With a weak alternating electrical current sent through electrodes attached to the scalp, UNC School of Medicine researchers successfully targeted a naturally occurring electrical pattern in a specific part of the brain and markedly improved depression symptoms in about 70 percent of participants in a clinical study. The research, published in Translational Psychiatry, lays the groundwork for larger research studies to use a specific kind of electrical brain stimulation called transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) to treat people diagnosed with major depression. “We conducted a small study of 32 people because…
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Child’s elevated mental ill-health risk if mother treated for infection during pregnancy
Risks for autism and depression are higher if one’s mother was in hospital with an infection during pregnancy. This is shown by a major Swedish observational study of nearly 1.8 million children. “The results indicate that safeguarding against and preventing infection during pregnancy as far as possible by, for instance, following flu vaccination recommendations, may be called for,” says Verena Sengpiel, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, and last author of the study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry. Maternal infection with certain infectious agents,…
Read MoreGenetic factors influence human brain expansion
An analysis published in JNeurosci of brain scans from more than 600 children and adolescents reveals genetically-mediated associations between the size of evolutionarily novel brain regions and intelligence test scores. Genetic influences on the brain follow the patterns of evolutionary expansion of the human brain relative to nonhuman primates. Cerebral surface area has expanded dramatically over the course of human evolution. Brain regions that have undergone evolutionary expansion tend to follow a similar pattern during individual development. Despite these trends, brain structure can vary greatly between similar people. The relative contribution of…
Read MoreConcussion treatment: Adolescent athletes ‘prescribed’ aerobic exercise recovered faster
Adolescent athletes who sustained concussions while playing a sport recovered more quickly when they underwent a supervised, aerobic exercise regimen, a study published Feb. 4 in JAMA Pediatrics has found. The study, by University at Buffalo researchers and colleagues, is the first randomized clinical trial of a treatment in the acute phase after a sport-related concussion. The goal was to evaluate prescribed, progressive sub-symptom threshold exercise as a treatment within the first week of a concussion in adolescents after a few days of rest. Sub-symptom threshold exercise is physical activity that doesn’t…
Read MoreTaking the brain apart to put it all together again
The human brain, with its 100 billion neurons that control every thought, word, and action, is the most complex and delicate organ in the body. Because it needs extra protection from toxins and other harmful substances, the blood vessels that supply the brain with oxygen and nutrients are highly selective about which molecules can cross from the blood into the brain and vice versa. These blood vessels and their unique network of supporting pericyte and astrocyte cells comprise the blood-brain barrier (BBB). When the BBB is disrupted, as happens with…
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