A team coordinated by Antoine Triller, Inserm Research Director, Director of the Institute of Biology at the École Normale Supérieure, and Ronald Melki, CNRS Research Director (Paris-Saclay Institute of Neuroscience), has just identified the target of an alpha-synuclein protein, which is pathogenic in Parkinson’s disease. This target is an ATP-dependent sodium/potassium pump. It may potentially […]
Such is the brain’s complexity that it is a particularly difficult organ to examine despite technological progress in this area. While electroencephalograms (EEG) and optical techniques can be used to record neurone activity in mobile animals, it is only possible to examine certain areas of the brain due to the size of the electrodes and […]
“Google” is currently the most widely used search engine in the world. Google Trends is a tool that performs a statistical analysis of words entered in the search engine. During the influenza H1N1 epidemic in 2009, a strong spike in searches for the word “influenza” was observed in regions where the epidemic had begun. Thus […]
The loss of cones, those photoreceptors located in the retina, is the major cause of disability for people with inherited retinal degeneration. Preventing their loss would prevent more than a million people worldwide from becoming blind. Retinitis pigmentosa, a type of inherited retinal degeneration, is generally diagnosed in young adults. This condition results from progressive […]
Withdrawal, experienced by people when they stop using addictive drugs such as cocaine, induces states of anxiety and depression. This process makes the individual want to take the substance again, and thus plays a role in the establishment of drug addiction. The depressive syndrome thus represents an additional obstacle to be overcome when addicts are […]
Some activities, such as walking or breathing, are unusual in that they can be carried out voluntarily or automatically. For example, every one of us can decide to take a deep breath and keep our lungs inflated for a few seconds, and then exhale slowly. However, most of the time we breathe without thinking about […]
Precisely how do we distinguish the texture of objects by touch? This is what has just been decoded by a study led by Clément Léna, research director at Inserm and Daniela Popa, a researcher at Inserm in Mixed Research Unit 1024: Biology Institute, École Normale Supérieure (Inserm, ENS, CNRS) and published in the journal Nature […]
Patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease complain of severe sleep disturbances such as inability to fall asleep or, in contrast, periods of drowsiness during the day. While dopaminergic treatment dramatically improves the disease’s motor symptoms (calming tremors, for instance), its effects on sleep continued to be challenged, suggesting that the alteration of other (non-dopaminergic) neurons might […]
An international team involving researchers from INSERM, CEA and APHP in France have successfully modelled the risk factors for alcohol abuse during adolescence. The results of the study were published on Nature Magazine’s website on 2 July. In France, alcohol consumption most often begins in adolescence. Today, 80% of 17-year-olds admit to having consumed alcohol […]
When we perform an action for a specific purpose, or in response to a stimulus, it is imperative that we be able to correct it while carrying it out if it turns out to be inappropriate. Such an ability affects the quality of our daily lives, both in our immediate motor activity (not “running” a […]