Aalok Mehta

Disease-Causing Proteins

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Understanding the cause of “mad cow” disease and related conditions resulted in a fundamental shift in what scientists understood about proteins in brain disease.

Stroke Prevention and Treatment

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Stroke is a leading cause of disability around the world and the fourth leading cause of death. But what most people do not know is the same habits that help protect the heart may safeguard the brain.

About Face: How the Brain Recognizes and Processes Faces

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Chuck Close, the keynote speaker at Neuroscience 2012, paints portraits of the human face, yet he has face blindness. Learn about the specialized circuits that distinguish faces.

Language and the Brain: What Makes Us Human

Source: Society for Neuroscience

No other species on the planet uses language or writing. Now neuroscientists are taking advantage of new ways to peer into the brain to provide remarkable insights into this unique human ability.

Attention: An Eye Opening Story

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Each minute, more than 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. With digital technology so commonplace, it is easy to drown in information. For researchers studying visual attention, however, this is an old story.

Graph of the costs for care of people with Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia Tomorrow

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Although scientists have made great strides in understanding Alzheimer’s disease, no treatment has been approved for halting or reversing the condition. Meanwhile, the need is becoming more urgent, as populations in the world’s developed nations grow older and live longer.

Image of a brain with Alzhimer's disease

Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia Today

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Although Alzheimer’s disease rarely strikes before age 65, many people have a dreaded fear of the disease. They have good reason.

An illustration of brain areas affected by stress

Depression: Making a Difference Today

Source: Society for Neuroscience

In depression, one of the most common and costly brain diseases, people feel intensely and persistently sad, experience no pleasure, and lose interest in the things around them.

Protein Folding: A New Twist on Brain Disease

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, and Parkinson’s are common brain diseases — each causes a unique form of progressive brain cell death. But they may not be so different after all.

Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome: Making a Difference Tomorrow

Source: Society for Neuroscience

With continued funding, researchers hope to find ways to diagnosis PTSD before symptoms appear, better methods for reducing vulnerability to PTSD, and superior therapy options for resistant cases.

Photo of the longfin squid Loligo pealeii

Electrifying the Brain

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Research on squid reveals how nerve cells communicate. By studying enormous nerve cells in the squid, researchers determined how brain cells generate and transmit electrical messages.

Nature’s finest listener may hold the secrets to hearing disorders in humans.

Mapping the Air

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Research into the razor-sharp hearing of barn owls reveals how we create mental maps of space and may lead to hearing loss solutions.

Spinal Cord Injury: Making a Difference Tomorrow

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Spinal cord injury has no cure and most people show small improvements at best. Researchers are working on a variety of treatment options that prevent or repair axon damage, including many that are already or soon will be available for human clinical tests.

Hearing Loss Today

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Significant strides have been made to understand the causes of hearing loss. Of all our senses, hearing is the most vulnerable.

Multiple Sclerosis: Making a Difference Today

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Multiple sclerosis, or MS, is a chronic, incurable, and often crippling autoimmune disease. Symptoms can come and go, but in many people, it eventually destroys the ability to walk, talk, or even see.

Depression: Making a Difference Tomorrow

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Even though many cases of depression respond well to treatment, not everyone seeks medical help. A recent study found only half of Americans with depression receive any treatment.

Multiple Sclerosis: Making a Difference Tomorrow

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Despite numerous advances in the testing and treatment of multiple sclerosis, the disease still has no cure. Fortunately, scientists are discovering ways to stop or reverse the course of the disease.

Brain illustration with identified sections

Parkinson's Disease: Making a Difference Today

Source: Society for Neuroscience

In Parkinson’s disease, cells in the substantia nigra, a region that produces dopamine, gradually die off, disrupting the brain’s movement systems and leading to the characteristic tremor.

Chart showing lifetime risk of developing shizophrenia

Schizophrenia: Making a Difference Tomorrow

Source: Society for Neuroscience

Although antipsychotic drugs and improved therapeutic techniques represent great advances in the treatment of schizophrenia, they do not help everyone. Even when successful, they typically mitigate only psychotic effects, leaving many patients severely disabled from their negative and cognitive symptoms.