Monthly Archives: June 2016

“Despite a lack of recent progress in the treatment of schizophrenia, our understanding of its genetic and environmental causes has considerably improved, and their relationship to aberrant patterns of neurodevelopment has become clearer. This raises the possibility that ‘disease-modifying’ strategies … Continue reading →

“Tau is a microtubule-associated neuronal protein found mainly in axons. However, its presence in dendrites and dendritic spines is particularly relevant due to its involvement in synaptic plasticity and neurodegeneration. Here, [the authors] show that Tau plays a novel in vivo … Continue reading →

“Visual working memory is the cognitive system that holds visual information active to make it resistant to interference from new perceptual input. Information about simple stimuli-colors and orientations-is encoded into working memory rapidly: In under 100 ms, working memory ‟fills … Continue reading →

“Although monozygotic (MZ) twins share the majority of their genetic makeup, they can be phenotypically discordant on several traits and diseases. DNA methylation is an epigenetic mechanism that can be influenced by genetic, environmental and stochastic events and may have … Continue reading →

“Tau protein in dendrites and synapses has been recently implicated in synaptic degeneration and neuronal malfunction. Chronic stress, a well-known inducer of neuronal/synaptic atrophy, triggers hyperphosphorylation of Tau protein and cognitive deficits. However, the cause-effect relationship between these events remains … Continue reading →

“Exposure to chronic stress is frequently accompanied by cognitive and affective disorders in association with neurostructural adaptations. Chronic stress was previously shown to trigger Alzheimer’s-like neuropathology, which is characterized by Tau hyperphosphorylation and missorting into dendritic spines followed by memory … Continue reading →

  Extensive evidence suggests that long term dietary n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids deficiency results in altered emotional behavior. N-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid deficiency induces emotional alterations through abnormal corticosterone secretion which leads to altered dendritic arborisation in the prefrontal cortex. … Continue reading →

“Accumulating evidence suggests that altered dopamine transmission may increase the risk of mental disorders such as ADHD, schizophrenia or depression, possibly mediated by reward system dysfunction. This study aimed to clarify the impact of the COMT Val(158)Met polymorphism in interaction … Continue reading →

“While the increased risk of psychopathology in the biological offspring of depressed parents has been widely replicated, the long-term outcome through their full age of risk is less known. The authors present a 30-year follow-up of biological offspring (mean age=47 … Continue reading →