Brain
Posted On: May 23, 2012 - 8:00pm
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — A team of UC Davis researchers has found that mothers who had fevers during their pregnancies were more than twice as likely to have a child with autism or developmental delay than were mothers of typically developing children, and that taking medication to treat fever countered its effect.
Posted On: May 23, 2012 - 7:00pm
A novel anti-inflammatory drug could help to improve survival in the most severe cases of malaria by preventing the immune system from causing irrevocable brain and tissue damage.
Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers have shown that a new class of anti-inflammatory agents, called IDR (innate defense regulator) peptides, could help to increase survival from severe clinical malaria when used in combination with antimalarial drugs.
Posted On: May 23, 2012 - 5:00pm
Researchers at New York University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered new ways neurons work together to ease the transition between sleep and wakefulness. Their findings, which appear in the journal Neuron, provide additional insights into sleep-wake patterns and offer methods to explore what may disrupt them.
Posted On: May 23, 2012 - 5:00pm
A new study finds that transplanting embryonic cells into adult mouse spinal cord can alleviate persistent pain. The research, published by Cell Press in the May 24th issue of the journal Neuron, suggests that reduced pain results from successful integration of the embryonic cells into the host spinal cord. The findings open avenues for clinical strategies aimed not just at treating the symptoms of chronic debilitating pain, but correcting the underlying disease pathology.
Posted On: May 23, 2012 - 5:00pm
A new study unravels a link between a protein that can modify cellular metabolism in the brain and seizure susceptibility. The research, published by Cell Press in the May 24th issue of the journal Neuron, may lead to the development of new treatments for epilepsy.
Posted On: May 23, 2012 - 5:00pm
For decades, neurologists have known that a diet high in fat and extremely low in carbohydrates can reduce epileptic seizures that resist drug therapy. But how the diet worked, and why, was a mystery—so much so that in 2010, The New York Times Magazine called it "Epilepsy's Big, Fat Miracle."
Posted On: May 23, 2012 - 5:00pm
Researchers have shown in mice how immune cells in the brain target and remove unused connections between brain cells during normal development. This research, supported by the National Institutes of Health, sheds light on how brain activity influences brain development, and highlights the newly found importance of the immune system in how the brain is wired, as well as how the brain forms new connections throughout life in response to change.
Posted On: May 23, 2012 - 5:00pm
What do employees think of their boss when he or she makes a mistake? According to a new study, leaders who make mistakes are seen as less competent, less desirable to work for and less effective than leaders who do not. And if the leader is a man making a mistake in a man's world, he is judged more harshly than a woman making the same mistake in a man's world. The work by Christian Thoroughgood, from the Pennsylvania State University in the US, and his colleagues, is published online in Springer's Journal of Business and Psychology.
Posted On: May 23, 2012 - 3:30pm
When confronted with adverse situations such as the loss of a loved one, some people never fully recover from the pain. Others, the majority, pull through and experiment how the intensity of negative emotions (e.g. anxiety, depression) grows dimmer with time until they adapt to the new situation. A third group is made up of individuals whose adversities have made them grow personally and whose life takes on new meaning, making them feel stronger than before.
Posted On: May 23, 2012 - 3:00pm
Use of the antioxidant urate to protect against the neurodegeneration caused by Parkinson's disease appears to rely on more than urate's ability to protect against oxidative damage. In the May issue of the open-access journal PLoS One, researchers from the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases (MGH-MIND) describe experiments suggesting the involvement of a novel mechanism in urate's protection of cultured brain cells against Parkinson's-like damage.
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