Neuroscience In The News On March 14

These are articles that I found of interest relating to news about Neuroscience.  In this issue, I have highlighted articles about the individual nerves of a 520 year old fossil, how dopamine helps us avoid unpleasant experiences and how long term stress causes inflammation in our brain.

Please check out the article links below and feel free to comment with other information related to these subjects.  I enjoy learning as much as I can about the brain and passing this information on to everyone else that shares these passions.

This is for the week beginning March 14, 2016.

Please come back each week and hopefully I will have some more highlights.  Feel free to share with me ones that you have found and I may highlight those as well.

Feel free to check out the highlighted articles from March 7, 2016

Individual Nerves Of 520 Year Old Fossil

The nervous system of one 520 million-year-old specimen shows some of the best and most well-preserved nerves ever seen in an animal of that era. The fossil may be the oldest and most detailed example of a central nervous system yet identified, with even individual nerves -- rarely preserved soft tissue -- visible enough to study.

Article Link:

• Exquisitely detailed 520 Million Year Old Fossil
• Reported in the Washington Post on March 1, 2016

Dopamine Helps To Avoid The Unpleasant

We showed in mice that a special circuit in the hippocampus has flexibility in combining with environmental input to shape behavior during an experiment in which the mice learn to avoid an unpleasant experience," Dani said. "This is the first time that we have been able to show, as proof of principle, that the dopamine circuitry is also involved in learning to avoid aversive situations.

Article Link:

• Dopanmine, The Brain's Reward Also Helps Avoid Unpleasant Experience
• Dr. John Dani, University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine

Long Term Stress

Long-term stress can cause memory loss and inflammation in the brain - and the immune system is to blame.

This led to the conclusion that post-stress memory trouble is directly linked to inflammation, and the immune system, rather than brain damage.

Chronic stress causes the brain's immune response to make macrophages
Increase in immune cells lead to inflammation takes four weeks to reduce

Article Link:

• Long-Term Anxiety Causes Inflammation In The Brain
• Ohio State
• Associate Professor Of Neuroscience, Jonathan Godbout