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Brain’s GPS hasn’t changed in millions of years: Specialized neurons may be vital to evolutionary survival

The same brain cells linked to disorientation in Alzheimer’s disease have been preserved—and even slightly increased—across millions of years of evolution.

A new University of Michigan study suggests these neurons are vital to evolutionary survival. Nature has guarded and amplified them through countless generations, helping mammals instinctively know where they are in their environments. The research is published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Schizophrenia-spectrum disorders may originate in specific brain regions that show early structural damage

Researchers at the University of Seville have identified the possible origins of structural damage in the brains of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSDs). These are regions that show the greatest morphological alterations in the early stages of the disease compared to neurotypical people of the same sex and age. The study also found that people with SSD have significant reductions in structural similarity between different regions of the temporal, cingulate and insular lobes.

The research is published in the journal Nature Communications.

Your Brain Goes Through 5 Distinct Epochs, Massive Study Finds

The human brain is not a hard-wired machine but a malleable organ that is regularly re-shaping itself.

Neuroscientists at the University of Cambridge in the UK and the University of Pittsburgh in the US have now identified four major turning points in brain wiring between birth and death.

Like chapters of our lives, each of these neurological ‘epochs’ marks a new era of development or decline.

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