New research at The Neuro is studying a targeted brain training program and a potential new treatment for early Alzheimer’s.
For more information on these two studies, contact the neurocognitive team at the Clinical Research Unit at The Neuro at info-cru.neuro [at] mcgill.ca or visit cru.mcgill.ca/ad_en.
The smallest constituents of muscles, myosin and actin, may be targeted to contribute to more effective treatment methods against heart and muscle diseases, say a group of international researchers at McGill University and Linnaeus University.
Depression can be associated with behaviours such as social avoidance, that is, the refusal to interact with others for fear of being judged or criticized. Physicians and other mental health workers have noted that patients with depressive disorders exhibit cognitive symptoms, especially with regard to memory.
Scientists have known for some time that a memory is stored in the brain through changes in the strength of particular synapses, the structures that pass signals between neurons. However, how the change in strength persisted remained a mystery. Solving this mystery has important implications for remedying neurological and psychological disorders.
Scientists have known for some time that a memory is stored in the brain through changes in the strength of particular synapses, the structures that pass signals between neurons. However, how the change in strength persisted remained a mystery. Solving this mystery has important implications for remedying neurological and psychological disorders.
The ability to remember sounds, and manipulate them in our minds, is incredibly important to our daily lives — without it we would not be able to understand a sentence, or do simple arithmetic. New research is shedding light on how sound memory works in the brain, and is even demonstrating a means to improve it.
By Bruno Geoffroy
For decades, scientists have fiercely debated whether rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – the phase where dreams appear – is directly involved in memory formation.
Now, a study published in Science by researchers at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute (McGill University) and the University of Bern provides evidence that REM sleep does, indeed, play this role – at least in mice.
Why is it that some people have richly detailed recollection of past experiences (episodic memory), while others tend to remember just the facts without details (semantic memory)?
A research team from the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Health Sciences has shown for the first time that these different ways of experiencing the past are associated with distinct brain connectivity patterns that may be inherent to the individual and suggest a life-long “memory trait”.
The study was recently published online in the journal Cortex.
McGill researchers have discovered, for the first time, the importance of a key epigenetic regulator in the development of the hippocampus, a part of the brain associated with learning, memory and neural stem cells. Epigenetic regulators change the way specific genes function without altering their DNA sequence. By working with mutant mice as models, the research team, led by Prof. Xiang-Jiao Yang, of McGill’s Goodman Cancer Center & Department of Medicine, McGill University Health Center, was able to link the importance of a specific epigenetic regulator known as BRPF1 to the healthy development of a region in the hippocampus called the dentate gyrus.
A study just published in the prestigious Nature Neuroscience journal by, Sylvain Williams, PhD, and his team, of the Research Centre of the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and McGill University, opens the door towards better understanding of the neural circuitry and dynamic mechanisms controlling memory as well of the role of an essential element of the hippocampus – a sub-region named the subiculum.
Dr. Brenda Milner, an active researcher at the age of 95 at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital - The Neuro, McGill University, is a recipient of The 2014 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience.
Research from McGill University reveals that the brain’s motor network helps people remember and recognize music that they have performed in the past better than music they have only heard. A recent study by Prof. Caroline Palmer of the Department of Psychology sheds new light on how humans perceive and produce sounds, and may pave the way for investigations into whether motor learning could improve or protect memory or cognitive impairment in aging populations. The research is published in the journal Cerebral Cortex.
