Brain Cells

Mark Mattson and Valter Longo eat only once a day during the week, going without any food 23 hours at a time. Wolfram Tetzlaff sits down to a meal only every other weekday. And James R. Mitchell has tried skipping food entirely for several days at a time, though he much prefers juice fasts. Their wacky eating is not about weight loss. The four are studying the possible benefits of short-term fasting, and figure they should experience it themselves. Their hypothesis: Since three square meals a day and regular snacks were not always available to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, the human body may have...

Using only her thoughts, a Massachusetts woman paralyzed for 15 years directed a robotic arm to pick up a bottle of coffee and bring it to her lips, researchers report in the latest advance in harnessing brain waves to help disabled people. In the past year, similar stories have included a quadriplegic man in Pennsylvania who made a robotic arm give a high-five and stroke his girlfriend's hand, and a partially paralyzed man who remotely controlled a small robot that scooted around in a Swiss lab. It's startling stuff.

PHOENIX - It sounds like science fiction but it's true: An amoeba living in lakes enters the body through the nose and attacks the brain where it feeds until you die. Even though encounters with the microscopic bug are extraordinarily rare, it has killed six boys and young men this year. The spike in cases has health officials concerned, and they are predicting more cases in the future. "This is definitely something we need to track," said Michael Beach, a specialist in recreational waterborne illnesses for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A convicted sex offender who faces nearly two dozen charges in Utah but has remained free because of a legal loophole likely will never face trial or be confined to an institution, a prosecutor said Tuesday. "He falls into this gray area," Utah County prosecutor Craig Johnson said. "For criminal prosecution, we are in an indefinite holding pattern. The proceedings are stayed, perhaps forever. " Lonnie Johnson, 39, was charged in 2007 with 21 sodomy and sex assault counts after police said he had inappropriate contact with his stepdaughter and her cousin.

What if autism could be reversed with a pill? A growing body of research in mice and a handful of people is finding that autism is not a degenerative disease like Alzheimer's, but a changeable condition, like, say, epilepsy that can potentially be controlled. A study out Wednesday in the journal Neuron found that medication could correct the health and behavior problems of mice with a genetic condition known to lead to autism in people. The drug, which acts on the synapses, or gaps, between brain cells, reversed a vast range of symptoms often associated with autism -- including lack of...

Imagine if, with the flip of a switch, memories stored in the brain could flick on and off: an argument with your mother, for example, or the smell of a particular summer day. Scientists at MIT reported Thursday that they have accomplished something like that, activating brain cells and conjuring a remembrance of time past with a beam of light. The feat is basic research in mice and far from even being tried in a person, but it is a powerful demonstration that memories reside in specific cells in the brain and that they can be turned on. The work, published in the journal...

Using only her thoughts, a Massachusetts woman paralyzed for 15 years directed a robotic arm to pick up a bottle of coffee and bring it to her lips, researchers report in the latest advance in harnessing brain waves to help disabled people. In the past year, similar stories have included a quadriplegic man in Pennsylvania who made a robotic arm give a high-five and stroke his girlfriend's hand, and a partially paralyzed man who remotely controlled a small robot that scooted around in a Swiss lab. It's startling stuff.

Q. What's a concussion and how do you know if you've had one? A. A concussion is a brain injury that occurs when the brain accelerates in a spinning motion because of a blow to the head or body, or a fall, jolt, or other force. The injury causes a temporary impairment of the brain's normal function. Although many people think of a concussion as getting "knocked out," less than 10 percent of concussions actually cause a loss of consciousness. William Meehan, director of the Sports Concussion Clinic at Children's Hospital, says that the most common...

WASHINGTON — Parkinson’s disease may stem from an energy crisis in the brain, years before symptoms appear. If the research proves true, it could suggest a new approach for Parkinson’s: Giving a boost to a key power switch inside brain cells in hopes of slowing the disease’s inevitable march, instead of just treating symptoms. “It could be a root cause’’ of Parkinson’s, said Dr. Clemens Scherzer of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard University.

