Category: Health

Summary: Researchers report dream dysfunctions and sleep disorders may be warning signs of neurodegenerative diseases up to 15 years before other symptoms appear. Source: Canadian Association For Neuroscience. REM sleep disorders could be early warning sign for neurological disease later in life. Dr. John Peever at the University of Toronto has been working to answer one of humanity’s greatest questions: how do we dream? He has found a certain area of the brain is responsible for this phenomenon and that troubles with normal dreaming may be an early warning sign…

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Summary: While brain volume decreases during the transition from childhood to young adulthood, gray matter volume actually increases, researchers report. Source: University of Pennsylvania. For years, the common narrative in human developmental neuroimaging has been that gray matter in the brain – the tissue found in regions of the brain responsible for muscle control, sensory perception such as seeing and hearing, memory, emotions, speech, decision making, and self-control – declines in adolescence, a finding derived mainly from studies of gray matter volume and cortical thickness (the thickness of the outer…

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Summary: According to researchers, people who consider themselves to be recreational cocaine users may be closer to addiction than they think. Source: McGill University. Non-dependent users also experience dopamine release in response to drug cues. Even among non-dependent cocaine users, cues associated with consumption of the drug lead to dopamine release in an area of the brain thought to promote compulsive use, according to researchers at McGill University. The findings, published in Scientific Reports, suggest that people who consider themselves recreational users could be further along the road to addiction than…

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