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...
Restaurer la vision grâce à une thérapie associant génétique et ultrasons ? Tel est l’objectif poursuivi par une équipe internationale dirigée par les directeurs de recherche Inserm Mickael Tanter et Serge Picaud, associant respectivement le laboratoire Physique pour la médecine (ESPCI Paris/PSL Université/Inserm/CNRS) et l’Institut de la vision (Sorbonne Université/Inserm/CNRS) à Paris en partenariat avec l’Institut d'ophtalmologie moléculaire et clinique de Bâle. Dans une nouvelle étude, ils ont apporté la...
Multiple sclerosis (MS), an autoimmune disease for which there is no cure as yet, affects three women for every one man. Faced with this observation, scientists are studying the role of the sex hormones in order to better understand the differences between men and women in relation to the disease and its progression.
Despite the fact that chlordecone has not been used as an insecticide in the French West Indies for 30 years now, its persistence in the environment continues to contaminate the populations.
For the first time, a team led by Inserm researchers Jean-Luc Martinot and Éric Artiges at the Developmental Trajectories and Psychiatry laboratory (Inserm/ENS Paris-Saclay) and the Borelli Center (CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay) looked for factors that would predict the onset of anxiety disorders in adolescence. They monitored the mental health of a group of adolescents aged 14 to 23. Thanks to artificial intelligence, they have identified the warning signs most...
