Implications profound for neurological diseases from autism to Alzheimer’s to multiple sclerosis. In a stunning discovery that overturns decades of textbook teaching, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have determined that the brain is directly connected to the immune system by vessels previously thought not to exist. That such vessels could have escaped detection when the lymphatic system has been so thoroughly mapped throughout the body is surprising on its own, but the true significance of the discovery lies in the effects it could have on the study and treatment of neurological diseases ranging from autism to Alzheimer’s disease to multiple sclerosis. “Instead of asking, ‘How do we study the immune response of the brain?’ ‘Why do multiple sclerosis patients have the immune attacks?’ now we can approach this mechanistically. Because the brain is like every other tissue connected to the peripheral immune system through meningeal lymphatic vessels,” s...
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We regularly find ourselves in situations in which we talk to others. We talk to friends in a different way than we do to strangers. One important skill for this is not just understanding what the other person is saying but also recognizing who is talking. Therefore, the voice of our conversation partner helps us. Until now, scientists could not agree on exactly which regions in the brain allow us to recognize voices. "Very valid statements about which brain areas are responsible for which functions are derived from investigations in patients with lesions. If a certain part of the brain is injured and therefore a certain function fails, both components can be related to each other", says Claudia Roswandowitz, scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) in Leipzig, and first author of a study which has revealed key findings about voice recognition. Roswandowitz, along with other researchers from the Research Group Neural Mechanism...
The neuroscientists Dr Christina Strauch and Prof Dr Denise Manahan-Vaughan from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum have investigated which brain area is responsible for storing odors as long-term memories. Some odors can trigger memories of experiences from years back. The current study shows that the piriform cortex, a part of the olfactory brain, is involved in the process of saving those memories; the mechanism, however, only works in interaction with other brain areas. The findings have been published in the journal Cerebral Cortex. "It is known that the piriform cortex is able to temporarily store olfactory memories. We wanted to know, if that applies to long-term memories as well," says Christina Strauch. Synaptic plasticity is responsible for the storing of memories in the memory structures of the brain: During that process the communication between neurons is altered by means of a process called synaptic plasticity, so that a memory is created. Strauch and Manahan-V...