IN BRIEF Regina Dugan, a former DARPA executive and current head of Facebook’s mysterious Building 8, has released information about the work that the social media giant has been doing on brain-computer-interfaces meant to let you “communicate using only your mind.” Facebook’s annual developers’ conference is in full swing this week. Ultimately, the event serves...
Category: <span>Mental health</span>
Post
Virtual reality could soon be used to help autistic children deal with the stress of the classroom
Virtual reality could help autistic people learn to deal with crowded situations This is because in virtual worlds people and the environment are predictable Scientists have been using the Oculus Rift headset to test how it could help The technology involves tracking, 3D audio and high resolution video to immerse users in a virtual world...
Post
Suppressing single protein greatly extends life span of mice with ALS-like disease
A set of experiments at Stanford reveals that suppressing a protein called ataxin 2 dramatically extends survival and improves motor function in a mouse model of ALS. Aaron Gitler and his colleagues found that suppressing a protein in mice genetically engineered to have an ALS-like disease allowed them to live longer and improved their motor...
Post
Retraining the brain to see after stroke
Patients who went partially blind after suffering a stroke regained large swaths of rudimentary sight after undergoing visual training designed by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Flaum Eye Institute. A new study out today in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, provides the first evidence that rigorous visual training...
Post
Researchers disentangle relationship between autism spectrum disorder, anxiety, and ADHD in children
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience internalizing and externalizing problems at higher rates than typically developing children, which could worsen social impairment, according to researchers with the Virginia Tech Center for Autism Research. The study, published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, compared social impairment scores in 57 children (3-17 years, 82.5 percent male) with...
Post
New drug provides long-awaited breakthrough for Parkinson’s psychosis
Julie Torrence clearly remembers the emotional jolt she felt the day her father, Clyde Hill, failed to recognize her at his Kansas care center. For nearly three decades, Parkinson’s disease had afflicted Hill in a growing number of ways, from the muscle rigidity and walking difficulties that forced his retirement from farming to the more...
Post
Dizziness inPparkinson’s may be due to cerebral hypoperfusion
(HealthDay)—Cerebral hypoperfusion contributes to dizziness in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), even without orthostatic hypotension (OH), according to a study published online April 12 in the Journal of Clinical Ultrasound. Jinse Park, M.D., from Inje University in Busan, South Korea, and colleagues conducted transcranial Doppler and blood pressure monitoring for 10 minutes during the head-up tilt...
Post
Pioneering research into benefit of computer games to treat Parkinson’s Disease
Neuroscientists are researching the potential benefits of brain stimulating computer games in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. They are studying the effects of touch screen spatial reasoning games on the part of the brain used to control movements in Parkinson’s patients. Early research suggests that computer games that require users to perform tasks like using...
Post
Link discovered between immune system, brain structure and memory
In 2 independent studies, researchers at the university of Basel have demonstrated that both the structure of the brain and several memory functions are linked to immune system genes. The scientific journals Nature communications and nature human behavior have published the results of the research. The body’s immune system is vital for defense mechanism against...
Post
Sympathetic nervous system key to Thermogenesis, new study suggests
The sympathetic nervous system, not white blood cells, is critically important in the regulation of energy expenditure and thermogenesis, researchers reveal in a new report. Researchers had previously hypothesized that macrophages, a class of White blood cells, played a major role in thermogenesis, however the new study suggests that the main driver of thermogenesis is...