http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Good mental health and clear thinking depend upon our ability to store and manipulate thoughts on a sort of "mental sketch pad." In a new study, Yale School of Medicine researchers describe the molecular basis of this ability—the hallmark of human cognition—and describe how a breakdown of the system contributes to diseases such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-human-cognition-slow-firing-neurons.html Neuroscience Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:17:02 EST news280584997 Researchers have given rats the ability to "touch" infrared light, normally invisible to them, by fitting them with an infrared detector wired to microscopic electrodes implanted in the part of the mammalian brain that processes tactile information. The achievement represents the first time a brain-machine interface has augmented a sense in adult animals, said Duke University neurobiologist Miguel Nicolelis, who led the research team. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-neuroprosthesis-rats-ability-infrared.html Neuroscience Tue, 12 Feb 2013 11:40:01 EST news279891120 Scientists at the Monell Center have identified the location and certain genetic characteristics of taste stem cells on the tongue. The findings will facilitate techniques to grow and manipulate new functional taste cells for both clinical and research purposes. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-elusive-stem-cells.html Medical research Mon, 04 Feb 2013 00:20:01 EST news279118489 (Medical Xpress)—An international team of scientists has discovered the mechanism by which zebrafish can re-grow brain neurons after they have suffered traumatic brain injury, and that this mechanism is associated with inflammation. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-zebrafish-regrow-brains.html Medical research Fri, 09 Nov 2012 05:40:01 EST news271655654 (Medical Xpress)—Vision may be less important to "seeing" than is the brain's ability to process points of light into complex images, according to a new study of the fruit fly visual system currently published in the online journal Nature Communications. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-brain-eyes.html Neuroscience Thu, 01 Nov 2012 10:35:52 EST news270984941 Neurobiologists at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna investigated how the brain is able to group external stimuli into stable categories. They found the answer in the discrete dynamics of neuronal circuits. The journal Neuron publishes the results in its current issue. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-brain-categories.html Neuroscience Sat, 20 Oct 2012 06:38:33 EST news269933819 (Medical Xpress)—The Who asked "who are you?" but Dartmouth neurobiologist Jeffrey Taube asks "where are you?" and "where are you going?" Taube is not asking philosophical or theological questions. Rather, he is investigating nerve cells in the brain that function in establishing one's location and direction. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-explores-brain.html Neuroscience Fri, 19 Oct 2012 16:09:35 EST news269881764 A North Carolina State University researcher has created a roadmap to areas of the brain associated with affective aggression in mice. This roadmap may be the first step toward finding therapies for humans suffering from affective aggression disorders that lead to impulsive violent acts. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-blueprint-affective-aggression.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 04 Sep 2012 14:54:21 EST news265989253 Researchers at Duke University and the National Institutes of Health have found a way to calm the fears of anxious mice with a drug that alters their brain chemistry. They've also found that human genetic differences related to the same brain chemistry influence how well people cope with fear and stress. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-brain-chemistry-easily.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 12 Jun 2012 04:00:06 EST news258658375 (Medical Xpress) -- A research team including University of Wyoming neurobiologist Jeff Woodbury has discovered a new technique to determine how the touch sensory system is organized in hairy skin, providing a new understanding of the sense of touch. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-scientists-breakthrough.html Neuroscience Mon, 02 Apr 2012 07:20:11 EST news252570001 A diametric shift in the levels of two proteins involved in folding, moving and cutting other proteins enables accumulation of the destructive brain plaque found in Alzheimer's disease, researchers report. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-diametric-shift-protein-spurs-alzheimer.html Medical research Thu, 01 Dec 2011 12:00:02 EST news241962075 A new study seems to confirm what exhausted parents have long suspected but may have been too tired to articulate: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-toll-memory-formation.html Health Thu, 28 Jul 2011 06:34:15 EST news231053632