Neurosciences

If you want to know whether a standard-of-care medication will work to treat your depression, flip a coin. More than half of all patients treated for major depressive disorder (MDD), the clinical name for what is typically thought of as depression, don’t respond to the first treatment option prescribed to them. Even those who do … Read More

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, M.D., recently outlined a national framework to combat the loneliness epidemic in the United States. He noted four important facts about loneliness and social isolation: Being lonely is as bad for your long-term health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day! People who are lonely are 26% more likely to die … Read More

Want to look 19 years younger than you are? Sorry. This isn’t a story about that. But you can make your brain appear nearly two decades more youthful simply by following a Mediterranean diet. A new study published in the journal Neurology, looked at the brains of 581 people who donated their bodies to science. … Read More

Parkinson’s disease is a neurological disorder that causes slowness of movement, tremors, stiffness, and difficulty with balance and coordination. Depictions of the disease in popular culture are grim, and nobody wants to be told they have a disorder that’s associated with the loss of motor skills and possible cognitive decline. Caused by a lack of … Read More

Exercise is key for maintaining physical and mental health. Studies show that it positively affects health even if started later in life. Some suggest that exercise improves cognition by inducing long-term changes in the hippocampus, such as increased volume and an increased rate of neuronal formation. How exactly exercise changes the hippocampus, however, remains unknown. Understanding more about how … Read More

Atrial fibrillation (Afib) is a heart condition characterized by irregular beating in the upper chambers of the heart that reduces blood flow to the lower chambers. Afib can cause discomfort in patients and increase stroke risk by five times. In 2019, AFib was mentioned on 183,321 death certificates in the United States. Estimates state that the condition will affect 12.1 … Read More

Just look at that gorgeous person in the mirror! The one with the infectious smile and inspiring moxie. Don’t see that person? Well, that’s OK. Sometimes it takes a little work to recognize them. “Self-love is not always an easy thing to achieve but fostering a positive self-image can improve your physical and psychological well-being,” … Read More

This Sunday it’s time for the start of daylight saving time, so clocks will spring forward an hour. And if you get a case of the Mondays following the start of daylight saving time, there may actually be medical evidence for it. Not only are we losing an hour of sleep by springing forward, but … Read More

You wouldn’t hike barefoot (we hope). So why would you bike, skate, play football or ride a horse without a helmet? The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about 1.5 million Americans survive a traumatic brain injury every year, and 176 people a day die from TBI. “There is no such thing as … Read More

A futuristic vaccine to prevent Alzheimer’s disease is in the works right here in Southern California. And it won’t even involve needles. Researcher Michael Agadjanyan at the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Huntington Beach, along with David Sultzer from UCI MIND and Lon Schneider from USC, received a $12 million grant from the National Institute … Read More