Brain/Neuroscience
Genetic Literacy Project’s Top 6 Stories for the Week – Sept. 18, 2017
Viewpoint: Anti-GMO online series promotes fear and ‘less sustainable’ farming | Alison Van Eenennaam Will the public embrace CRISPR to ‘edit ...
Tiny genetic alteration linked to devastatingly large brain size
An international collaboration led by scientists and doctors from the UK, Netherlands and United States has identified a new genetic ...
Viewpoint: Anti-GMO online series promotes fear and ‘less sustainable’ farming
Works like the recently released "GMOs Revealed" are making it more difficult for new agricultural techniques to gain widespread acceptance ...
Alcohol consumption by fathers could lead to fetal alcohol syndrome
Fathers-to-be have been warned to avoid alcohol or risk affecting the health and well-being of their unborn child. Paternal alcohol ...
Is brain hacking possible?
Accessing the human brain to enable functional connections with electronic technology may sound incredibly futuristic, but a handful of entrepreneurs, ...
New generation of biotechnology could unlock brain mysteries
Though genetics has fundamentally changed the pace of drug development for many therapeutic areas, the brain has been slow to reveal ...
Suffering for the love of birds: A scientist’s battle to save birds — and now her career
PETA begins to harass and intimidate a rising researcher in the field of animal behavior, scientist Kevin Folta urges the ...
Marijuana and epigenetics: Are we moving too quickly with legalization?
Some research suggests there could be health implications related to a surge in legalized marijuana use in the US. One ...
Brain ‘flexibility’ could help explain why people learn differently
As a person learns, connections between brain regions can change. Some neural partners connect, then split apart […]; others form ...
Weakened Zika virus might help fight brain cancer in adults
A new study suggests that the same properties that make Zika a dangerous virus for unborn children could be useful ...
Parkinson’s stem cell treatment shows promise in monkeys–human trials next
Japanese researchers report promising results from an experimental therapy for Parkinson’s disease that involves implanting neurons made from ‘reprogrammed’ stem ...
NIH controversy: Should human mind and brain research be considered clinical trials
Scientists studying human behaviour and cognitive brain function are up in arms over a plan by the US National Institutes ...
Older mini-brains could boost study of autism, schizophrenia
[Sergiu Paşca, a neuroscientist at Stanford University] has joined other researchers in growing little balls of human brain tissue, about ...
‘Breakthrough’ treatment for PTSD? FDA approves ecstasy drug trial
One of the main targets in the war on drugs could well become a drug to treat the scars of ...
Some schizophrenia, bipolar disorder linked to brain pH imbalances
Sometimes our brains are on acid—literally. A main source of these temporary surges is the carbon dioxide that is constantly ...
Alzheimer’s shock: DNA ancestry tests often tell customers more than they want to know
People who use genetic tests to trace their ancestry only to discover that they are at risk of succumbing to ...
Disordered destiny: Eating disorders are 50-80 percent genetic
While more and more people have come to understand that eating disorders are diseases of the brain, there's still a widespread belief that ...
How, why and when humans became able to talk
How and when did we first become able to speak? A new analysis of our DNA reveals key evolutionary changes ...
Is sugar as addictive as hard drugs? Scientists say that’s ‘absurd’
An article suggesting that sugar should be considered an addictive substance, and could even be on a par with abusive ...
New ways to target low sperm count?
[Ahmad Khalil, Assistant Professor of Genetics and Genome Sciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine] and colleagues have ...
Obsessive-compulsive disorder in dogs: What can we learn about ourselves?
Canine compulsive disorder, like the version that afflicts humans, can take over the animal's eating, sleeping and basic functions. In ...
Questionable ‘brain health’ quiz heightens Alzheimer’s anxiety
I recently received an advertisement from my own trusted health care provider warning that I may have Alzheimer’s disease, although ...
Why we hallucinate–and why it’s not always a bad thing
Hallucinations are often distressing—a suggestion that something is amiss in our brains. But new research suggests we’re all susceptible to ...
Mysterious ‘jumping genes’ responsible for spontaneous diseases at birth
Nearly half [of our genes are] made up of jumping genes, which are also called mobile DNA or mobile genetic ...
Could a Planet of the (Talking) Apes ever really evolve?
War for the Planet of the Apes is the latest entry in the 50-year old franchise. A scientist asks: do ...
If gene editing had been approved, my brother would never have been born
[Editor's note: Joel Reynolds is a postdoctoral fellow in bioethics at the Hastings Center..] For the first time in the ...
Mutation identified that contributes to Lou Gehrig’s disease and possibly Alzheimer’s
A team led by scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and Mayo Clinic has identified a basic biological mechanism ...