Scientists Closer to Creating Drug to Prevent Huntington’s Disease
Scientists have identified an enzyme that may play a crucial role in Huntington’s disease, a rare and deadly disorder that destroys brain cells. The discovery of an important enzyme involved in Huntington’s disease could pave the way for future treatments to prevent the disease, the researchers say.
In studying personality and consciousness, modern scientists use analogies with the animal world
Over the past 25 years, psychologists have discovered that personalities cluster around five core traits, called the Big Five. Each person can be described as having varying levels of agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, extroversion, and openness to experience. Contrary to popular belief, people are not limited to specific personality types. Typically, no one is completely extroverted or introverted, or a complete neat freak or a total slob. Although a minority may fall at the extreme ends of the trait, most people fall somewhere in the middle.
Neurolinguists have explained the mechanism of thoughts and inner speech
Inner monologues are considered to be an imitation of overt speech. However, for a long time, the study of inner speech was difficult because people in studies expressed their thoughts in words, even if they were not actually thinking in words. Most thoughts actually happen in the background, without our knowledge, and there is no way to turn these things off. A few years ago, scientists from MIT (USA) discovered that Broca’s area in the human brain actually consists of two sections. One is responsible for speech, the other is activated when solving problems that require serious mental effort. This contradicts the hypothesis that without language there is no thinking.
During sleep, slow electrical waves push waste products from deep within the brain
There are about 170 billion cells in the brain, and as they go about their normal business, they produce a lot of waste. To stay healthy, the brain needs to flush out all that junk. But how exactly it does this has remained a mystery. Now, two teams of scientists have published three papers detailing the brain’s waste-disposal system. Their insights could help researchers better understand, treat, and perhaps prevent a wide range of brain disorders.
Reelin and Dopamine Are Essential Components for Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease
A protein called Reelin keeps appearing in the brain that fights aging and Alzheimer’s disease. A protein that helps shape the brain early in life also appears to protect the organ from Alzheimer’s and other diseases associated with aging. Japanese and European neuroscientists have found that injecting large amounts of dopamine into the brains of mice predisposed to developing Alzheimer’s leads to accelerated production of an enzyme responsible for breaking down molecules of the pathogenic protein beta-amyloid.
Psilocybin may desynchronize networks in the brain, potentially increasing its plasticity
The study provides a detailed look at how drugs containing psilocybin temporarily enhance the brain’s ability to adapt and change, a capacity known as plasticity. According to Dr. Joshua Siegel, a researcher at the University of Washington and the study’s lead author, disruptions in brain networks are responsible for the plastic effects of psychedelics.