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Ritalin may cause changes in the brain's reward areas

A common treatment for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, prescribed millions of times a year, may change the brain in the same ways that cocaine does, a new study in mice suggests. Research from Rockefeller University shows that methylphenidate, commonly known as Ritalin, causes physical ...

Rockefeller neurobiologist proposes 'The end of sex as we once knew it"

Women are not from Venus any more than men are from Mars. But even though both sexes are perfectly terrestrial beings, they are not lacking in other differences. And not only in their reproductive organs and behavior, either, but in such unsexy characteristics as the propensity for drug abuse, fi...

Cori Bargmann wins 2009 Lounsbery Award

Cori Bargmann, head of Rockefeller University’s Laboratory of Neural Circuits and Behavior, is the recipient of this year’s Richard Lounsbery Award from the National Academy of Sciences. The award, which was announced on Wednesday, is in recognition of Bargmann’s successful use of molecular an...

Discovery could lead to a new animal model for hepatitis C

During its career, the potentially fatal hepatitis C virus has banked its success on a rather unusual strategy: its limitations. Its inability to infect animals other than humans and chimpanzees has severely hampered scientists in developing a useful small animal model for the disease. But now, i...

Stress disrupts human thinking, but the brain can bounce back

A new neuroimaging study on stressed-out students suggests that male humans, like male rats, don’t do their most agile thinking under stress. The findings, published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that 20 male M.D. candidates in the middle of preparing for...

New method prevents microRNAs from escaping cells

MicroRNAs — one of the tiniest entities in the human genome — are great escape artists. Despite scientists’ best efforts to detect and capture them in different tissues, they often manage to make a getaway, sneaking through the tissues’ tiny holes before anyone can detect them. But now, by a...

Discovery could help scientists stop the 'death cascade' of neurons after a stroke

Distressed swimmers often panic, sapping the strength they need to keep their heads above water until help arrives. When desperate for oxygen, neurons behave in a similar way. They freak out, stupidly discharging energy until they drown in a sea of their own extruded salts. Every year, millions o...

Scientists detect an ancient odor-detecting mechanism in insects

In 1913 Theodore Roosevelt added cartographer to his resume when he and his crew ventured up an unspeakably dangerous and uncharted tributary named the River of Doubt. Now, on a charting expedition of their own, Rockefeller University scientists have completed a journey that has also defied expec...

Researchers develop a device that mimics one of nature's key transport machines

To help protect its genes, a cell is highly selective about what it allows to move in and out of its nucleus. Yet that choosiness is regulated by just a thin barrier, perforated with tiny transport machines called nuclear pore complexes: protein-coated holes surrounded by flimsy, unfolded protein...

Structural study backs new model for the nuclear pore complex

In higher organisms, the genetic material is confined and protected in the cell nucleus. In order for a healthy cell to function, the DNA must send manufacturing orders through the double membrane of the nucleus and into the cell’s cytoplasm, where the protein production factories are and where m...