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Aldagen, a North Carolina biopharmaceutical company developing proprietary regenerative cell therapies, and UC Davis health System will collaborate to explore the activity of Aldagen's unique adult stem cell population in a preclinical model of ischemic stroke. Adult stem cells hold promise in the treatment of this condition and other neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, traumatic brain injury and cerebral palsy.

Humanoid robots have been used to show that that functional hierarchy in the brain is linked to time as well as space. Researchers from RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan, have created a new type of neural network model which adds to the previous literature that suggests neural activity is linked solely to spatial hierarchy within the animal brain. Details are published November 7 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology.

Individuals with kidney disease often suffer from cognitive impairment, but kidney transplantation can improve their mental performance, according to a paper presented at the American Society of Nephrology's 41st Annual Meeting and Scientific Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Researchers have found new evidence linking losses in memory and attention to subtle forms of brain damage following mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), which may eventually help in diagnosing when a routine concussion might lead to lasting cognitive problems. TBI affects more than 500,000 Americans each year and over 70 percent of these injuries are considered "mild," usually due to a concussion.

New 24â?�month data from a study published today in the scientific journal, Neurosurgery, show that spinal cord stimulation (neurostimulation therapy) provides sustained, significant improvement in otherwise intractable, chronic leg pain, quality of life and functional capacity out to 24 months of therapy. Supported by Medtronic, Inc.

Silencing natural growth inhibitors may make it possible to regenerate nerves damaged by brain or spinal cord injury, finds a study from Children's hospital Boston. In a mouse study published in the November 7 issue of Science, researchers temporarily silenced genes that prevent mature neurons from regenerating, and caused them to recover and re-grow vigorously after damage.

Unusually aggressive youth may actually enjoy inflicting pain on others, research using brain scans at the University of Chicago shows. Scans of the aggressive youth's brains showed that an area that is associated with rewards was highlighted when the youth watched a video clip of someone inflicting pain on another person. Youth without the unusually aggressive behavior did not have that response, the study showed.

Our DNA determines a lot about who we are and how we play with others, but recent studies of social animals (birds and bees, among others) show that the interaction between genes and behavior is more of a two-way street than most of us realize. This is not a new idea to neuroscience, but one that is gaining strength, said University of Illinois entomology and neuroscience professor Gene Robinson, lead author of a review on the subject this week in the journal Science.