The New York Times article noted “For decades, scientists have embarked on the long journey toward a medical breakthrough by first experimenting on laboratory animals. Mice or rats, pigs or dogs, they were usually male: Researchers avoided using female animals for fear that their reproductive cycles and hormone fluctuations would confound the results of delicately calibrated experiments.”
A new device that reduces and redirects blood flow away from a bulge in the wall of a blood vessel in the brain known as an aneurysm is being tested in patients at Roosevelt Hospital in a clinical trial that could bring new hope to patients with hard-to-treat aneurysms.
Research in Mark Baxter’s laboratory, the Glickenhaus Laboratory of Neuropsychology, focuses on the neural systems underlying memory and other higher cognitive functions, and understanding how disturbances in these systems impair cognitive function in brain disorders. Our general approach is to study the effects on behavior of specific manipulations of neural circuits in animal models, to gain insight into how similar disruptions in human disease may be responsible for cognitive impairment.
A growing body of evidence suggests that the use of marijuana, or cannabis, can negatively impact the developing brains of approximately one in four adolescents, according to researchers at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and the University of Montreal.
The study, published in the August 16, 2013, issue of Neuropharmacology, highlights that the younger the user of cannabis, the more susceptible he or she is to delinquency, lower educational attainment, difficulty in conforming to an adult role, and mental health issues.
For most of us the word brain is synonymous with nerve cells or neurons. All of us are well familiar with the notion of the brain as a mega-computer where billions of neurons govern our life, from simplest tasks to the rare moments of discoveries. It may appear surprising to hear that the function of brain and neurons would not be possible without cells that do not participate in our thinking directly. Instead, these cells, that are called microglia, function as watchdogs of neuron’s functionality and health and remove neurons that stop acting properly.