Brain health is a rapidly expanding field. WHO’s position paper on optimizing brain health across the life course is a technical complement to the recently-adopted Intersectoral global action plan on epilepsy and other neurological disorders 2022–2031. Many determinants are known to affect brain health at different stages of life. The …
Research indicate that developmental exposures to apparently nontoxic doses of DZN compromise neural cell development and alter ACh synaptic function in adolescence and adulthood. The patterns seen here differ substantially from those seen in earlier work with chlorpyrifos, reinforcing the concept that the various organophosphates have fundamentally different effects on …
Nobel Prize-winning scientist James Dewey Watson has attracted a lot of flak for claiming that black people are inherently less intelligent than whites. In an interview to the Sunday Times, Watson, who in the 1950s helped identify dna, declared himself to be "gloomy about the prospect of Africa
Parents should have some afterthought before using hard transparent plastic bottles for feeding their babies. A panel of scientists has warned that such polycarbonated plastic bottles contain the chemical bisephanol A, which could be causing neural and behavioural disorders in children. The panel, consisting of government, university and industry scientists, …
problem drug: Pediatric ritalin use may affect developing brain in children, says a new study. Use of the attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder drug may cause long-term changes in the brain, suggests a study on very young rats by researchers from the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. Ritalin
For better brain A team of scientists in the US has found that exercise has links to brain cell regeneration. The team first looked at the brains of exercising mice using magnetic resonance imaging to follow blood flow through the brain. On post mortem testing, they found that brain cell …
scientists from the Karolinska Institutet and the Brain Mind Institute in Switzerland have discovered a cell which triggers off signals that maintain the balance between excitatory and inhibitory activity in neuron cells. The cells are known as martinotti cells. The study was reported in the journal Neuron. The cell prevents …
a new study has found that sleep deprivation stops brain cell growth. The team at Princeton University, usa, says that changes in the brain's environment caused by lack of sleep is similar to that of stress. Prolonged sleep deprivation causes deterioration of many basic physiological and cognitive functions. The study …
ARE you giving or selfish in nature? Researchers at the Duke University Medical Centre have discovered that activation of a particular brain region predicts whether people tend to be selfish or altruistic. "This may give clues to the origins of important social behaviours like altruism," says Scott A Huettel, a …
numbers phobia: Children with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) have particular difficulty understanding numbers and sequences, a University of Alberta study shows. An assessment of 50 Canadian children diagnosed with FASD, a condition caused by the mother's alcohol consumption while a foetus is still in the womb, revealed that the …
researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, us, examined data on chemical toxicity and have identified 202 industrial chemicals that they say are responsible for neural disorders like autism, attention deficit disorder and mental retardation in children worldwide. The study was published …
defects in the growth process of neurons often underlie brain or nerve diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease or multiple sclerosis. Scientists from the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, led by Bassem Hassan, have achieved a major step in unraveling the growth process of axons, the …
offering new hope to patients suffering from Parkinson's disease, strokes, multiple sclerosis and other neurological disorders, scientists from the Harvard University have identified two key compounds that stimulate stem cell proliferation in the brain. The research and findings, which have been published online in Federation of American Societies for Experimental …
bacterial hold: Bacteria have hair-like protrusions with a sticky protein on the tip that enables them to cling to surfaces. The coiled, bungee cord-like structure of the protrusions helps the bacteria hang on tightly, even under rough fluid flow inside the body, claim a group of researchers at the University …
shampoos may make your hair look good but appearances can be deceptive. A compound called diethanolamine (dea), which is used in shampoos to create foam, has been found to interfere with normal brain development of foetuses in pregnant mice, claim researchers at the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill in …
prenatal exposure to ultrasound waves may not be safe, warn scientists who found it causes significant behavioural abnormalities in mice. The researchers from the Yale Medical School in the us, said that when pregnant mice were exposed to ultrasound waves, the pups showed behavioural deficits. They have now called for …
studies carried out on the genes of a human and a chimpanzee provide a clue to why our brains are three times larger than those of our closest relatives. The studies were conducted by an international team of scientists led by David Haussler of the University of California, Santa Cruz, …
Scientists in the US have discovered a protein in nerve cells that can act as a switch for chronic pain. The switch is called protein kinase G (PKG). This could lead to the development of a new class of drugs for blocking chronic pain. The researchers, from Columbia University Medical …
leukaemia breakthrough: A study by a team of scientists at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children's Hospital in Boston, USA, shows that cancer stem cells are different from normal blood stem cells. Led by Scott Armstrong, the team suggests that targeting these cells would be an effective way to treat …
