How VR is helping us spot, research, treat, and raise awareness for dementia. Anyone who has suffered from dementia, or knows someone who has, knows that is a cruel, tough syndrome to battle. 5.5 million people in the United States alone suffer from dementia, which is marked by chronic degeneration of cognitive functions such as memory, decision-making...
Category: <span>Mental health</span>
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Experimental brain technology can rewind Alzheimer’s disease
Alzheimer’s disease is considered a global challenge of the century. Alzheimer’s disease is a thief. It comes and takes away the most precious memories with which people identify themselves. It is a very clever thief. People whom it affects don’t even remember what they have lost—they just feel lost; lost in space and time. Alzheimer’s can...
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UCI scientists identify important aspect of the brain’s navigational system
The ability to successfully navigate in the environment is essential both for animals searching for food or escaping predators, as well as for human urban dwellers. It is something we take for granted, but under the hood, it is supported by still incompletely understood brain networks that continuously calculate our position in the environment. Moreover,...
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Team discovers how to train damaging inflammatory cells to promote repair after stroke
White blood cells called neutrophils are like soldiers in your body that form in the bone marrow and at the first sign of microbial attack, head for the site of injury just as fast as they can to neutralize invading bacteria or fungi using an armament of chemical weapons. But when that injury is an intracerebral hemorrhage,...
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Why virtual reality is the next frontier in pain relief: Games distract players and even trigger changes in the brain
New research shows virtual reality has various benefits to treat pain Aside from distraction, it could also reprogram how we respond to pain This is down to guided imagery to treat mental health, experts say Virtual reality games might help ease pain not just by distracting players from what ails them, but also by triggering...
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Magnetic brain stimulation helps “unlearn” crippling fear of heights
New research suggests a little magnetic brain stimulation prior to being exposed to your greatest fear in a VR headset could help you “unlearn” your anxiety response Advances in technology over the last decade have led to a swift rise in the volume of research surrounding transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and its therapeutic effects. A...
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Researchers learn more about maximizing brain use
Neuroscientists from Higher School of Economics and Charité University Clinic in Berlin have come up with a new multivariate method for predicting behavioural response to a stimulus using information about the phase of preceding neuronal oscillations recorded with EEG. The method may eventually find practical application in fields such as competitive sports, education and patient...
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Parkinson’s disease and prion diseases: Discovery of a molecular link
For the first time new research has proven the existence of an important interaction between the molecules involved in the two types of pathologies Parkinson’s disease and prion diseases are very different from each other as regards both origins and course. Nonetheless, a research group of SISSA’s, headed by Professor Giuseppe Legname, has discovered an...
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Memory decline after head injury may be prevented by slowing brain cell growth
Study questions traditional scientific view that neurogenesis aids recovery The excessive burst of new brain cells after a traumatic head injury that scientists have traditionally believed helped in recovery could instead lead to epileptic seizures and long-term cognitive decline, according to a new Rutgers New Jersey Medical School study. In the September issue of Stem Cell...
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Do Microbes Trigger Alzheimer’s Disease?
In late 2011, Drexel University dermatology professor Herbert Allen was astounded to read a new research paper documenting the presence of long, corkscrew-shape bacteria called spirochetes in postmortem brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease.1 Combing data from published reports, the International Alzheimer Research Center’s Judith Miklossy and colleagues had found evidence of spirochetes in 451 of 495 Alzheimer’s brains....