The blood-brain barrier is one of the defenses of the central nervous system. It is made of a thin layer of endothelial cells closely fitted together by tight junctions, being a mandatory pass between the blood and the neural cells. Thus, this barrier, considered the last great biochemical barricade in the organism, separates the blood […]
New York, Madrid, London, Susa, Dikwa, Kuwait, Paris, Ankara, among many others…, and now Brussels. A disturbingly long list of cities that have suffered the appalling hit of terrorist attacks in recent years. And while passing over the shock, we can hardly avoid asking ourselves about what are the causes of such destructive behaviours. Beyond […]
Suicide is one of the worst health and social problems in the modern world. Hundreds of millions of persons experience suicidal thoughts every year and between 10 and 20 millions went on to attempt suicide. In Spain, although the average risk is lower than in Northern countries, almost 4.000 persons die every year by their […]
Chimera was a monster from the Greek mythology, a hybrid creature usually depicted as a lion, with the head of a goat arising from its back and a tail ending in a snake. In biology, the term «chimera» is used for a single organism with genetically distinct cells from two different zygotes, also a hybrid […]
More than a hundred years have passed since the German physicist Alois Alzheimer associated the traits of dementia of one of her patients with morphological changes in her brain after her death. While we know a great deal about what today is known as Alzheimer’s disease, we still need to answer two fundamental questions: what […]
We got it wrong. Media have outlined a rosy picture of Oxytocin as the “love hormone” that floods our brain when we interact with toddlers, puppies and beloved ones. However, scientific evidence portrays a dark side of Oxytocin, which better matches the ambivalences of human nature. In addition, Oxytocin has a long time ignored sibling […]
People who are diagnosed with dementia may initially report problems on memory and/or language that affect their activities of daily living. Once factors such as depression, delirium, or mild cognitive impairment, are disregarded, these people are typically referred to a neurologist, radiologist, and neuropsychologist or speech therapist who will help them to understand the reason […]
Sleep has a critical function in metabolic homeostasis. Its restorative function may be a consequence of the enhanced removal of potentially neurotoxic waste products that accumulate in the awake central nervous system . The glymphatic system is a functional waste pathway involved in this clearance in the mammalian central nervous system. The pathway consists of: […]
If there should be one rule that could apply to all fields of biological knowledge, it could be that they get more and more complex as we deepen into their study. Regarding genetics, the landscape has become not only more complex but also much more dynamic than initially thought. The old-fashioned concept of genes as […]
Life is sustained by chemical reactions, and the countless reactions that take place in the cells of living organisms that are responsible for every biological process are known as energetic metabolism. Among the others, the brain stands as the most energy-consuming organ, accounting for up to 20 % of the body’s total haul while representing […]