Monthly Archives: May 2012

The therapeutic efficacy of serotonin-specific reuptake inhibitor antidepressants (SSRIs) is correlated with increases in cortical activity but the cell types involved in this action remain unknown. The authors of this study show that layer 5 corticostriatal pyramidal cells expressing p11 … Continue reading

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Ancestral environmental exposures have previously been shown to promote epigenetic transgenerational inheritance. In this study, Crews and colleagues found that a single exposure to a common-use fungicide (vinclozolin) three generations removed altered the physiology, behavior, metabolic activity, and transcriptome in … Continue reading

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Purpose in life is associated with a substantial reduction in risk for Alzheimer’s disease, but the brain changes associated with this effect are unknown. The authors of this study assessed Alzheimer-related pathological changes, amyloid and tangles in 246 community-based elderly … Continue reading

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The authors of this study have observed that patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) show increased fMRI activation in the dentate gyrus/CA3 region of the hippocampus compared to controls. Elevated hippocampal activation has been previously observed in conditions that … Continue reading

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The authors of this study suggest that protein kinase Cα (PKCα) has a role in human memory and that there is a genetic link between memory and risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  They specifically showed that genetic variability of … Continue reading

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  Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) is one of several important enzymes for metabolism of dopamine in the brain. The COMT Val(158)Met polymorphism has been found to influence enzyme activity and working memory function in human subjects. An inverted-U relationship between cortical dopamine … Continue reading

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Both episodic memory and working memory decline with age. However it has been noted that well-preserved memory functioning is preserved in subpopulations of older individuals. The authors of this review discuss brain maintenance (or relative lack of brain pathology), and … Continue reading

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Prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos, a widely used organophosphate insecticide, is associated with neurobehavioral deficits in human and animal studies. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to study brain morphology in children (ages 5.9 to 11.2 years) with high prenatal exposure … Continue reading

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