Neuroscience News

Brain training and stimulation improves mental arithmetic ability

Clare S Ryan — 2013-05-17T09:35:47Z

With just a few days of non-harmful brain stimulation and brain training, scientists have improved people’s ability to manipulate numbers for up to six months.

Study finds brain system for emotional self-control

Rosie Waldron — 2013-05-10T09:44:17Z

Different brain areas are activated when we choose for ourselves to suppress an emotion, compared to situations where we are instructed to inhibit an emotion, according a new study from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Ghent University.

TRACK-HD study identifies early predictors of disease progression in Huntington's disease

David R Weston — 2013-05-09T16:02:26Z

An international team led by researchers at the UCL Institute of Neurology has identified a set of tests that could help identify whether - and how - Huntington’s disease (HD) is progressing in groups of people who are not yet showing symptoms.

Children with behavioural problems under-react to painful images

Rosie Waldron — 2013-05-02T09:19:23Z

When children with conduct problems see images of others in pain, key parts of their brains under-react, according to new research published today in Current Biology.

Call for proposals: UCL–French Embassy science and technology workshops

Nicholas W Tyndale — 2013-03-26T16:27:19Z

UCL researchers are invited to submit funding proposals to run collaborative science and/or technology workshops as part of the UCL–French Embassy partnership.

The Great Brain Experiment: crowdsourcing data on how we think and act

David R Weston — 2013-03-12T15:59:34Z

A new mobile app developed by UCL scientists at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging will enable the team to carry out on an unprecedented scale experiments that previously could only be conducted on small groups of volunteers in the lab.

Psychogenic diseases linked to abnormal brain activity

David R Weston — 2013-02-25T15:03:10Z

Individuals with psychogenic disease (i.e. physical illness stemming from emotional or mental stresses) have brains that function differently to people with organic diseases, according to new research from UCL and the University of Cambridge.

Participants sought for neuropsychology research project

Commteam — 2013-02-19T11:21:01Z

Healthy young people (aged 5-16 years) are wanted to take part in a UCL research project: Neuroimaging investigations of language to aid paediatric neurosurgical decision-making.

Disabled at greater risk of violence and subsequent mental ill-health

David R Weston — 2013-02-21T17:05:53Z

People with disabilities are at a greater risk of being the victims of violence and of suffering mental ill health when victimised, according to research published today in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

Human Brain Project wins major EU funding

Clare S Ryan — 2013-01-28T11:25:58Z

The Human Brain Project has been officially selected as one of the European Commission’s two FET Flagship projects. The new project will unite European efforts to address one of the greatest challenges of modern science: understanding the human brain.

Record number of Marie Curie Fellowships for research at UCL

Nicholas W Tyndale — 2012-12-18T12:42:31Z

23 postdoctoral researchers from 14 different countries have been awarded Marie Curie Individual Fellowships. The awards will enable researchers to spend up to two years working with research teams across all schools at UCL.

Eisai pharmaceuticals and UCL form drug discovery alliance

Henry Rummins — 2012-12-12T14:40:26Z

UCL and the Japanese pharmaceutical company Eisai, have entered into a new agreement to establish a major drug discovery and development collaboration today.

UCL Professor Wins Science Blog Prize

Commteam — 2012-12-07T11:39:28Z

Congratulations to Professor David Colquhoun (UCL Pharmacology), who was joint-winner of the 2012 UK Science Blog Prize.

Learning to control brain activity improves visual sensitivity

David R Weston — 2012-12-04T16:52:31Z

Training human volunteers to control their own brain activity in precise areas of the brain can enhance fundamental aspects of their visual sensitivity, according to a new study in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Brain and nervous system damaged by low-level exposure to pesticides

David R Weston — 2012-12-03T15:12:09Z

Scientists have found that low-level exposure to organophosphates (OPs) produces lasting decrements in neurological and cognitive function. Memory and information processing speed are affected to a greater degree than other cognitive functions such as language.

Where does it hurt? Pain map discovered in the human brain

George Wigmore — 2012-11-28T09:48:28Z

Scientists have revealed the minutely detailed pain map of the hand that is contained within our brains, shedding light on how the brain makes us feel discomfort and potentially increasing our understanding of the processes involved in chronic pain.

Web-based therapies help thousands of stroke survivors

David R Weston — 2012-11-26T17:21:34Z

Thousands of stroke survivors with visual problems could improve their sight from the comfort of their own home using two new web-based therapies.

EU awards grant to develop new drug for Duchenne muscular dystrophy

David R Weston — 2012-11-26T14:49:28Z

An international team of scientists led by Professor Francesco Muntoni of the UCL Institute of Child Health has won an EU grant to develop and test a novel drug treatment for boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

UCL Grand Challenges £5,000 grants available

Nicholas W Tyndale — 2012-12-06T14:58:01Z

The UCL Grand Challenges Small Grants Scheme invites applications to fund cross-disciplinary projects in Global Health, Sustainable Cities, Intercultural Interaction and Human Wellbeing.

Drugs could provide new treatment for epilepsy

David R Weston — 2012-11-20T17:24:51Z

New drugs derived from components of a specific diet used by children with severe, drug-resistant epilepsy could offer a new treatment, according to research published today in the journal Neuropharmacology.

Global research team discovers new Alzheimer's risk gene

David R Weston — 2012-11-13T15:48:35Z

Scientists have discovered a rare genetic mutation that increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

Gene editing to model Huntington's disease

David R Weston — 2012-11-09T16:54:50Z

The UCL Institute of Neurology has entered into a research collaboration for gene editing with Horizon Discovery (Horizon), a leading provider of research tools to support the development of personalized medicines. The program of research will focus on the creation of human isogenic disease model cell lines with insertion of Huntington’s disease-causing triplet repeats.

Learning who’s the top dog

David R Weston — 2012-11-08T15:31:37Z

A new study in the journal Neuron reveals how the brain stores information about who’s who in the social pecking order.

Stuttering test could be used to screen all schoolchildren

David R Weston — 2012-10-25T09:34:02Z

A new model developed by UCL researchers to predict the persistence of stuttering could be used to screen all children at school age, according to new research in the Journal of Fluency Disorders.

Loneliness? It’s all a state of mind

George Wigmore — 2012-10-24T15:04:04Z

Researchers from UCL have found that lonely people have less grey matter in a part of the brain associated with decoding eye gaze and other social cues.