Current opinion in neurobiology
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Recent advances indicate not only that the spinal cord has great potential for locomotor recovery after lesion but also that locomotor training can optimise this recovery through some form of 'learning'. Improvement of residual function can also be achieved through the use of various drugs and treatments such as spinal grafts. In spinal-cord-injured humans, a number of recent studies have allowed an objective quantification of the improvement of locomotion through various forms of training and stimulation.
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Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. · Oct 1999
ReviewSense and specificity: a molecular identity for nociceptors.
Recent cloning efforts have identified families of ligand- or voltage-gated ion channels that are expressed by pain-sensing primary afferent neurons. Pharmacological, electrophysiological and genetic studies are beginning to reveal how these signaling molecules specify roles for subsets of sensory neurons in the pain pathway.
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Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. · Apr 1998
ReviewCognitive neuroscience of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and hyperkinetic disorder.
Currently, diagnoses of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and hyperkinetic disorder (HKD) are made on the basis of phenomenology, but information is accumulating from the neurosciences about the biological bases of these disorders. Recent studies addressing the neuropsychology, neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, and molecular biology of ADHD/HKD document abnormalities in well-defined neuroanatomical networks and neurochemical pathways. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have shown that some regions of the frontal lobes (anterior superior and inferior) and basal ganglia (caudate nucleus and globus pallidus) are about 10% smaller in ADHD groups than in control groups of children, and molecular genetic studies have shown that diagnosis of ADHD is associated with polymorphisms in some dopamine genes (the dopamine D4 receptor gene and the dopamine transporter gene).
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Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. · Apr 1995
ReviewRetrograde amnesia and memory consolidation: a neurobiological perspective.
The fact that information acquired before the onset of amnesia can be lost (retrograde amnesia) has fascinated psychologists, biologists, and clinicians for over 100 years. Studies of retrograde amnesia have led to the concept of memory consolidation, whereby medial temporal lobe structures direct the gradual establishment of memory representations in neocortex. Recent theoretical accounts have inspired a simple neural network model that produces behavior consistent with experimental data and makes these ideas about memory consolidation more concrete. Recent physiological and anatomical findings provide important information about how memory consolidation might actually occur.