Learning to avoid negative experiences requires an interplay of two distinct brain circuits, one to interpret "Yikes!" and drive learning, and the other, unexpectedly, to dial in the strength of that memory, a new fruit fly ...
May 14, 2019
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The tell-tale tremors of Parkinson's disease emerge from abnormal activity in a brain region crucial for voluntary movement. Using a mouse model of the disease, researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology ...
Feb 19, 2019
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The Akay Lab biomedical research team at the University of Houston is reporting in the journal Nature Scientific Reports that a possible cure for addiction may be found by following the pathways of significantly altered dopamine ...
Feb 06, 2019
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University of Tsukuba researchers report the importance of the brain's dopaminergic system for inhibiting already-planned actions. They trained monkeys to redirect their gaze toward targets presented on a screen, apart from ...
Nov 09, 2018
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Imagine a herd of deer grazing in the forest. Suddenly, a twig snaps nearby, and they look up from the grass. The thought of food is forgotten, and the animals are primed to respond to any threat that might appear.
Nov 08, 2018
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How does our nervous system motivate us to get off the sofa and walk to the fridge, or even to the supermarket, to get food? A research team led by Alexander Gottschalk from Goethe University investigated this using the threadworm ...
Nov 05, 2018
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Scientists have made a major advance in untangling the brain circuits that lead to the powerful addictive effects of heroin, a study in the open-access journal eLife reports.
Oct 30, 2018
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When alcohol enters the brain, it causes neurons in a specialized region called the ventral tegmental area, or VTA—also known as the "pleasure center"—to release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that produces those feel-good ...
Oct 22, 2018
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Attempting to make dopamine-producing neurons out of glial cells in mouse brains, a group of researchers instead converted mature inhibitory neurons into dopaminergic cells. Their findings, appearing October 11 in the journal ...
Oct 11, 2018
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Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects dopamine-producing or dopaminergic neurons. The progressive loss of these neurons is what leads to impairment in movement coordination in those suffering from ...
Oct 03, 2018
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