Nervous System News

June 13, 2025

Top Headlines

The Hunger Switch in Your Nose: How Smells Tell Your Brain to Stop Eating

June 12, 2025 — A team of scientists has discovered a direct link between the smell of food and feelings of fullness at least in lean mice. This brain circuit, located in the medial septum and triggered by food odors, helps animals eat less by making them feel ...

Scientists Found the Brain Glitch That Makes You Think You’re Still Hungry

June 11, 2025 — A team of scientists has identified specialized neurons in the brain that store "meal memories" detailed recollections of when and what we eat. These engrams, found in the ventral hippocampus, help ...

New Discovery: Tylenol Stops Pain at the Nerves, Before It Hits the Brain

June 10, 2025 — Acetaminophen may be doing more than just dulling pain in your brain it could be stopping it before it even starts. Scientists at Hebrew University have discovered that a metabolite of the drug, AM404, blocks pain signals right at their source by ...

Researchers Develop Innovative Model to Study Sense of Smell

June 3, 2025 — Scientists at Tufts have created a powerful 3D model of nasal tissue that reveals surprising new insights into how our sense of smell regenerates and why it sometimes fades. Contrary to past assumptions, a supposedly inactive type of stem cell ...

Brain Training Game Offers New Hope for Drug-Free Pain Management

June 2, 2025 — A trial of an interactive game that trains people to alter their brain waves has shown promise as a treatment for nerve pain -- offering hope for a new generation of drug-free ...

Newly Identified Group of Nerve Cells in the Brain Regulates Bodyweight

May 28, 2025 — Obesity is a global health problem that affects many people. In recent years, very promising anti-obesity drugs have been developed. Despite these successes, there are patients who do not respond to these drugs or suffer from side effects. ...

A Switchboard With Precision: How the Brain Licenses Movements

May 28, 2025 — Neurons deep in the brain not only help to initiate movement -- they also actively suppress it, and with astonishing precision. The findings are especially relevant for better understanding neurological disorders such as Parkinson's ...

How Brain Stimulation Alleviates Symptoms of Parkinson's Disease

May 27, 2025 — Persons with Parkinson's disease increasingly lose their mobility over time and are eventually unable to walk. Hope for these patients rests on deep brain stimulation, also known as a brain pacemaker. In a current study, researchers investigated ...

Weight Loss Linked to Nerve Cells in the Brain

May 27, 2025 — A specific group of nerve cells in the brain stem appears to control how semaglutide affects appetite and weight -- without causing ...

Tiny Genetic Switch Found to Control Brain Balance and Behavior

May 22, 2025 — Researchers have identified a remarkably small but critical piece of genetic code that helps determine how brain cells connect, communicate, and function. The discovery not only deepens our understanding of how the brain's wiring is built but may ...

Potential New Treatment for Alzheimer's Disease, Other Neurodegenerative Conditions

May 22, 2025 — Worldwide, more than 55 million people suffer from dementia caused by Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and other conditions that destroy cells in the brain and nervous system. While there is no treatment to ...

Scientists Design Gene Delivery Systems for Cells in the Brain and Spinal Cord

May 21, 2025 — Research teams have created a versatile set of gene delivery systems that can reach different neural cell types in the human brain and spinal cord with exceptional accuracy. These delivery systems ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:00pm EDT

Clinical Trial Shows Improvements for Spinal Cord Injuries

May 21, 2025 — Researchers demonstrated unprecedented rates of recovery for spinal cord injuries. Individuals with incomplete spinal cord injury safely received a combination of stimulation of a nerve in the neck ...

New Research on ALS Opens Up for Early Treatment

May 20, 2025 — Using the gene scissors CRISPR and stem cells, researchers have managed to identify a common denominator for different gene mutations that all cause the neurological disease ALS. The research shows ...

How Molecules Can 'Remember' and Contribute to Memory and Learning

May 20, 2025 — Researchers have discovered how an ion channel in the brain's neurons has a kind of 'molecular memory', which contributes to the formation and preservation of lifelong memories. The researchers have ...

Language Isn't Just for Communication -- It Also Shapes How Sensory Experiences Are Stored in the Brain

May 20, 2025 — Our ability to store information about familiar objects depends on the connection between visual and language processing regions in the brain, ...

A Step Forward in Treating Serious Genetic Disorders Prenatally

May 14, 2025 — Evidence is mounting that clinicians can treat serious genetic disorders prenatally by injecting medicine into the amniotic fluid, thus preventing damage that begins in ...

Experimental Painkiller Could Outsmart Opioids -- Without the High

May 19, 2025 — A study shows a non-opioid pain reliever blocks pain at its source -- calming specific nerve signals that send pain messages to the brain. In mice, the compound SBI-810 eased pain from surgery, bone ...

Study Reveals Impacts of Alzheimer's Disease on the Whole Body

May 16, 2025 — While Alzheimer's disease is mostly considered a disorder of the brain, emerging evidence suggests that the condition also affects other organs of the body. Working with the laboratory fruit fly, ...

New Insights Into the Energy Balance of Brain Neurons

May 14, 2025 — A research team has demonstrated how the energy levels of individual neurons in the brain change during so-called spreading depolarizations -- waves of activity that occur in various brain disorders. ...

