Brain

Low baseline diastolic blood pressure (DBP) appears to be associated with brain atrophy in patients with arterial disease, whenever declining levels of blood pressure (BP) over time among patients who had a higher baseline BP were associated with less progression of atrophy, according to a report published Online First by JAMA Neurology, a JAMA Network publication.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — For patients managing cancer and other chronic health issues, painkillers such as morphine and Vicodin are often essential for pain relief. The body's natural tendency to develop tolerance to these medications, however, often requires patients to take higher doses – increasing risks of harmful side effects and dependency.

What started as an experiment to probe brain circuits involved in compulsive behavior has revealed a surprising connection with obesity.

The University of Iowa-led researchers bred mice missing a gene known to cause obesity, and suspected to also be involved in compulsive behavior, with a genetic mouse model of compulsive grooming. The unexpected result was offspring that were neither compulsive groomers nor obese.

LIVERMORE, Calif. -- Using data derived from nuclear weapons testing of the 1950s and '60s, Lawrence Livermore scientists have found that a small portion of the human brain involved in memory makes new neurons well into adulthood.

The research may have profound impacts on human behavior and mental health. The study supports the importance of investigating the therapeutic potential of applying adult neurogenesis to the treatment of age-related cognitive disorders.

Inbreeding is generally deleterious, even in flowering plants. Since inbreeding raises the risk that bad copies of a gene will be expressed, inbred progeny suffer from reduced viability.

Many flowering plants are able to recognize and reject their own pollen, thereby preventing inbreeding despite the plants' hermaphroditic nature. This mechanism is a complex trait that involves the interaction of a gene that tags the pollen with an identifier molecule, and a gene that produces a molecule capable of detecting pollen produced by the same plant.

EUGENE, Ore. -- (June 10, 2013) -- An analysis of recent data from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of 97 adolescents who were part of study begun with very low birth weight babies born in 1982-1986 in a Cleveland neonatal intensive care unit has tied smaller brain volumes to poor academic achievement.

The accumulation of amyloid-β (Aβ) in the brains of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients is known to be associated with memory loss and neuronal degeneration, but the mechanism of Aβ pathogenesis is not fully understood. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Yong-Keun Jung at Seoul National University demonstrate that Aβ binds to a cellular protein known as FCγRIIb. Greater levels of FCγRIIb were detected in the brains of AD patients. Binding of Aβ to FCγRIIb activated cell stress and death pathways.

Over 100 years ago psychologist Carl Gustav Jung penned his theory of 'complexes' where he explained how unconscious psychological issues can be triggered by people, events, or Jung believed, through word association tests.

New research in the Journal of Analytical Psychology is the first to reveal how modern brain function technology allows us to see inside the mind as a 'hot button' word triggers a state of internal conflict between the left and right parts of the brain.

Research from North Carolina State University, the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) and the University of South Florida shows that outpatient treatment of mental illness significantly reduces arrest rates for people with mental health problems and saves taxpayers money.

"This study shows that providing mental health care is not only in the best interest of people with mental illness, but in the best interests of society," says Dr. Sarah Desmarais, an assistant professor of psychology at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research.

An interesting new report of animal research published in Biological Psychiatry suggests that common antidepressant medications may impair a form of learning that is important clinically.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, commonly called SSRIs, are a class of antidepressant widely used to treat depression, as well as a range of anxiety disorders, but the effects of these drugs on learning and memory are poorly understood.

Columbia Psychiatry researchers have identified what they think may be a mechanism underlying the development of compulsive behaviors. The finding suggests possible approaches to treating or preventing certain characteristics of OCD.

OCD consists of obsessions, which are recurrent intrusive thoughts, and compulsions, which are repetitive behaviors that patients perform to reduce the severe anxiety associated with the obsessions. The disorder affects 2 percent of people worldwide and is an important cause of illness-related disability, according to the World Health Organization.

Helping to protect newborns and older patients against more severe effects of jaundice is the hope of University of Guelph researchers, who have shown how a liver enzyme protects cells from damage caused by the condition.

Their discovery might ultimately lead to an alternative treatment for jaundice, such as a new drug or supplement, says Daniel Kim, a research technician in Guelph's Department of Biomedical Sciences.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—June 9, 2013—Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have deciphered how a protein called Arc regulates the activity of neurons—providing much-needed clues into the brain's ability to form long-lasting memories. These findings, reported today in Nature Neuroscience, also offer newfound understanding as to what goes on at the molecular level when this process becomes disrupted.

Blood vessels within a sensory area of the mammalian brain loop and connect in unexpected ways, a new map has revealed.

The study, published June 9 in the early online edition of Nature Neuroscience, describes vascular architecture within a well-known region of the cerebral cortex and explores what that structure means for functional imaging of the brain and the onset of a kind of dementia.

CHARLOTTE – June 7, 2013 - Many elementary students' math performance improves when their teachers collaborate, work in professional learning communities or do both, yet most students don't spend all of their elementary school years in these settings, a new study by UNC Charlotte researchers shows. The U.S. Department of Education funded the study, which the journal Sociology of Education recently published.