Posts tagged science
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Cogmed Working Memory Training: Does it Actually Work? The Debate Continues…
A target article in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition concludes that evidence does not support the claims of Cogmed Working Memory Training. Additional experts weigh in with commentary papers in response.
Helping children achieve their full potential in school is of great concern to everyone, and a number of commercial products have been developed to try and achieve this goal. The Cogmed Working Memory Training program is such an example and is marketed to schools and parents of children with attention problems caused by poor working memory. But, does the program actually work? The target article in the September issue of Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition (JARMAC) calls into question Cogmed’s claims of improving working memory and addressing underachievement due to working memory constraints.
The target article authors Zach Shipstead, Kenny L. Hicks, Randall W. Engle, all from the Georgia Institute of Technology, review the research that is used to back up the claims of Cogmed. They argue that many of the problem-solving or training tasks are not related to working memory, many of the attention tasks are unrelated to problems such as ADHD, and that there is limited transfer to real-life manifestations of inattentive behavior. They conclude succinctly: “The only unequivocal statement that can be made is that Cogmed will improve performance on tasks that resemble Cogmed training.”
How attention helps you remember: New study finds long-overlooked cells help the brain respond to visual stimuli
A new study from MIT neuroscientists sheds light on a neural circuit that makes us likelier to remember what we’re seeing when our brains are in a more attentive state.
The team of neuroscientists found that this circuit depends on a type of brain cell long thought to play a supporting role, at most, in neural processing. When the brain is attentive, those cells, called astrocytes, relay messages alerting neurons of the visual cortex that they should respond strongly to whatever visual information they are receiving.
The findings, published this week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are the latest in a growing body of evidence suggesting that astrocytes are critically important for processing sensory information, says Mriganka Sur, the Paul E. and Lilah Newton Professor of Neuroscience at MIT and senior author of the paper.
Barrow researchers make breakthrough on immune system and brain tumors
In what could be a breakthrough in the treatment of deadly brain tumors, a team of researchers from Barrow Neurological Institute and Arizona State University has discovered that the immune system reacts differently to different types of brain tissue, shedding light on why cancerous brain tumors are so difficult to treat.
The large, two-part study, led by Barrow research fellow Sergiy Kushchayev, MD under the guidance of Dr. Mark Preul, Director of Neurosurgery Research, was published in the Sept. 14 issue of Cancer Management and Research
The study explores the effects of immunotherapy on malignant gliomas, cancerous brain tumors that typically have a poor prognosis.
What the researchers discovered was that immune cells of the brain and of the blood exhibit massive rearrangements when interacting with a malignant glioma under treatment. Essentially, the study demonstrates that the complex immune system reacts differently in different brain tissues and different regions of the brain, including tumors.
"This is the first time that researchers have conducted a regional tissue study of the brain and a malignant glioma to show that these immune cells do not aggregate or behave in the same way in their respective areas of the brain," says Dr. Preul. "This means that effective treatment in one area of the brain may not be effective in another area. In fact, it could even cause other regions of the tumor to become worse."
The results of the study provide important insight into why clinical trials involving immunotherapies on glioma patients may not be working.
(Source: eurekalert.org)
Shared Pathway Links Lou Gehrig’s Disease with Spinal Muscular Atrophy: Findings may lead to common treatment for both fatal conditions
Researchers of motor neuron diseases have long had a hunch that two fatal diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), might somehow be linked. A new study confirms that this link exists.
“Our study is the first to link the two diseases on a molecular level in human cells,” said Robin Reed, Harvard Medical School professor of cell biology and lead investigator of the study.
Unique Genetic Marker Discovery May Help Predict Multiple Sclerosis Relapse
Scientists may be one step closer to predicting the uncertain course of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS), a disease that can lay dormant for months or years, thanks to the discovery of a unique genetic marker. The marker, detailed by researchers in the August edition of The Journal of Immunology, is the first of its kind to be directly linked to MS.
The study, supported by funding from both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Ohio State Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) was conducted by a team of scientists with The Ohio State University using blood samples from patients with MS, as well as mouse models. Researchers uncovered the molecule miR-29, while working to identify a biomarker in the blood that could indicate if a patient had an ongoing inflammatory response, such as MS.
“Our research was inspired by the knowledge gap that existed between microRNA and MS, as well as the unpredictable nature of MS,” said Kristen Smith, Ph.D., principal investigator, who received a “mentorship grant” to conduct the study alongside senior scientists at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. “By identifying a unique marker associated with MS, we hope to inspire a relatively noninvasive test that could identify and predict the course of the disease, helping clinicians tailor therapies to disease progression.”
Source: newswise
Implications for treating muscular dystrophy and other muscle wasting diseases
Working with mice, Johns Hopkins researchers have solved a key part of a muscle regeneration mystery plaguing scientists for years, adding strong support to the theory that muscle mass can be built without a complete, fully functional supply of muscle stem cells.
"This is good news for those with muscular dystrophy and other muscle wasting disorders that involve diminished stem cell function," says Se-Jin Lee, M.D., Ph.D., lead author of a report on the research in the August issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and professor of molecular biology and genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Why do teenagers seem so much more impulsive, so much less self-aware than grown-ups? Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults, to show us how typically “teenage” behavior is caused by the growing and developing brain.
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore studies the social brain — the network of brain regions involved in understanding other people — and how it develops in adolescents.
Almost everyone knows the feeling: you see a delicious piece of chocolate cake on the table, but as you grab your fork, you think twice. The cake is too fattening and unhealthy, you tell yourself. Maybe you should skip dessert.
But the cake still beckons.
In order to make the healthy choice, we often have to engage in this kind of internal struggle. Now, scientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have identified the neural processes at work during such self-regulation—and what determines whether you eat the cake.
"We seem to have independent systems capable of guiding our decisions, and in situations like this one, these systems may compete for control of what we do," says Cendri Hutcherson, a Caltech postdoctoral scholar who is the lead author on a new paper about these competing brain systems, which will be published in the September 26 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.
A robot developed by Computer Science Ph.D. candidate Justin Hart GRD ’13 at the Social Robotics Lab may pass a landmark test by recognizing itself changing in a mirror.
Self-awareness, the ability to recognize oneself as distinct from one’s surroundings, is a mark of higher-level cognitive skills. This test was first developed to test the presence of self-awareness in animals, and requires the subject to recognize a change in its appearance by looking at its reflection.
In the mirror test, developed by Gordon Gallup in 1970, a mirror is placed in an animal’s enclosure, allowing the animal to acclimatize to it. At first, the animal will behave socially with the mirror, assuming its reflection to be another animal, but eventually most animals recognize the image to be their own reflections. After this, researchers remove the mirror, sedate the animal and place an ink dot on its frontal region, and then replace the mirror. If the animal inspects the ink dot on itself, it is said to have self-awareness, because it recognized the change in its physical appearance.
Only a few species of animals, including chimpanzees, bottlenose dolphins, magpies and elephants, have passed the test.
An artificially intelligent virtual gamer created by computer scientists at The University of Texas at Austin has won the BotPrize by convincing a panel of judges that it was more human-like than half the humans it competed against.