brain

Body weight and fertility have long known to be related to each other -- women who are too thin, for example, can have trouble becoming pregnant.

Now, a master switch has been found in the brain of mice that controls both, and researchers say it may work the same way in humans.

An Australian research project has found a way to bring forward the detection of early stage Alzheimer's disease by up to 18 months.

Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by very high levels of a molecule called beta-amyloid in the brain.

A novel cell therapy using retinal pigment epithelial cells attached to tiny gelatin bead microcarriers implanted in the brain can improve the symptoms of patients with moderate to advanced Parkinson's disease.

When the eye tracks a bird's flight across the sky, the visual experience is normally smooth, without interruption.

But underlying this behavior is a complex coordination of neurons that has remained mysterious to scientists.

Now, researchers have broken ground in understanding how the brain generates this tracking motion.

The receptors of neurotransmitters move very rapidly. This mobility plays an essential, and hitherto unsuspected, role in the passage of nerve impulses from one neuron to another, thus controlling the reliability of data transfer.

While males and females might sometimes act as though they come from different planets, a new study in flies suggests they are both equipped with a largely unisex brain.

By artificially triggering the neurons responsible for singing -- normally a male only activity -- the researchers made female flies play their first tune.

People who score high on intelligence tests are also good at keeping time, new Swedish research shows. The team that carried out the study also suspect that accuracy in timing is important to the brain processes responsible for problem solving and reasoning.

A team of scientists has unraveled how the brain unconsciously prepares our decisions.

Scientists have shown that it is possible to repair an injured brain by creating a small number of new, specifically-targeted innervations, rather than a larger number of non-specific connections.

Behavioral tests have demonstrated that such reinnervation can thus restore damaged cerebral functions.

Beta-blockers heal the heart via the brain when administered during heart failure, according to a new study. Up to now, it was thought that beta-blockers work directly on the heart, but the new study shows that the drugs may also act via the brain, suggesting that future therapies to treat cardiovascular disease could be targeting the central nervous system.