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101 news posts in Neuroscience

Neuroscience

13 Dec 2016

How physical exercises aids in stroke recovery

Engaging in voluntary physical exercise helps protect the brain from the damaging effects of a stroke, shown in mice. — By Tania Fitzgeorge-Balfour, Science Writer, Frontiersin.org The after-effects of a stroke can be life changing. Paralysis, speech problems and memory loss occur in varying degrees of severity, depending on the location and amount of brain tissue damage. How far a stroke patient can recover is largely determined by the ability of the brain to reorganize itself. Understanding what can improve this ability is therefore essential in developing the best therapies for rehabilitation. Voluntary physical exercise is known to have a positive effect on a person’s overall well-being. It delays memory loss in old age and improves cognitive ability. A new study, published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, has linked the positive effects of exercise on the brains of mice to their better recovery after a stroke. “Our study suggests that physical exercise can be used as a preventive, as well as a therapeutic approach to aid recovery after a cortical stroke,” says Dr. Evgenia Kalogeraki, who conducted this research at the in the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Siegrid Löwel, at Georg-August-University, Germany. Previous research of the Löwel […]

Neuroscience

29 Nov 2016

How kids’ brains respond to a late night up

Sleep deprivation affects children’s brains differently than adults’, according to a new study By K.E.D. Coan, Science Writer Any parent can tell you about the consequences of their child not getting enough sleep. But there is far less known about the details of how sleep deprivation affects children’s brains and what this means for early brain development. “The process of sleep may be involved in brain ‘wiring’ in childhood and thus affect brain maturation,” explains Salome Kurth, first author of the study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, and a researcher at the University Hospital of Zurich. “This research shows an increase in sleep need in posterior brain regions in children.” This contrasts with what researchers know about the effects of sleep deprivation in adults, where the effect is typically concentrated in the frontal regions of the brain. After staying up too late, both children and adults need a period of deep sleep to recover. This recovery phase is characterized by an increase in an electrical pattern called slow-wave activity, which can be measured with a non-invasive technique called an electroencephalogram. With a large number of electrode channels distributed across the scalp, this method also detects which brain regions show […]