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Philadelphia, April 15, 2021 -A new study shows that markers of fear recall differ between men and women, but in a hormone-dependent manner.
Aberrant fear-memory processing in the brain is thought to underlie anxiety disorders, which affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide. The neurobiological mechanisms underlying these disorders remain poorly understood, but recent studies suggest that neural oscillations in the prefrontal cortex can reflect the strength of fear recall activity, providing a physiological measure.
Women suffer from anxiety disorders at twice the rate of men and indeed the literature shows that there are sex differences in fear recall behaviors, but this area of study has not been extended to neural oscillations. Additional studies suggest a modulatory role for the female sex hormone estradiol (E2) for fear recall and extinction recall.
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IMAGE: Mechanics is key to whisker tactile sensation. When a whisker is deflected, its deformation profile within the follicle determines the activity of different groups of mechanoreceptors. view more
Credit: Northwestern University/Nadina Zweifel
We know your cat s whiskers are handsome but you can t even see the cool part.
The base of the whisker, which is responsible for sending touch signals to the brain, is hidden inside the follicle, a deep pocket that embeds the whisker within the skin. Because this section of the whisker is obscured, understanding precisely how whiskers communicate touch to the brain has been a longstanding mystery.
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MADISON - Bipolar disorder affects millions of Americans, causing dramatic swings in mood and, in some people, additional effects such as memory problems.
While bipolar disorder is linked to many genes, each one making small contributions to the disease, scientists don t know just how those genes ultimately give rise to the disorder s effects.
However, in new research, scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found for the first time that disruptions to a particular protein called Akt can lead to the brain changes characteristic of bipolar disorder. The results offer a foundation for research into treating the often-overlooked cognitive impairments of bipolar disorder, such as memory loss, and add to a growing understanding of how the biochemistry of the brain affects health and disease.
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IMAGE: Georgia Tech researchers use a graphical model framework to uncover a better way to identify cells and understand neural activities in the brain. view more
Credit: Christopher Moore, Georgia Tech
In researching the causes and potential treatments for degenerative conditions such as Alzheimer s or Parkinson s disease, neuroscientists frequently struggle to accurately identify cells needed to understand brain activity that gives rise to behavior changes such as declining memory or impaired balance and tremors.
A multidisciplinary team of Georgia Institute of Technology neuroscience researchers, borrowing from existing tools such as graphical models, have uncovered a better way to identify cells and understand the mechanisms of the diseases, potentially leading to better understanding, diagnosis, and treatment.
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The promotion of psychosocial health among individuals, groups, and society is an increasingly important subject in the field of public health. Psychosocial health is a complex interaction between the psyche of an individual and the social environment in which that individual lives. Promoting psychosocial health is often challenging and complex for health care professionals. Therefore, an important question of public health significance is: how can we address and improve the psychosocial health of individuals, groups, as well as society in general?
An interdisciplinary team of specialists at the Department of Health Professions at the Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland, have proposed action models based on the relationships between health promotion, prevention, and psychosocial health. The swiss team, led by Tannys Helfer have defined these concepts in relation to how they could be synergistically combined to promote psychosocial health. Understanding the t