Category: News

A Canadian clinical trial led by researchers at the University of Calgary’s Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI), at the Cumming School of Medicine (CSM), shows that minocycline, a common acne medication, can slow the progress of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS) in people who have recently experienced their first symptoms.

In addition to being an unexpected discovery — an acne drug benefitting a neurological disorder — the discovery is significant as it offers a safe and affordable treatment option for those with early onset MS. This discovery could impact thousands of newly diagnosed MS patients around the world. Continue reading →

New Western University research shows that neurons in the part of the brain found to be abnormal in psychosis are also important in helping people distinguish between reality and imagination.

The researchers, Dr. Julio Martinez-Trujillo, principal investigator and professor at Western University’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and Dr. Diego Mendoza-Halliday, postdoctoral researcher at M.I.T., investigated how the brain codes visual information in reality versus abstract information in our working memory and how those differences are distributed across neurons in the lateral prefrontal cortex region of the brain. The results were published today in Nature Communications (https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15471) Continue reading →

Proper brain development is a crucial step in a child’s health. An important part of brain development is the creation of white matter, which enables different regions of the brain to rapidly and effectively “talk” to one another.

In a new study published in Neuron, a team of researchers led by Dr. Freda Miller and Dr. David Kaplan has revealed how oligodendrocytes, which are crucial for proper brain function and that are damaged or altered in conditions such as Multiple Sclerosis, autism and concussions, are formed during development. Continue reading →

Discovery could be key to treating brain and spinal cord injury

A foray into plant biology led one researcher to discover that a natural molecule can repair axons, the thread-like projections that carry electrical signals between cells. Axonal damage is the major culprit underlying disability in conditions such as spinal cord injury and stroke.

Andrew Kaplan, a PhD candidate at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital of McGill University, was looking for a pharmacological approach to axon regeneration, with a focus on 14-3-3, a family of proteins with neuroprotective functions that have been under investigation in the laboratory of Dr. Alyson Fournier, professor of neurology and neurosurgery and senior author on the study. Continue reading →

Opening up narrowed veins from the brain and spinal cord is not effective in treating multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a study led by the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Coastal Health.

The conclusions about so-called “liberation therapy,” which thousands of people with MS have undergone since 2009, represent the most definitive debunking of the claim that MS patients could achieve dramatic improvements from a one-time medical procedure. Continue reading →

Results of the International Psychiatric Genomics Consortium unveiled

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Scientists at the University of British Columbia have genetically engineered a mouse that does not become addicted to cocaine, adding to the evidence that habitual drug use is more a matter of genetics and biochemistry than just poor judgment.

The mice they created had higher levels of a protein called cadherin, which helps bind cells together. In the brain, cadherin helps strengthen synapses between neurons – the gaps that electrical impulses must traverse to bring about any action or function controlled by the brain, whether it’s breathing, walking, learning a new task or recalling a memory.
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Research determines how the brain recognizes what’s important at first glance.

Researchers at the Centre for Neuroscience Studies (CNS) at Queen’s University have discovered that a region of the brain – the superior colliculus – contains a mechanism responsible for interpreting how visual input from a scene determines where we look. This mechanism, known as a visual salience map, allows the brain to quickly identify and act on the most important information in the visual field, and is a basic mechanism for our everyday vision. Continue reading →

Scientists identify mechanism for brain dysfunction following seizures and drugs that prevent this impairment from occurring.

Six years ago, Cam Teskey, PhD, decided to follow a hunch. Armed with an advanced new tool designed to measure oxygen levels in tissues, he wanted to look at the brains of rats to see what was happening during seizures.  Continue reading →

Have you ever met someone who just wasn’t into music? They may have a condition called specific musical anhedonia, which affects three-to-five per cent of the population.

Researchers at the University of Barcelona and the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital of McGill University have discovered that people with this condition showed reduced functional connectivity between cortical regions responsible for processing sound and subcortical regions related to reward.
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