulating how neurons communicate with one another, and could affect how memories form and how we learn. The new research, in the current issue of Neuron, was authored by Xiao-an Zhang, now a chemistry professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC), and colleagues at MIT and Duke University. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-zinc-role-brain-insight-year-old.html Neuroscience Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:36:27 EST news237036972 Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School have found that a common cancer protein leads a second, totally different life in normal adult brain cells: It helps regulates memory formation and may be implicated in Alzheimer's disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-cancer-protein-role-memory.html Medical research Thu, 22 Sep 2011 12:21:33 EST news235912873 The hippocampus is a brain structure that plays a major role in the process of memory formation. It is not entirely clear how the hippocampus manages to string together events that are part of the same experience but are separated by "empty" periods of time. Now, new research published by Cell Press in the August 25 issue of the journal Neuron finds that there are neurons in the hippocampus that encode every sequential moment in a series of events that compose a discrete experience. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-cells-bridge-gap-memories-event.html Neuroscience Wed, 24 Aug 2011 13:12:30 EST news233410245 Seeing and exploring both are necessary for stability in a person's episodic memory when taking in a new experience, say University of Oregon researchers. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-personal-memory.html Neuroscience Mon, 22 Aug 2011 15:28:06 EST news233245674 (Medical Xpress) -- A person who drinks too much alcohol may be able to perform complicated tasks, such as dancing, carrying on a conversation or even driving a car, but later have no memory of those escapades. These periods of amnesia, commonly known as “blackouts,” can last from a few minutes to several hours. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-biology-alcohol-induced-blackouts.html Neuroscience Thu, 07 Jul 2011 05:31:35 EST news229235472 The higher the number of drink fuelled memory blackouts a student experiences, the greater is his/her risk of sustaining a future injury while under the influence, reveals research published online in Injury Prevention. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-drink-fueled-memory-blackouts-students-future.html Health Thu, 30 Jun 2011 04:36:49 EST news228627398 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 Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered in mice a molecular wrecking ball that powers the demolition phase of a cycle that occurs at synapses — those specialized connections between nerve cells in the brain — and whose activity appears critical for both limiting and enhancing learning and memory. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-scientists-thunder-protein-memory-formation.html Medical research Thu, 14 Apr 2011 13:37:25 EST news222007024 Using advanced imaging technology, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have identified a change in chemical influx into a specific set of neurons in the common fruit fly that is fundamental to long-term memory. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-scripps-scientists-mechanism-long-term-memory.html Neuroscience Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:55:52 EST news221918126