Clinical Trial for Alzheimer's Disease - Is LMTX Ineffective or Unprecedented?
Conclusions < /u > : The outcomes of this phase 3 trial will highlight the potential therapeutic value of tau aggregation inhibitor therapy in AD. A second phase 3 trial of LMTM for AD will be completed and reported later in 2016. < br / > < br / > (Source: The Neurocritic)
Source: The Neurocritic - July 28, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
A New Twist on Some Old Brain Myths
< div class= " separator tr_bq " style= " clear: both; text-align: left; " > < a href= " http://www.brainvizion.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/left-right-mid-brain.jpg " imageanchor= " 1 " style= " margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 1em; " > < img border= " 0 " height= " 320 " src= " https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uZjiNcFkCpA/V5CbtV5a8lI/AAAAAAAALuk/3AfBjb2Cd3grKgaR9hASv33kJmbaQ-2kACLcB/s320/Left%252C%2BRight%2B%2526%2BMid%2BBrain.png " width= " 245 " / > < /a > < /div > < br / > < br / > < b > 1. We only use < a href= " http://www.brainvizion.com/left-right-mid-brain/ " target= " _blank " > 4 to 5% < /a > of our brains....
Source: The Neurocritic - July 21, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Professor Richard Frackowiak on Retirement (and the Human Brain Project)
A neuroimaging pioneer, distinguished Professor Richard Frackowiak, has come out in favor of retirement:I retired aged 65 – I am known for being very pro-retirement. Older scientists should advise, if asked, by the next generation, which they trained. They should refrain from occupying leadership positions or directing implementation – the time for that is past. This is an important public stance to take in a time of dwindling resources and opportunities for junior scientists. On the one hand, with the steady increase in life expectancy since 1935, many aging Boomers plan to work well into their 70s. But on the other h...
Source: The Neurocritic - July 15, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Newly Discovered EEG Rhythm Related to Texting, or Cell Phone Artifact?
Texting Zombie (by Ian Aberle)Contemporary consumers of science infotainment “need” to understand that the brain responds to modern technology in an unprecedented and potentially sinister way. Or at least, that's what you'd think, based on the number of books and essays on how The Internet and Digital Technologies are destroying our brains. The latest entrée into this lucrative genre of mild techno-paranoid is from Elsevier, with their press release about a poorly controlled observational study in a relatively obscure journal:Sending text messages on a smartphone can change the rhythm of brain waves, acco...
Source: The Neurocritic - June 30, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
In Oxytocin We Trust
This report focuses only on the 83 males who took part in the study... Growing evidence suggests that the effects of oxytocin are different for males and females (Feng et al., 2015) and most of the current evidence on intranasal oxytocin’s psychological effects, which support the current hypotheses, come from studies with exclusively male samples. A separate analysis of female participants, controlling for a series of additional variables related to natural variations in oxytocin is ongoing.The larger study also included a task using Chinese pictographs, since the ability to read Chinese pictographs was an exclusionary c...
Source: The Neurocritic - June 22, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Advil Increases Social Pain (if you're male)
< div class= " separator " style= " clear: both; text-align: center; " > < a href= " https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_oAJifq0DSU/V1Sl_5bUGSI/AAAAAAAALlk/dCjLUxnxyR0WOcrMBxGcK9ViKGmcKozgQCLcB/s1600/headache_Guillaume%2BDELEBARRE.jpg " imageanchor= " 1 " style= " margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 1em; " > < img border= " 0 " height= " 313 " src= " https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_oAJifq0DSU/V1Sl_5bUGSI/AAAAAAAALlk/dCjLUxnxyR0WOcrMBxGcK9ViKGmcKozgQCLcB/s400/headache_Guillaume%2BDELEBARRE.jpg " width= " 400 " / > < /a > < /div > < br / > < div style= " text-align: center; " > < span style= " font-family: & quot;arial & quot; , & qu...
Source: The Neurocritic - June 5, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Advil Increases Social Pain (if you're male)
Headache, Guillaume DELEBARRE (Guigui-Lille)A recent neuroessay in the New York Times asked, Can Tylenol Help Heal a Broken Heart?What’s crazy about the pain of a broken heart is that your body perceives it as physical pain.No it does not. Do you feel heartbroken every time you stub your toe?Well... I guess the social pain = physical pain isomorphism is a one way street. Anyway, the author continued:In research published in 2010, scientists found that acetaminophen can reduce physical and neural responses associated with the pain of social rejection, whether in romantic relationships, friendships or otherwise.The pain re...
Source: The Neurocritic - June 5, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Compulsive Foreign Language Syndrome: Man Becomes Obsessed With Speaking Fake French
You may have seen headlines such as: Florida Man Woke Up In A Motel Room Speaking Only Swedish. Or: Englishman wakes up speaking Welsh after stroke (“Rare brain disorder left English-speaking Alun Morgan only able to communicate in Welsh”). The first case was likely due to a fugue state, a type of dissociative disorder involving loss of personal identity and aimless wandering (Stengel, 1941). The second seems like an unusual example of bilingual aphasia involving loss of the ability to speak one's native language (rather than the more commonly affected second language). Perhaps you've even seen paranormal claims like:...
