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Damage to the brainstem – the brain’s ‘control centre’ – is behind long-lasting physical and psychiatric effects of severe Covid-19 infection, a study suggests.

Cambridge researchers are helping lead countrywide trials to identify accurate and quick blood tests that can diagnose dementia, in a bid to improve the UK’s shocking diagnosis rate.

Seven Cambridge ̽»¨Ö±²¥ researchers are among the 59 biomedical and health researchers elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences Fellowship.

7T MRI scanners could be used to help identify those patients with Parkinson’s disease and similar conditions most likely to benefit from new treatments for previously-untreatable symptoms, say scientists.

Apathy – a lack of interest or motivation – could predict the onset of some forms of dementia many years before symptoms start, offering a ‘window of opportunity’ to treat the disease at an early stage, according to new research from a team of scientists led by Professor James Rowe at the ̽»¨Ö±²¥ of Cambridge.

Inflammation in the brain may be more widely implicated in dementias than was previously thought, suggests new research from the ̽»¨Ö±²¥ of Cambridge. ̽»¨Ö±²¥researchers say it offers hope for potential new treatments for several types of dementia.

Recent advances in brain imaging have enabled scientists to show for the first time that a key protein which causes nerve cell death spreads throughout the brain in Alzheimer’s disease – and hence that blocking its spread may prevent the disease from taking hold.

̽»¨Ö±²¥next generation of imaging technology, newly installed at the ̽»¨Ö±²¥ of Cambridge, will give researchers an unprecedented view of the human body – in particular of the myriad connections within our brains and of tumours as they grow and respond to treatment – and could pave the way for development of treatments personalised for individual patients.

Adolescence is a dangerous time for the onset of mental health problems. Advances in brain imaging are helping to picture how neural changes in these crucial years can lead to chronic debilitating mental illness.  

Restoring the low levels of the chemical serotonin may help improve brain function and reduce impulsivity in some dementia patients, according to Cambridge researchers. A study published in the July edition of the journal Brain suggests a potential new treatment for people affected by frontotemporal dementia.