Brain and Nervous System News & Features

Claudia Martinez was a college student chasing her dream of becoming a doctor when a neurosurgeon gave her alarming advice: Get brain surgery as soon as possible for chiari malformation.

Comedian Tim Conway, a co-star of The Carol Burnett Show in the 1970s, has died of the brain disorder normal pressure hydrocephalus. He was 85.

The cells of the brain remained viable six hours later, compared with other brains not preserved using the newly developed process, the researchers reported.

The results show that the negative effects of aging on memory aren’t necessarily permanent. "We can bring back the more superior working memory function you had when you were much younger," the lead author said.

The newly identified "extinction neurons" suppress fearful memories when they're activated, or allow fearful memories to return unexpectedly when not activated, according to researchers.

People who were exposed to things that call coffee to mind perceived time as shorter and thought in more concrete, precise terms, researchers said.

Researchers wanted to see if they could predict someone’s age based on the way that their brain used fuel, or metabolism. On average, women appeared to be younger than men in terms of brain age.

"Our ultimate goal is to develop technologies that can decode the internal voice of a patient who is unable to speak," said the study’s author.

Brain scans show that some adolescents who've tried marijuana just a couple of times exhibit significant increases in the volume of their gray matter.

Don't take your brain's powers for granted. Here's what you can do -- throughout your life -- to stay sharp.

A 32-year-old Tennessee man has been diagnosed with the rare human form of mad cow disease, also known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).

3 previously paralyzed people can now walk with minimal assistance, Swiss researchers report. They need only the aid of crutches or a walker, thanks to incredibly precise electrical stimulation of their spinal cord combined with intensive rehabilitation, the scientists say.

A small new study suggests that repeated impacts to the head that were not as severe as concussions did not result in brain damage to young athletes. The researchers say they need to follow the kids longer.

A year after a concussion, as many as 31 percent of kids ages 4 to 15 still had symptoms that included inattention or fatigue, researchers report.

Infection typically occurs when contaminated water enters the body through the nose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Moving the kickoff line forward by just five yards -- from the 35- to the 40-yard line -- reduced the average annual concussion rate in Ivy League football by more than 68 percent, a new study says.

Researchers are cautiously optimistic after paralyzed patients took steps on their own in two studies of spinal cord stimulators.

Brain scans on 16 of the participants indicated that short bouts of mild exercise appeared to trigger an instant uptick in communication between the hippocampal dentate gyrus and the cortical brain regions. Both brain areas are key to processing memory.

The electrical stimulator he has is one designed for nerve pain. The research team received permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use it in this new way.

More than 80 percent of the 250,000 Americans with a spinal cord injury lose the ability to urinate at will after their injury and rely on a catheter to drain urine. But long-term catheter use is inconvenient and can pose infection risks.

Radiation treatment for medulloblastoma, the most common type of childhood brain tumor, can leave young survivors struggling to remember recent events, a small study has found. But survivors' ability to recall things that happened before radiation wasn't affected.

A person’s risk of suicide more than triples in the first six months after a traumatic brain injury (TBI), and it stays significantly higher over the long term, a new Danish study suggests.

In the study, the researchers analyzed the brain tissue of 15 patients who had survived a year or more after a  traumatic brain injury (TBI) and compared that tissue with brain tissue from 15 healthy controls. They found the TBI patients had higher levels of abnormal tau proteins.

The boy's intellect, visual perception and object recognition skills have all remained age-appropriate, even with a large portion of his brain gone.

The condition is common in elderly people -- affecting about 30 percent of those aged 70 and older, based on a recent study. It is much less prevalent in younger adults, but when it happens there is cause for concern.