Category Archives: Health technologies

Our ability to understand the syntax of complex sentences is one of the most difficult language skills to acquire. In 2019, research had revealed a correlation between being particularly proficient in tool use and having good syntactic ability. A new study has now shown that both skills rely on the same neurological resources, which are located in the same brain region. Furthermore, motor training using a tool improves our ability to understand the syntax of complex sentences and – vice-versa – syntactic training improves our proficiency in using tools.

For the past 30 years, it was thought that the brain – responsible for motor control – worked to continuously compensate for the effects of gravity. In an initial study in 2016, the researchers had suggested that our brains use gravity to minimize the effort our muscles have to make. Those results were recently confirmed by new experiments conducted in collaboration with New York University on non-human primate models and humans.

Huntington’s disease is a hereditary disorder that causes degeneration of the neurons involved in cognitive, motor and psychiatric functions. While existing treatments address the symptoms and relieve certain aspects of the disease, they cannot alter its course.

Les personnes atteintes de neuropathie optique héréditaire de Leber perdent la vue dès l’adolescence avec un déclin soudain au niveau des deux yeux, jusqu’à la cécité. Alors que les options de traitements étaient jusqu’ici très limitées, des chercheurs à l’Institut de la Vision ont conçu une approche de thérapie génique pour ces patients.