Health

If a tau protein (in red) goes rogue after a head injury, it can lead to cell deaths, memory loss and eventually dementia. Image credit – MAP2 Tau in neurons by GerryShaw is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

14 September 2018

What happens inside an injured brain?

Scientists have discovered that a single severe head injury can lead to dementia through a rogue protein that propagates through the brain and corrupts others, giving some much needed insight into what happens inside an injured brain.

Insights into the freeze-fight-flight response are helping researchers to develop techniques for bringing snap reactions under conscious control. Image credit - Margo Wright/ US Air Force. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.

health

11 September 2018

How do we make snap decisions?

Decision-making is part of daily life but in many situations, from deciding whether to hit the snooze button on your alarm or reacting to an intruder, choices are made very quickly. Now we’re getting new insight into how these snap decisions are made.

Legionella cells can be detected with a home-printer-size testing machine. Image credit - CDC/ Dr. Barry S. Fields

health

30 August 2018

New tests identify contaminated drinking water in minutes, not weeks

Speedy, affordable water tests that can be used in on location and even run continuously will help scientists identify disease-causing bacteria in under an hour and potentially reduce the spread of common illnesses such as diarrhoea, which kills an estimated 842,000 people every year.

Millions of lives are lost to cancer due to late detection so scientists are working on better ways of diagnosing the disease. Image credit - Signet ring cell carcinoma of the urinary bladder by Nephron is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

health | open innovation

28 August 2018

Family’s grief sparks a quest for better bladder cancer cures

'Invasive and uncomfortable' procedures for detecting if someone has bladder cancer could be replaced by urine tests that not only screen for the presence of the disease but also help doctors choose the right course of treatment for a particular patient.

Spending time near water has even greater health benefits than visiting a forest or park, according to researchers. Image credit - Frederica Diamanta/ Unsplash

environment | health

23 August 2018

Tapping into water’s therapeutic power to cut health costs

Living close to bodies of water such as a river or even a fountain could help people be healthier while also reducing medical costs for governments, according to researchers.

Professor Marian Bakermans-Kranenburg is conducting a series of studies to investigate how hormones affect father-baby bonding. Image credit - Prof. Bakermans-Kranenburg

interview | health

20 August 2018

New fathers may undergo hormonal, neural and behavioural changes

Fathers’ hormone levels and brain activity may change when they spend time with their children, helping them adapt to parenthood in a way that has been overlooked until now, according to Professor Marian Bakermans-Kranenburg, who studies children and family relations at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and was until recently at Leiden University in the Netherlands. She is conducting a series of studies with new fathers, to investigate the role that hormones can play in how they bond with their children.

A study published in January this year showed that group interventions broadened dozens of Israelis’ views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Image credit - Flickr/Apps for Europe, licensed under CC BY 2.0

health

16 August 2018

How focusing on emotions helps diffuse political tension

Workshops focusing on intergroup emotions are showing how deeply-rooted beliefs can be changed to support conflict resolution.

health

09 August 2018

The mobile apps and wearable tech tapping into users' emotions to tackle depression and anxiety

Personalised smartphone applications and wearable technologies that are attuned to the user’s state of mind are offering customised ways of helping people cope with mental illness.

Dr Nadine Gogolla is studying the insular cortex and its connections to anxiety disorders. Image credit - Dr Nadine Gogolla

interview | health

02 August 2018

'Island of the brain' explains how physical states affect anxiety

A fold of tissue hidden deep inside the human brain which collects inputs from both inside and outside the body could explain how our physical states influence our emotions and may be the key to understanding anxiety disorders, according to Dr Nadine Gogolla, a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Munich, Germany. She is using cutting-edge scientific techniques to probe this poorly studied brain region, known as the insular cortex, to reveal the role it plays in regulating our emotions.

Cerebral organoids allow scientists to test new drugs on human brain tissue in labs. Image credit - Jürgen Knoblich

health

30 July 2018

Mini-brains offer hope in search for new drugs for brain disorders

Miniature brains grown in laboratory dishes could overcome some of the problems testing drugs on animals and help researchers identify new ways to treat very human, and incurable, conditions like Alzheimer's disease and epilepsy.