Jon Hamilton

Genetic tests can now tell us a lot about our risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. But that doesn't mean people are prepared to receive the information.

Researchers are using brain scans, blood and spinal fluid to detect early signs of Alzheimer's disease. These "biomarkers" may also offer a quicker way to test new Alzheimer's drugs.

A service called neuromonitoring can cut the risk of nerve damage during delicate surgery. But some patients are receiving large bills they didn't expect.

Compared with monkeys, humans have a brain that is extremely sensitive to a sound's pitch. And that may reflect our exposure to speech and music.

Pain is more than an unpleasant sensation. When pain signals reach the brain, they interact with areas involved in thinking, memory and emotion.

Now that so many experimental drugs targeting amyloid-beta have bombed, scientists are looking for different approaches for treating Alzheimer's, including a drug that failed as a cancer treatment.

Scientists have found a way to transform electrical signals in the brain into intelligible speech. The advance may help people paralyzed by a stroke or disease, but the technology is experimental.

Scientists are learning how the party drug ketamine relieves depression so quickly — and why its effects fade over time.

Fresh water quenches thirst almost instantly, but salt water doesn't. New research shows how cells in the gut and on the tongue help the brain keep just the right concentration of salt in our bodies.

Nearly two years after the U.S. said diplomats in Cuba had been injured in a series of "health attacks," many scientists say there's still no proof anyone was injured.

Many older people diagnosed with Alzheimer's actually have dementia caused by something else. Without the right diagnosis, these people are less likely to get the best care.

Three decades after Prozac arrived, consumers are getting a new kind of antidepressant. The medicine is based on the anesthetic ketamine, which has been used illicitly as a party drug.

A brief cognitive test can detect signs of Alzheimer's in older patients. Only half of primary care doctors routinely give one, despite coverage by Medicare as part of annual wellness visits.

The Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve a new type of drug for depression. It is esketamine, a chemical cousin of the anesthetic and party drug ketamine.

Researchers say the metabolism of a woman's brain remains higher than a man's throughout a lifetime. And that may help with late-life creativity and learning.

Scientists say comedian Lewis Black has a lot in common with fruit flies. They're both really good at acting angry, probably because human anger has roots in animal aggression.

In 1969, oil from an offshore well left beaches in Santa Barbara, Calif., coated with crude and littered with dead birds. The country's reaction helped create the modern environmental movement.

Black Americans are more likely than whites to develop Alzheimer's. Yet black people studied appeared to have lower levels of a toxic substance associated with the disease, researchers say.

Adorable babies and cute puppies can make us happy. But researchers say their cuteness can be so overwhelming that it unleashes some ugly thoughts.

A question about heading soccer balls inspired a series of experiments to understand how the brain changes shape when someone's head takes a hit.