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A system capable of translating brain activity into synthesised speech by decoding the movements of muscles involved in vocalisation has shown its potential in a proof-of-concept experiment conducted by researchers at the University of California San Francisco.

A significant minority of major depressive disorder patients don’t respond to currently available antidepressant medication. A newly approved treatment, based on the "club drug" ketamine, could change that. In a session at the British Neuroscience Association’s Festival of Neuroscience 2019, the potential mechanisms of ketamine’s antidepressant action were put under examination.

When developing diagnostic tests or evaluating results, it is important to understand how reliable those tests and therefore the results you are obtaining are. By using samples of known disease status, values such as sensitivity and specificity can be calculated that allow you to evaluate just that.

Running in parallel with advances in 3D cell culture is the growing use of human cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. Researchers are interested in testing drugs in the most physiologically relevant models possible, so it was only a matter of time before these two approaches converged – providing optimized systems for disease modeling and drug toxicity testing.

Once viewed as competing to be the best way of doing in vivo neuroscience, optical and electrical recording techniques are now being embraced as complementary methods in the quest to understand the brain.

A new study from Boston University researchers suggests that non-invasive stimulation using weak electrical current can reverse the effects of aging on working memory, at least temporarily, by synchronizing different rhythms of brainwave.

Far from being a process that ends in maturity, a new study has found that the adult human brain is capable of producing new neurons until the tenth decade of life. This ability is substantially impaired in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), which researchers say could help predict the onset of AD.

Exercise might not be fun, but it’s good for your body. Over the years, science has well established that exercise can cut your risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and some types of cancer. But the ways that exercise affects the brain are still under investigation, although new research suggests it may be essential for the growth of new neurons.

Dr Julia Kinder is a Down syndrome expert, national speaker, author, career consultant, fitness guru, and family practice physician. March 21st is World Down Syndrome Day, and we caught up with Julia to ask her how scientists, parents, and doctors can work together to benefit the lives of people with Down syndrome.

Working together with scientists at the University of Campinas in Brazil, and the University of Surrey, Birmingham researchers found that the brains of night owls have lower levels of connectivity in many brain regions which are implicated in the maintenance of consciousness.