Because of their cyclical rhythm and similar durations, the menstrual and lunar cycles have often been assumed to be linked, despite no solid evidence so far to support this. To gain a better understanding of the origin of the rhythmic regularity of the menstrual cycle, an international research team involving Inserm, CNRS and Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 compared a large amount of data on cycles collected from studies...
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Charcot’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease that results in progressive paralysis and subsequent death. Diagnosing it is difficult and no curative treatment exists to date, making these challenges for research. In a new study, Inserm researcher Caroline Rouaux and her team at the Strasbourg Biomedical Research Centre (Inserm-Université de Strasbourg), in collaboration with researchers from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, CNRS and Sorbonne Université, show...
A team from Inserm and Université de Caen Normandie, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Jena (Germany) and University College London (UK), has studied the potential benefits of meditation and health education interventions in people who feel that their memory is in decline. This research was performed as part of the European H2020 Silver Santé Study programme coordinated by Inserm . It shows that learning mindfulness meditation...
Why does some music make us want to dance more than others? This is the question that a research team from Inserm and Aix-Marseille Université tried to answer by studying the desire to dance (also called the 'groove') and the brain activity of 30 participants who were asked to listen to music. Their findings show that the groove sensation is highest for a moderately complex rhythm and that the desire...
One in three French adults is thought to have a sleep disorder. While the prevalence of these disorders increases with age, the biological mechanisms at play are relatively unknown, leaving scientists in doubt as to their origin. In a new study, Inserm researcher Claude Gronfier and his team at the Lyon Neuroscience Research Center (Inserm/CNRS/Université Claude-Bernard Lyon 1) hypothesised that their onset during ageing was linked to a desynchronisation...
Contrary to all expectations, GluD1 – a receptor considered to be excitatory – has been shown in the brain to play a major role in controlling neuron inhibition. Given that alterations in the GluD1 gene are encountered in a certain number of neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, such as autism (ASD) and schizophrenia, this discovery opens up new therapeutic avenues to combat the imbalances between excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmissions associated...
Improving our knowledge of the development of the complex structures of the human head to shed new light on the congenital abnormalities that cause malformations: this is the challenge that a team of researchers from Inserm, CNRS and Sorbonne Université at the Vision Institute, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and Hospices civils de Lyon is well on its way to fulfilling. Thanks to an innovative technique in which the...
Neuroscientists from Inserm, CNRS and Université de Bordeaux in France, along with Swiss researchers and neurosurgeons (EPFL/CHUV/UNIL), have designed and tested a "neuroprosthesis" to correct the gait disorders associated with Parkinson's disease. In a study published in Nature Medicine, the scientists describe the development process of the device they used to treat a Parkinson’s disease patient for the first time, enabling him to walk fluidly, confidently, and without falling.
When we sleep we are not completely cut off from our environment: we are still able to hear and understand words. These observations, resulting from the close collaboration between researchers from Inserm, CNRS, Sorbonne Université and AP-HP at the Brain Institute and the Department of Sleep Disorders at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, call into question the very definition of sleep and the clinical criteria that distinguish between its different...
The brain impacts of infection with SARS-CoV-2, responsible for COVID-19, are increasingly well documented in the scientific literature. Researchers from Inserm, Lille University Hospital and Université de Lille, at the Lille Neuroscience & Cognition unit, in collaboration with their colleagues at Imperial College London, focused more specifically on the impacts of this infection on a population of neurons known for regulating sexual reproduction via the hypothalamus (the neurons that...