Researchers at UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) have discovered a new brain mechanism that plays an important role in regulating how we experience pain.
Scientists from QBI’s synaptic plasticity laboratory discovered the new mechanism while studying the amygdala – the part of the brain that deals with our emotional responses.
QBI has one of the relatively few laboratories around the world currently looking at how the amygdala deals with pain inputs.
Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) scientists have found another important clue to why nerve cells die in neurodegenerative diseases, based on studies of the developing brain.
Neuroscientists at The University of Queensland have just published findings, which add more weight to the “use it or lose it” model for brain function.
QBI’s Dr Elizabeth Coulson said a baby’s brain generates roughly double the number of nerve cells it needs to function; with those cells that receive both chemical and electrical stimuli surviving, and the remaining cells dying. [continue reading…]
Older women are more prone to depression and are more likely to remain depressed than older men, according to a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers in the February Archives of General Psychiatry.
The Yale team also found that women were less likely to die while depressed than older men, indicating that women live longer with depression than men. This factor, along with the higher likelihood of women becoming depressed and remaining depressed, collectively contribute to the higher burden of depression among older women.
Major depression affects about one to two percent of older adults living in the community, according to the authors, but as many as 20 percent experience symptoms of depression. It is unclear why symptoms of depression affect older women more than older men. [continue reading…]
