Health

Your brain is able to stitch together a coherent 360-degree panorama of the world around you, and now researchers are beginning to understand how.

By studying women ages 45 to 55, investigators at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found that reproductive stage, not simply chronological age, may contribute to changes in memory and brain function.

Programs to combat obesity may be aggravating eating disorders and undermining their severity, said experts during a panel discussion hosted by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Using a machine-learning algorithm, researchers were able to “train” a computer to recognize the neural patterns associated with various scents, and identify whether specific odors were present in a mix of smells.

A new species of truffle fungus, related to the delicacy prized in Southern Europe, was found at the Arboretum by an undergrad researcher.

A new drug compound developed by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute to treat acute myeloid leukemia is gentle enough to use with patients too frail to endure chemotherapy.

Chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) is a slowly progressing type of blood cancer that develops in the bone marrow. Researchers discovered that CML stem cells die in response to inhibition of a protein called Ezh2. Drugs that target the protein are currently being tested in clinical trials for other cancers.

A gene therapy trial points to a healthier future for a young patient suffering from a rare immune disease.

Researchers examined a group of older adults with extraordinary memory performance and found that certain key areas of their brains resembled those of young people.

Scientists at Harvard Medical School and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have built a giant petri dish to visually demonstrate how bacteria move as they become immune to drugs.

A precision-engineered gene therapy virus, inserted into blood stem cells that are then transplanted, markedly reduced sickle-induced red-cell damage in mice with sickle cell disease, researchers from Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Harvard researchers have riddled the role of a molecule key to eruption of the torturous blisters as well as an antibody that interrupts the inflammatory response, opening the way to potential relief for careless hikers.

Campus food experts say the first year in college is a time for change at the dining table as well as in the classroom.

Scientists from Harvard Medical School (HMS) have identified a key instigator of nerve cell damage in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a progressive and incurable neurodegenerative disorder.

Two recent studies have shown that cells early in development can be marked with a genetic barcode that later can be used to reconstruct their lineage.

In an effort to get a clearer picture of how the brain and the connections between its regions change throughout development, Harvard scientists and researchers from three other universities will share a $14 million grant to support one of the most comprehensive brain-imaging studies ever undertaken.

A Harvard Chan School study has found that drinking-water samples near industrial sites, military fire-training areas, and wastewater-treatment plants have the highest levels of fluorinated compounds, which have been linked with cancer, hormone disruption, high cholesterol, and obesity.

A study found that both Rusingoryx atopocranion, a relative of the wildebeest, and hadrosaur dinosaurs evolved large bony domes on their foreheads, which were likely used as resonating chambers to warn of predators and communicate with others.

Despite a visual system vastly different from that of humans, tests showed the bird could successfully identify both Kanizsa figures and occluded shapes. The findings suggest that birds may process visual information in a way that is similar to humans.

The neural architecture in the auditory cortex — the part of the brain that processes sound — of profoundly deaf and hearing people is virtually identical, a new study has found. The study could point the way toward potential new avenues for treating deafness.

Harvard researchers have found evidence that bone marrow transplantation may one day be beneficial to a subset of patients suffering from ALS.

The identification of a molecular compound that combats Huntington’s disease by means of two separate mechanisms may be the watershed moment in the battle against neurodegenerative diseases.

Chromatic aberration may explain how cephalopods can demonstrate such remarkable camouflage abilities despite being able to see only in black and white.

Harvard Professor Charles Lieber and other scientists conducted a study that describes the construction of nanoscale electronic scaffolds that can be seeded with cardiac cells to produce a bionic cardiac patch.

Researchers at Harvard-affiliated Boston Children’s Hospital are looking at new potential avenues for controlling both sepsis and the runaway bacterial infections that provoke it.

A three-decade study conducted by Harvard Chan School lends further support to recent findings on fat intake and long-term health.

Matthew Nock, a psychology professor, talked to the Gazette about a recent federal report showing a sharp rise in suicide in the United States.

Barbara McNeil, health policy expert and longtime faculty member, to serve as interim dean at Harvard Medical School.

An expansive effort by several Harvard-affiliated units and hospitals has created the first cell transplantation center in the Boston area.

The findings of Professor Jeff Lichtman and postdoctoral fellow Joshua Morgan have unveiled unexpected neural complexity in the thalami of mice, potentially challenging a number of core tenets of brain science.