ScienceDaily: Mind & Brain News

An analysis of 11 major psychiatric disorders offers new insight into why comorbidities are the norm when it comes to mental illness. The study suggests that while there is no single gene or set of genes underlying risk for all of them, subsets of disorders -- including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia; anorexia nervosa and obsessive-compulsive disorder; and major depression and anxiety --s hare a common genetic architecture.

Poor sleep, difficulty moving and injuries from hitting something accidentally are just some of the challenges faced by suffers of often-painful involuntary muscle spasms. However, a new study investigating motoneurons in the spine has revealed two methods can make our spinal cords less 'excitable' and could potentially be used to treat muscle spasms.

Research that examines how the body adapts to new movements is shedding new light on how the nervous system learns, and could help to inform a wide range of applications, from customized rehabilitation and athletic training to wearable systems for healthcare.