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Vitamin D and the Brain
We have long known the connection between vitamin D and mental health, however, new research may have found that the reason vitamin D deficiency has an effect on learning and memory may be due to its effect on PNNs. Perineuronal nets (PNNs), specialized extracellular matrix structures in the brain, act like a scaffolding that wraps…
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A Pseudogene with Promising Neurological Influence
A pseudogene has been discovered on chromosome Y of the neurofilament light (NEFL) gene in humans.
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Veggies Boost Brain Power
A new Harvard study highlights another reason why mother’s advice to “eat your veggies” is spot on for long-term health and, in particular, cognitive health. The study that started in 1986 and followed 27,842 men for 26 years was designed to highlight the impact of fruits and vegetables on subjective cognitive function (SCF). The subjects…
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Do You Have Leaky Brain?
The NIH estimates that 20% of Americans have a diagnosable mental disorder, at a cost of $201 billion per year. The most common maladies are depression and phobias. In 2014, the CDC issued a report indicating that the U.S. suicide rate reached 13 per 100,000, the highest it had been since 1986. We are beginning…
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Music and the Brain
Music has healing power,” Elton John once said, and recent research confirms this. Although aging and cognitive decline are affected by a wide variety of factors, music may be one factor that enhances cognition. A new study looked at the impact musical practice has on neurocognitive aging. The paper was a systematic meta-analysis of studies dealing with…
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Deeper Dive into the Gut-Brain Connection
In an 1817 study on Parkinson’s disease (PD), James Parkinson noted that many of the patients with PD had gastrointestinal issues, and that up to 80% of these patients suffered from constipation. Even 200 years ago, we knew about the gut-brain connection. Currently, the literature demonstrates that the microbiome does, in fact, affect the function…
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How to Build a Better Mood
The brain is comprised of billions upon billions of nerve cells (neurotransmitters) that relay information from one nerve cell to the next, allowing for efficient communication to occur. When everything is working properly, we feel our best. However, neurotransmitters often get compromised from the stressors of everyday life, which then affects our overall mood. One…
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Probiotics and the Brain
The mind-body connection garners a lot of attention these days, with explosive and ever-emerging research demonstrating the importance of seeing the body as a whole, rather than fractured systems. When talking about the brain, it’s hard to ignore the gut. The gut-brain axis is a good example of this; with the ability of the gut…
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Astrocytes, Star of the Glial Show
The brain is truly an amazing organ that takes all the credit for man’s ingenuity. From the mastery of daunting foreign languages, to the ability to solve complex problems in multi-variable physics, the brain’s ability to excite and amaze is limitless. Behind all of these amazing processes, though, are various groups of cells, closely connected…
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Better Diet Quality Linked to Larger Brain Volume
Can eating healthy make our brains bigger? In a recent study by Croll PH, et al., that evaluated the diets of participants from the Rotterdam Study, as well as their brain MRI scans, it was determined that a “better diet quality related to larger brain volume, gray matter volume, white matter volume, and hippocampal volume.”