ScienceDaily: Mind & Brain News

Researchers have discovered how neurons in a small area of the mammalian brain help filter distracting or disruptive signals -- specifically from the hands -- to coordinate dexterous movements. Their results may hold lessons in how the brain filters other sensory information as well.

The ability to detect and react to the smell of a potential threat is a precondition of our and other mammals' survival. Using a novel technique, researchers have been able to study what happens in the brain when the central nervous system judges a smell to represent danger. The study indicates that negative smells associated with unpleasantness or unease are processed earlier than positive smells and trigger a physical avoidance response.

At the beginning of neurodegenerative disease, the immune cells of the brain -- the 'microglia' -- take up glucose, a sugar molecule, to a much greater extent than hitherto assumed. These results are of great significance for the interpretation of brain scans depicting the distribution of glucose in the brain. Furthermore, such image-based data could potentially serve as a biomarker to non-invasively capture the response of microglia to therapeutic interventions in people with dementia.

Migraines are a pain in the head and in the hip pocket, but newly discovered genetic causes could lead the way to new preventative drugs and therapies.