University of Iowa neuroscientist John Wemmie, M.D., Ph.D., is interested in the effect of acid in the brain. His studies suggest that increased acidity or low pH, in the brain is linked to panic disorders, anxiety, and depression. But his work also suggests that changes in acidity are important for normal brain activity too.
General
With fat: What’s good or bad for the heart, may be the same for the brain
It has been known for years that eating too many foods containing “bad” fats, such as saturated fats or trans fats, isn’t healthy for your heart. However, according to new research from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), one “bad” fatsaturated fatwas found to be associated with worse overall cognitive function and memory in women over time. By contrast, a “good” fatmono-unsaturated fat was associated with better overall cognitive function and memory.
Various metabolic risk factors could be linked to diabetes-related pain with major implications for treatment
Around 1 in 50 people in the general population and 1 in 6 of those aged over 40 years experience neuropathy (damage to the nerves of the peripheral nervous system), which can cause numbness, tingling, pain, or weakness. The most common cause of neuropathy is diabetes, and up to half of diabetes patients can be affected. Currently, among the only treatments for neuropathy are glucose control (which often only delays it) and pain management. Yet less than half of patients are treated for pain, despite the availability of many effective therapies . Growing evidence suggests that various metabolic risk factors, including prediabetes, could be linked with neuropathy and thus be targets for new disease-modifying drugs. The issues are discussed in a Review in the June issue of The Lancet Neurology, by Dr Brian C Callaghan and colleagues, all of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
Suspicion resides in two regions of the brain
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on my parahippocampal gyrus.
Zebrafish could hold the key to understanding psychiatric disorders
Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London have shown that zebrafish could be used to study the underlying causes of psychiatric disorders.