Hormone Cycles Shape the Structure and Function of Key Memory Regions in the Brain

May 13, 2025 — Hormone levels fluctuate like the tides, ebbing and flowing according to carefully orchestrated cycles. These hormones not only influence the body, ...

Different Anesthetics, Same Result: Unconsciousness by Shifting Brainwave Phase

May 12, 2025 — A new study finds that an easily measurable brain wave shift of phase may be a universal marker of unconsciousness under general ...

Promising Parkinson's Drug Decoded

May 8, 2025 — How well our brain functions depends heavily on the performance of our nerve cells. That is why they are regularly checked for their proper function -- defective cell components are marked, disposed ...

Sleep Apnea During REM Sleep Linked to Memory-Related Brain Changes

May 7, 2025 — Obstructive sleep apnea, a condition that causes lower oxygen levels during sleep, is linked to degeneration of brain regions associated with memory through damage to the brain's small blood ...

A Pipette That Can Activate Individual Neurons

May 7, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new type of pipette that can deliver ions to individual neurons without affecting the sensitive extracellular milieu. Controlling the concentration of different ions can ...

Decoding the Brainstem: A New Window Into Brain--Body--Mind Interactions

May 2, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new imaging method, D-PSCAN, which enables minimally invasive, wide-field, high-resolution imaging of the nucleus tractus solitarii (NTS) in living mice. This technique ...

Molecular Double Agent: Protein 'Eato' Plays Surprising Role in Protecting the Brain

May 1, 2025 — A team of researchers has made a discovery in fruit flies that could change the way we understand brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's in humans. The scientists found that Eato ...

A Protein Link Between Brain Diseases and Leaky Blood Vessels

Apr. 30, 2025 — Reduced levels of a critical protein are linked to devastating brain diseases like Alzheimer's, frontotemporal dementia, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Surprisingly, the protein ...

How Is It We Feel a Sense of Agency Over Our Movements?

Apr. 30, 2025 — The sensation of controlling one's body and things in the environment is known as sense of agency (SoA). Not only is SoA pivotal for tasks and well-being in everyday life, but its mechanisms ...

New Technology Facilitates Delivery of Advanced Medicines

Apr. 30, 2025 — Researchers have developed a technique that enables efficient delivery of therapeutic proteins and RNA to cells. The method shows promising results in animal studies to deliver gene editors and ...

Brain Decoder Controls Spinal Cord Stimulation

Apr. 28, 2025 — A lab develops brain wave decoder that may help in spinal cord injury ...

New Body-Fluid Biomarker for Parkinson's Disease Discovered

Apr. 25, 2025 — Researchers have discovered a new biomarker for Parkinson's disease. A misfolded protein facilitates reliable diagnosis even in the early stages of Parkinson's disease in body ...

In Down Syndrome Mice, 40Hz Light and Sound Improve Cognition, Neurogenesis, Connectivity

Apr. 25, 2025 — A new study provides new evidence that sensory stimulation of a gamma-frequency brain rhythm may promote broad-based restorative neurological health ...

Immune Cells Drive Congenital Paralysis Disease

Apr. 25, 2025 — Patients with spastic paraplegia type 15 develop movement disorders during adolescence that may ultimately require the use of a wheelchair. In the early stages of this rare hereditary disease the ...

Building 'Cellular Bridges' for Spinal Cord Repair After Injury

Apr. 21, 2025 — Capitalizing on the flexibility of tiny cells inside the body's smallest blood vessels may be a powerful spinal cord repair strategy, new research ...

Engineered Microglia Show Promise for Treating Alzheimer's and Other Brain Diseases

Apr. 21, 2025 — A new way to deliver disease-fighting proteins throughout the brain may improve the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders, according to scientists. By engineering ...

How Disturbed Signaling Pathways Could Promote Epileptic Seizures

Apr. 16, 2025 — Focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) type 2 is a congenital malformation of the cerebral cortex that is often associated with difficult-to-treat epilepsy. In the affected areas, nerve cells and their layer ...

Researchers Have Mapped the Hidden Control System of Vision

Apr. 15, 2025 — The smallest control system of vision in mammals has been mapped -- a discovery that opens entirely new insights into how our vision works and how it can be affected by ...

The Brain Resorts to Myelin When Other Brain Nutrients Are Depleted

Apr. 10, 2025 — Marathon runners experience reversible changes in their brain myelin. These findings indicate that myelin (a substance that surrounds the neurons) exhibits behavior that was previously unknown, and ...

Discovery Reveals Protein Involved in Parkinson's Disease Also Drives Skin Cancer

Apr. 9, 2025 — A small protein involved in neurodegeneration leading to Parkinson's disease also drives a type of skin cancer known as melanoma, according to new ...

New Insights Into Neurodegeneration Using Human 'Mini Brains'

Apr. 9, 2025 — Researchers have discovered a new way that neurons act in neurodegeneration by using human neural organoids -- also known as 'mini-brain' models -- from patients with frontotemporal lobar ...

By Re-Creating Neural Pathway in Dish, Stanford Medicine Research May Speed Pain Treatment

Apr. 9, 2025 — Scientists have rebuilt, in laboratory glassware, the neural pathway that sends information from the body's periphery to the brain, promising to aid research on pain ...