Source: The Neurocritic - May 29, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Acetaminophen Probably Isn't an " Empathy Killer "
< div class= " separator " style= " clear: both; text-align: center; " > < a href= " https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T7W9XshPEkA/VzwCoFtUCjI/AAAAAAAALjQ/Pjr1Hn0uCbk4SjGWmRPMdbkfB6Lvj7X9ACLcB/s1600/Dr.%2BWim%2BDistelmans%2Band%2Bacetaminophen.png " imageanchor= " 1 " style= " margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 1em; " > < img border= " 0 " height= " 188 " src= " https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-T7W9XshPEkA/VzwCoFtUCjI/AAAAAAAALjQ/Pjr1Hn0uCbk4SjGWmRPMdbkfB6Lvj7X9ACLcB/s400/Dr.%2BWim%2BDistelmans%2Band%2Bacetaminophen.png " width= " 400 " / > < /a > < /div > < br / > < span style= " font-family: & quot;arial & quot; , & quot;helvetic...
Source: The Neurocritic - May 17, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Acetaminophen Probably Isn't an "Empathy Killer"
Left: Belgian physician Dr. Wim Distelmans, a cancer specialist, professor in palliative care and the president of the Belgian federal euthanasia commission. Right: Generic acetaminophen.What (or who) is an “Empathy Killer“? An Angel of Death Kevorkian-type who helps terminally ill patients with ALS or cancer put an end their excruciating pain? This is a very selfless act that shows extreme empathy for the suffering of others.Or is an “Empathy Killer” a medication that dulls your numerical ratings of empathic concern for fictional characters ever so slightly? If you guessed the latter, you are correct. Here's the a...
Source: The Neurocritic - May 17, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Imagine These Experiments in Aphantasia
When you hear the word “apple”, do you picture a Red Delicious apple or a green Granny Smith? Or neither, because you can't conjure up a visual image of an apple (or of anything else, for that matter)? Aphantasia is the inability to generate visual images, which can be a congenital condition or acquired after brain injury (Farah, 1984). The most striking aspect of this variation in mental life is that those of us with imagery assume that everyone else has it, while those without are flabbergasted when they learn that other people can “see” pictures in their head.Programming prodigy Blake Ross created a sensation re...
Source: The Neurocritic - May 3, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
The Truth About Cognitive Impairment in Retired NFL Players
NINETY-TWO percent of retired National Football League players have decreased cognitive function, according to a new study:“In the NFL group, baseline neuropsychological assessments showed 92% of players had decreased general cognitive proficiency, 86% had decreased information processing speed, 83% had memory loss, 83% had attentional deficits, and 85% had executive function impairment.”The Truth?The study reported on a self-selected sample of 161 current and retired NFL players recruited via a blog (“The NFL concealed the danger of brain injuries!!”), the Los Angeles Chapter of the Retired NFL Players Associat...
Source: The Neurocritic - April 29, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
What We Think We Know and Don't Know About tDCS
< div class= " separator " style= " clear: both; text-align: center; " > < a href= " https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BUq7Xit6KH8/VxnM706QZZI/AAAAAAAALhc/mwmGa58dL1MIHgVs3XsOqqgez062t_2BwCLcB/s1600/tDCS%2Bcadaver%2Bhead%2Bcircuit%2Bboards.gif " imageanchor= " 1 " style= " margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 1em; " > < img border= " 0 " height= " 370 " src= " https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BUq7Xit6KH8/VxnM706QZZI/AAAAAAAALhc/mwmGa58dL1MIHgVs3XsOqqgez062t_2BwCLcB/s400/tDCS%2Bcadaver%2Bhead%2Bcircuit%2Bboards.gif " width= " 400 " / > < /a > < /div > < br / > < div style= " text-align: center; " > < span style= " font-family: & quot;...
Source: The Neurocritic - April 21, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
What We Think We Know and Don't Know About tDCS
image: Mihály Vöröslakos / University of Szeged “Don't Lose Your Head Over tDCS,” I warned last time. Now the infamous cadaver study has reared its ugly hot-wired head in Science News (Underwood, 2016).The mechanism of action of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) had been called into question by Dr. György Buzsáki during his presentation at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society meeting....Or had it?To recap, my understanding was that an unpublished study of transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) in human cadaver heads showed a 90% loss of current when delivered through the skin vs. through the...
Source: The Neurocritic - April 21, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
Don't Lose Your Head Over tDCS
< div class= " separator tr_bq " style= " clear: both; text-align: center; " > < a href= " http://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/L0029560.html " imageanchor= " 1 " style= " margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 1em; " title= " plate 4: Essai theorique et experimental sur le galvinisme, avec une serie d ' experiences (by Giovanni Aldini, 1804) " > < img border= " 0 " height= " 292 " src= " https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9nwmXjYx2BM/Vws6OVW_BaI/AAAAAAAALfo/twMN1D33gGojv4oeOlHusU0-_94zGevYw/s400/galvanism%2Band%2Bcadaver%2Bheads.jpg " width= " 400 " / > < /a > < /div > < br / > < span style= " font-family: & quot;arial & qu...
Source: The Neurocritic - April 13, 2016 Category: Neuroscience Authors: The Neurocritic Source Type: blogs
