When hungry, not only our bodies long for food, our brains do too. And it appears that when it comes to social interaction, a similar thing happens. Social deprivation leads to a brain angry for social contact. A recent study in Nature Neuroscience, led by neuroscientist Livia Tomova, showed that after a day of social…

The close interconnection between the gut and the central nervous system is already well described, what is new is the possibility of some of the brain’s defense systems originating in the gut. New research in mice published in the journal Nature found that immune cells are first trained in the gut and then migrate to…

Going through a break up is kind of traumatic. We all have felt it sometime, not only your heart is broken but your brain feels like out of sync and incapable of proper functioning. Well, this is not just an impression, new research has found there is a relationship between a broken heart and a…

Parkinson’s disease is characterized by neuronal loss in the brain’s substantia nigra region. What if another cell type, namely, astrocytes, could replace them? The work of two research groups recently published shows that, at least in mice, transforming astrocytes (a non-neuronal cell type in the brain) into neurons is possible and that this change reverts…

How can we experience a sensation that is not real? How to mimic a sensory stimulus in its absence? How to smell a smell when there is none there? By activating certain neurons, it seems.

We all know some of the symptoms of sleep deprivation: bad mood, tiredness…but when bad comes to worst, this lack of sleep can even lead to death. A recently published article from neuroscientists at Harvard Medicine School have shown, in flies, that lack of sleep might be killing from the gut. If you want to…

For a long time it has been posed that induced pluripotent stem cells or iPSC in short have a great potential in the treatment of certain health issues, what’s more, attending to the results of a recently published study in the journal PNAS, iPSC can be helpful to revert brain stroke damage in mice. Sara…

A reported case study in a colombian woman, member of a family carriers of a mutation in the presinilin 1 gene which leads to early onset Alzheimer’s, has shown that a certain mutation in the gene APOE3 can protect from the cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer’s disease. This woman was already aged 70 but not…

As important as remembering, it is forgetting. As Sherlock Holmes said the brain is like a room that you furnish with memories but where space is limited and unnecesary information should be erased. Much on how this erasing works is unkown, but a new study points out to a certain immune cell population in the…

Too much of anything is usually a mistake, when we speak of a substance of abuse so common, and so easy to find as alcohol we can really get in trouble. Why do some indulge in too much drinking while others seem to easily control those urges is a valid question for which there is…