August 2012
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Brains are different in people with highly...
July 30, 2012
UC Irvine scientists have discovered intriguing differences in the brains and mental processes of an extraordinary group of people who can effortlessly recall every moment of their lives since about age 10.
The phenomenon of highly superior autobiographical memory – first documented in 2006 by UCI neurobiologist James McGaugh and colleagues in a woman identified as “AJ”...
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Possible new approach to fighting chronic...
30 July 2012
Researchers from The University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience have discovered a potential new approach to treating chronic inflammatory diseases such as arthritis. Professor David Fairlie and his colleagues have developed an experimental treatment that has proven effective at reducing symptoms and stopping the progression of the disease in models of...
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July 2012
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Brain development is delayed in...
July 30, 2012
Is attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) due to a delay in brain development or the result of complete deviation from typical development? In the current issue of Biological Psychiatry, Dr. Philip Shaw and colleagues present evidence for delay based on a study by the National Institutes of Health.
The cerebral cortex is the folded gray tissue that makes up the outermost...
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WatchWhat Pleasure Looks Like in Babies, Primates and Rats
To decipher the brain circuits that underlie pleasure, neuroscientists often have to assess liking and disliking in nonverbal creatures. They do it by monitoring facial expressions and head and arm movements, such as those depicted in the video here. Licking the lips, for instance, indicates a food tasted delicious to in infant, whereas...
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Your Body Influences Your Preferences
By Matthew Hutson | July 30, 2012
Why we are biased toward things on our dominant side
Image: GETTY IMAGES
If you are right-handed, chances are you will make different choices than your left-handed friends. A series of recent studies shows that we associate our dominant side with good and our nondominant side with bad, preferring products and people that happen to be on our “good” side over...
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New link found between MS treatment and vitamin D
July 30, 2012
(Medical Xpress) — A new study by researchers at the Menzies Research Institute Tasmania (Menzies) suggests that one of the main treatments for multiple sclerosis (MS) may also increase the amount of vitamin D patients receive from sun exposure.
More people suffer with MS per capita in Tasmania than in any other state in Australia. There is currently no cure, but treatments...
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“Emotion Detectives” Uncover New Ways to Address...
26 July 2012
Emotional problems in childhood are common. Approximately 8 to 22 percent of children suffer from anxiety, often combined with other conditions such as depression. However, most existing therapies are not designed to treat coexisting psychological problems and are therefore not very successful in helping children with complex emotional issues.
To develop a more effective treatment...
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Fear study reveals mental processes
July 25, 2012
A University study has shown how our minds unconsciously respond to threats.
Researchers studying how our minds develop fears in response to danger found that people can quickly learn to recognise a threat even when they are unaware of it.
However, they also found that this learning is swiftly forgotten. In contrast, when people are aware of the threat, they take longer to learn to...
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Stress May Cause Women's Brains to Age Earlier
By Makini Brice | July 26, 2012
Scientists were surprised, expecting the areas of the brain to age more slowly, or even delayed, than those of men.
Photo: Microsoft
Even though the gap is closing now in many high-income countries, on average, women tend to live longer lives than men do. Despite – or perhaps because of – women’s physical longevity, women tend to battle cognitive decline...
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Newly discovered scaffold supports turning pain...
July 27, 2012
(Medical Xpress) — Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered a “scaffolding” protein that holds together multiple elements in a complex system responsible for regulating pain, mental illnesses and other complex neurological problems.
Preso1 (green) and mGluR5 (red) appear in the same location inside a neuron.
The finding, published in the May 6 issue of Nature...
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The longer you're awake, the slower you get
July 27, 2012
Anyone that has ever had trouble sleeping can attest to the difficulties at work the following day. Experts recommend eight hours of sleep per night for ideal health and productivity, but what if five to six hours of sleep is your norm? Is your work still negatively affected? A team of researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have discovered that regardless of how...
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Molecule found that inhibits recovery from stroke
July 26, 2012 By Mark Wheeler
UCLA researchers say blocking this molecule may improve and speed recovery
FINDINGS:
Researchers at UCLA have identified a novel molecule in the brain that, after stroke, blocks the formation of new connections between neurons. As a result, it limits the brain’s recovery. In a mouse model, the researchers showed that blocking this molecule—called...
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Ion selectivity in neuronal signaling channels...
July 26, 2012
Excitation of neurons depends on the selected influx of certain ions, namely sodium, calcium and potassium through specific channels. Obviously, these channels were crucial for the evolution of nervous systems in animals. How such channels could have evolved their selectivity has been a puzzle until now. Yehu Moran and Ulrich Technau from the University of Vienna together with...
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Efficacy of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for...
ScienceDaily (July 26, 2012) — In one of the first studies to look at transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in real-world clinical practice settings, researchers at Butler Hospital, along with colleagues across the U.S., confirmed that TMS is an effective treatment for patients with depression who are unable to find symptom relief through antidepressant medications. The study findings are...
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Controlling Monkey Brains and Behavior With Light
ScienceDaily (July 26, 2012) — Researchers reporting online on July 26 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have for the first time shown that they can control the behavior of monkeys by using pulses of blue light to very specifically activate particular brain cells. The findings represent a key advance for optogenetics, a state-of-the-art method for making causal connections between...
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“Can the simple act of recognizing a face as you walk down the street change the...”
– One act of remembering can influence future acts: study (via myserendipities)
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Chemical Makes Blind Mice See; Compound Holds...
ScienceDaily (July 25, 2012) — A team of University of California, Berkeley, scientists in collaboration with researchers at the University of Munich and University of Washington, in Seattle, has discovered a chemical that temporarily restores some vision to blind mice, and is working on an improved compound that may someday allow people with degenerative blindness to see again.
Mice with a...
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Gene Therapy Holds Promise for Reversing...
ScienceDaily (July 25, 2012) — A new gene therapy approach can reverse hearing loss caused by a genetic defect in a mouse model of congenital deafness, according to a preclinical study published by Cell Press in the July 26 issue of the journal Neuron. The findings present a promising therapeutic avenue for potentially treating individuals who are born deaf.
(Credit: © Vasiliy Koval / Fotolia)
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Increasing dopamine in brain's frontal cortex...
July 25, 2012
Raising levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the frontal cortex of the brain significantly decreased impulsivity in healthy adults, in a study conducted by researchers at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco.
“Impulsivity is a risk factor for addiction to many substances, and it has been suggested that people with...
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Force of habit: Stress hormones switch off areas...
July 25, 2012
Cognition psychologists at the Ruhr-Universität together with colleagues from the University Hospital Bergmannsheil (Prof. Dr. Martin Tegenthoff) have discovered why stressed persons are more likely to lapse back into habits than to behave goal-directed. The team of PD Dr. Lars Schwabe and Prof. Dr. Oliver Wolf from the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience have mimicked a stress...