NEW YORK - Monkeys taught to play a computer game were able to overcome wrist paralysis with an experimental device that could lead to new treatments for patients with stroke and spinal cord injury. The monkeys regained use of paralyzed muscles by learning to control the activity of a single brain cell. The result is "an important step forward," said Dawn Taylor of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, who studies the concept of using brain signals to overcome paralysis.

What if autism could be reversed with a pill? A growing body of research in mice and a handful of people is finding that autism is not a degenerative disease like Alzheimer's, but a changeable condition, like, say, epilepsy that can potentially be controlled. A study out Wednesday in the journal Neuron found that medication could correct the health and behavior problems of mice with a genetic condition known to lead to autism in people. The drug, which acts on the synapses, or gaps, between brain cells, reversed a vast range of symptoms often associated with autism -- including lack of...

Imagine if, with the flip of a switch, memories stored in the brain could flick on and off: an argument with your mother, for example, or the smell of a particular summer day. Scientists at MIT reported Thursday that they have accomplished something like that, activating brain cells and conjuring a remembrance of time past with a beam of light. The feat is basic research in mice and far from even being tried in a person, but it is a powerful demonstration that memories reside in specific cells in the brain and that they can be turned on. The work, published in the journal...

Mark Mattson and Valter Longo eat only once a day during the week, going without any food 23 hours at a time. Wolfram Tetzlaff sits down to a meal only every other weekday. And James R. Mitchell has tried skipping food entirely for several days at a time, though he much prefers juice fasts. Their wacky eating is not about weight loss. The four are studying the possible benefits of short-term fasting, and figure they should experience it themselves. Their hypothesis: Since three square meals a day and regular snacks were not always available to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, the...

The soldier on the fringes of an explosion. The survivor of a car wreck. The football player who took yet another skull-rattling hit. Too often, only time can tell when a traumatic brain injury will leave lasting harm — there's no good way to diagnose the damage. Now scientists are testing a tool that lights up the breaks these injuries leave deep in the brain's wiring, much like X-rays show broken bones. Research is just beginning in civilian and military patients to learn if this new kind of MRI-based test really could pinpoint their injuries and one day guide...

Q. What's a concussion and how do you know if you've had one? A. A concussion is a brain injury that occurs when the brain accelerates in a spinning motion because of a blow to the head or body, or a fall, jolt, or other force. The injury causes a temporary impairment of the brain's normal function. Although many people think of a concussion as getting "knocked out," less than 10 percent of concussions actually cause a loss of consciousness. William Meehan, director of the Sports Concussion Clinic at Children's Hospital, says that the most common...

Chennel King, a nurse from Norwalk, Conn., went Christmas shopping the other day with a new holiday companion: a budget. Despite a tough economic situation — her husband was laid off almost a year ago — King didn't want to disappoint her five children. So she still went to a mall in suburban New Jersey, but with a limit of $200 per child. Plenty of Americans are having to hold back this year as the lure of flashy ads, tempting bargains and family expectations clashes with the realities of the economy.

WASHINGTON - An experiment is underway to develop a pill to ease a type of mental retardation. The work aims at a genetic disorder and might unravel some of the mysteries of autism along the way. The drug would treat Fragile X syndrome, the most common inherited form of intellectual impairment. The syndrome is estimated to affect almost 100,000 Americans and is also the most common cause of autism yet identified. A handful of drug makers working on the treatment were spurred by brain research that is making specialists rethink how they approach developmental disorders.

WASHINGTON -- A provocative new theory suggests that one root cause of Alzheimer's disease is linked to diabetes -- a theory about to be tested in thousands of Alzheimer's patients given the diabetes drug Avandia in hopes of slowing brain decay. It's a scary scenario: Alzheimer's already is expected to skyrocket as the population grays, rising from 4.5 million sufferers today to a staggering 14 million by 2050. If the new theory is correct, the nation's current obesity-fueled epidemic of Type 2 diabetes could worsen that toll.

NEW YORK — Representative Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona spoke briefly by telephone yesterday with astronaut Scott Kelly, her brother-in-law, who is aboard the international space station, the latest development in her recovery from being shot in the head last month. Details about her recovery have been thin. But members of her staff say she recently began speaking for the first time since the Jan. 8 attack by a gunman in Tucson. Brain injury patients who regain speech typically begin to do so about four to six weeks after the injury, specialists said.