Brain and Nervous System News & Features

A server's good deed went viral after another customer shared a heartwarming photo.

A man paralyzed from the shoulders down has regained some use of his hand and arm after a pioneering procedure reconnected his brain with his muscles.

Some things -- size, gray matter locations, wiring patterns -- could explain why the sexes seem different. But do they really matter?

Tapping into a nerve in the neck is transforming medicine. WebMD tells you how stimulating the vagus is helping treat epilepsy, obesity, and maybe even asthma, PTSD, and more.

There's welcome news for chocolate lovers: Eating chocolate regularly appears to improve mental skills.

Lumos Labs, the company behind the popular brain-training web site Lumosity, has agreed to refund subscribers $2 million after making deceptive and “unfounded” claims about its products, the Federal Trade Commission has announced. WebMD has the details.

You already use your brain every day, but to really keep it healthy for years to come, you've got to go above and beyond your normal routine. WebMD shares the best ways to protect yourself from memory loss and mental decline as you age.

Zackery Lystedt doesn’t want others to end up like him. At 22, he walks with a looping gait, leaning heavily on a metal cane. WebMD shares this former youth football player's story.

Although fetal tissue research has made headlines in recent months, the controversy about it is nothing new. WebMD has the details

Squatting for a long time while wearing skinny jeans can damage muscles and nerves in the legs, according to a new study.

WebMD reports that scientists found butane, heavy metals, and fungus in some samples of Colorado's recreational marijuana.

Are goods labeled “BPA-free” healthier? Maybe not. Two new studies found that some chemicals replacing BPA in plastics, food packaging, and other products might also disrupt hormones, altering brain function and fertility.

Some of the lessons being learned in the Rocky Mountains could be instrumental in other states, as public health officials figure out how to regulate a drug that has been illegal for 8 decades.

A group of doctors and scientists say a paralyzed man has been able to walk again after surgery in which nerve cells from his nasal cavity were transplanted into his spinal cord.

Comedian Joan Rivers died Sept. 4, a week after her heart and breathing stopped during a procedure at a New York endoscopy center.

John Jerome says he knows the ice bucket challenge is a fad. But for now, the disease that’s killing him, the one that has no known cause or cure, has been brought to the country’s attention like never before.

An in-depth investigation has concluded that people who smoke marijuana are much more likely to have paranoia than people who don't use the drug.

What does it mean when doctors say a person is brain-dead?

The FDA is strengthening its warning that a popular class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones may cause sudden, serious, and potentially permanent nerve damage known as peripheral neuropathy.

Medical experts say Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is extremely lucky that her medical team found the blood clot they are now treating with blood thinners.

A new study of more than 100,000 participants suggests that there may be at least three distinct components of intelligence. So you could not give a single, unified score for all of them.

The sound of nails on a chalkboard or screams may send shivers down the spine for a good reason.

The crisis surrounding the multistate outbreak of fungal meningitis linked to tainted steroid injections deepened Thursday, as federal officials reported that more people had received the shots than previously believed. Doctors also reported the first case of a joint infection outside the spine.

How did a single pharmacy in Massachusetts put 13,000 people in 23 states at risk of deadly fungal meningitis?

In what scientists call the biggest breakthrough in genetics since the unraveling of the human genome, a massive research effort now shows how the genome works.