Enhanced motion perception in autism may point to an underlying cause of the disorder

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Children with autism see simple movement twice as quickly as other children their age, and this hypersensitivity to motion may provide clues to a fundamental cause of the developmental disorder, according to a new study.

Geneticists find causes for severe childhood epilepsies

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Researchers at the University of Arizona have successfully determined the genetic mutations causing severe epilepsies in seven out of 10 children for whom the cause of the disorder could not be determined clinically or by conventional genetic testing.

Instead of sequencing each gene one at a time, the team used a technique called whole-exome sequencing: Rather than combing through all of the roughly 3 billion base pairs of an individual's entire genome, whole-exome-sequencing deciphers only actual genes, and nearly all of them simultaneously.

Human brain cells developed in lab, grow in mice

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A key type of human brain cell developed in the laboratory grows seamlessly when transplanted into the brains of mice, UC San Francisco researchers have discovered, raising hope that these cells might one day be used to treat people with Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and possibly even Alzheimer's disease, as well as and complications of spinal cord injury such as chronic pain and spasticity.

Theta brainwaves reflect ability to beat built-in bias

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Vertebrates are predisposed to act to gain rewards, and to lay low to avoid punishment. Try to teach chickens to back away from food in order to obtain it, and you'll fail, as researchers did in 1986. But (some) humans are better thinkers than chickens. In the May 8 edition of the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers show that the level of theta brainwave activity in the prefrontal cortex predicts whether people will be able to overcome these ingrained biases when doing so is required to achieve a goal.

Brain anatomy of dyslexia is not the same in men and women, boys and girls

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WASHINGTON — Using MRI, neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center found significant differences in brain anatomy when comparing men and women with dyslexia to their non-dyslexic control groups, suggesting that the disorder may have a different brain-based manifestation based on sex.

Their study, investigating dyslexia in both males and females, is the first to directly compare brain anatomy of females with and without dyslexia (in children and adults). Their findings were published online in the journal Brain Structure and Function.

Alzheimer's disease is associated with removal of the synaptic protein ADAM10

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Hit a 90 mph baseball? Scientists pinpoint how we see it coming

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How does San Francisco Giants slugger Pablo Sandoval swat a 95 mph fastball, or tennis icon Venus Williams see the oncoming ball, let alone return her sister Serena's 120 mph serves? For the first time, vision scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have pinpointed how the brain tracks fast-moving objects.

Look! Something shiny! How some textbook visuals can hurt learning

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COLUMBUS, Ohio – Adding captivating visuals to a textbook lesson to attract children's interest may sometimes make it harder for them to learn, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that 6- to 8-year-old children best learned how to read simple bar graphs when the graphs were plain and a single color.

Children who were taught using graphs with images (like shoes or flowers) on the bars didn't learn the lesson as well and sometimes tried counting the images rather than relying on the height of the bars.

Women with accidental pregnancy 4X more likely to have postpartum depression

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Women with unintended pregnancy are four times more likely to suffer from postpartum depression at twelve months postpartum, suggests a new study published today (8 May) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Rats take high-speed multisensory snapshots

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Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. – When animals are on the hunt for food they likely use many senses, and scientists have wondered how the different senses work together.