Neuroscience Research Notes

Single nucleotide polymorphism of BDNF Val66Met (rs6265) and its association to neuropsychiatric disorders

2020-06-03T23:18:02+08:00

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is the most abundant neurotrophin in the central nervous system and was shown to be involved in neuronal growth, differentiation and synaptic plasticity. A single nucleotide polymorphism at the pro-region of the BDNF gene (rs6265) has been reported to alter the amino acid from valine to methionine at codon 66 and was associated with neuropsychiatric disorders in several studies. To date, the results on the association of BDNF rs6265 to the aetiology of the neuropsychiatric illnesses have been inconsistent with some studies reporting a positive association and others reporting no association. Concerning the past inconsistent reports, this mini-review aims at determining the association of BDNF rs6265 and neuropsychiatric disorders among the different studies. Firstly, we discuss the findings on studies reporting the association of BDNF rs6265 with depression whereby a positive association between the BDNF variant and depression was obtained in several studies on the Caucasian, German, Chinese, and Malaysian population but not in studies on the Korean and other populations. Likewise, some studies found the occurrence of the SNP to be associated with a reduction in the BDNF level in depressed cases, but others found no effect at all. We then reported findings on the association of BDNF rs6265 with anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. Val allele has been found associated with these disorders, whereas some studies reported the involvement of the Met allele, and some reported no association at all. Similarly, the association of the BDNF variant with the BDNF level remains controversial. It is, therefore, essential to conduct more studies with larger sample sizes and look at the haplotype level to determine the association.

Neuromarketing: a historical review

2020-08-29T11:27:05+08:00

Neuroscience, the study of the brain and how humans process their daily activities, has always been part of other fields (such as neuropsychology in the psychological context). However, 2002 is known as the year neuromarketing was first coined by Professor Ale Smidts, describing it as the study of the brain and how it processes activities about consumer context (purchase behavior – how and why they buy). Further reviews showed that before coining the term, companies were already adopting neuromarketing through systems such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). To further demonstrate its essence, this review discussed its historical dimension, and findings show that it is a revolutionary area of marketing. Although limited empirical studies have been conducted within the context of neuromarketing, the review shows that it can address the challenges of reliability, validity, and generalizability that come with the conventional approaches in marketing research. However, it is suggested that the field of neuromarketing needs empirically-based works, urgently.

From online resources to collaborative global neuroscience research: where are we heading?

2020-07-21T13:04:01+08:00

Neuroscience has emerged as a richly transdisciplinary field, poised to leverage potential synergies with information technology. To investigate the complex nervous system in its normal function and the disease state, researchers in the field are increasingly reliant on generating, sharing and analyzing diverse data from multiple experimental paradigms at multiple spatial and temporal scales. There is growing recognition that brain function must be investigated from a systems perspective. This requires an integrated analysis of genomic, proteomic, anatomical, functional, topological and behavioural information to arrive at accurate scientific conclusions. The integrative neuroinformatics approaches for exploring complex structure-function relationships in the nervous system have been extensively reviewed. To support neuroscience research, the neuroscientific community also generates and maintains web-accessible databases of experimental and computational data and innovative software tools. Neuroinformatics is an emerging sub-field of neuroscience which focuses on addressing the unique technological and computational challenges to integrate and analyze the increasingly high-volume, multi-dimensional, and fine-grain data generated from neuroscience experiments. The most visible contributions from neuroinformatics include the myriad reference atlases of brain anatomy (human and other mammals such as rodents, primates and pig), gene and protein sequences and the bioinformatics software tools for alignment, matching and identification. Other neuroinformatics initiatives include the various open-source preprocessing and processing software and workflows for data analysis as well as the specifications for data format and software interoperability that allow seamless exchange of data between labs, software tools and modalities.