A new study suggests that older people may have an increased risk of problems with memory and thinking abilities after being in the hospital, according to research published in the March 21, 2012, online issue of Neurology.
Neuroscience
Computer model of spread of dementia can predict future disease patterns years before they occur
Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have developed a computer program that has tracked the manner in which different forms of dementia spread within a human brain. They say their mathematic model can be used to predict where and approximately when an individual patient’s brain will suffer from the spread, neuron to neuron, of “prion-like” toxic proteins — a process they say underlies all forms of dementia.
Seeing movement: Why the world in our head stays still when we move our eyes
Scientists from Germany discovered new functions of brain regions that are responsible for seeing movement.
Researchers discover drug target for stimulating recovery from stroke
Investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown that removing a matched set of molecules that typically help to regulate the brain’s capacity for forming and eliminating connections between nerve cells could substantially aid recovery from stroke even days after the event. In experiments with mice, the scientists demonstrated that when these molecules are not present, the mice’s ability to recover from induced strokes improved significantly.
Study shines light on brain mechanism that controls reward enjoyment
What characterizes many people with depression, schizophrenia and some other mental illnesses is anhedonia: an inability to gain pleasure from normally pleasurable experiences.