How will the traumatic events of the terrorist attacks of 13 November 2015 evolve in people’s memories, whether collective or individual? How does individual memory feed on collective memory and vice versa? Is it possible, by studying cerebral markers, to predict which victims will develop post-traumatic stress disorder and which will recover more quickly?
A study from Inserm, Paris Descartes University and Sainte Anne Hospital suggests that anorexia nervosa might not be explained by fear of gaining weight, but by the pleasure of losing it... and that the phenomenon might be genetically influenced. Published in Translational Psychiatry, this study, directed by Prof. Gorwood, head of the Clinic for Mental and Brain Diseases, challenges the notion of fear of weight gain in anorexia patients.
Doctors should rethink how they treat patients who have suffered the deadliest form of stroke, a clinical trial suggests.The study recommends a change in guidelines for treating any patients who have had a stroke caused by bleeding into the brain – known as intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) – while regularly taking aspirin.
For the first time, scientists in the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Biology (CNRS/INSERM/Collège de France) have produced direct evidence that the long-term storage of memories involves a dialogue between two brain structures, the hippocampus and cortex, during sleep; by enhancing this dialogue, they succeeded in triggering the consolidation of memories that would otherwise have been forgotten. This work is published in Nature Neuroscience on 16 May 2016.
Individual small RNAs are responsible for controlling the expression of gonadoliberin or GnRH (Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone), a neurohormone that controls sexual maturation, the appearance of puberty, and fertility in adults. This has just been demonstrated by the “Development and Plasticity of the Neuroendocrine Brain” team led by Vincent Prévot, Inserm Research Director (Jean-Pierre Aubert Research Centre, Lille). The involvement of microRNAs, transcribed from DNA, occurs around birth, and marks a...
A research team from Paris Descartes University, Inserm and Sainte-Anne Hospital, led by Professor Marie-Odile Krebs, has demonstrated that epigenetic modifications accompany the onset of a psychotic episode in a cohort of young at-risk people aged 15–25 years. These modifications compromise systems for responding to oxidative stress and inflammation. Through this new work, the researchers have shed new light on this disease, for which the main biological explanation, before...
Treatments available for glioblastoma—malignant brain tumors—have little effect. An international collaboration[1] led by the Laboratoire Neurosciences Paris-Seine (CNRS/ INSERM/UPMC)[2] tested active ingredients from existing medications and eventually identified one compound of interest, prazosin, on these tumors. Not only did it seem to be effective in this type of cancer, but it also acted on a signaling pathway that is common with other cancers. These promising findings are available online...
A team coordinated by Prof. Emmanuel Flamand-Roze from Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, AP-HP, has tested, at the clinical investigation centre of the Brain and Spine Institute (Inserm /CNRS/UPMC) , the efficacy of zonisamide, a drug currently used to treat certain forms of epilepsy, in 23 patients with a rare disease of the nervous system, myoclonus-dystonia. The promising results from this trial, which was funded by AP-HP (the Paris Public Hospitals), are...
A study financed by the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris[1] has been conducted under the direction of Monica Zilbovicius[2] in the Inserm Unit 1000 on a particular region of the brain, the superior temporal sulcus (STS), influencing perception and behaviour of the gaze. This work has shown that transcranial magnetic stimulation (non-invasive and painless) of the STS can selectively and transiently inhibit the subject's gaze into the eyes of the...
A first case of acute myelitis following infection with Zika virus has been reported for the first time by a research team from Inserm Unit 1127 Brain and Spinal Cord Institute (Inserm/CNRS/Sorbonne University) and neurologists at Pointe-à-Pitre University Hospital and the University of the Antilles. A young patient in the acute phase of an infection by Zika virus presented motor deficiency in the 4 limbs, associated with very...