Brain

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Early childhood development researchers have discovered that a simple, five-minute self-regulation game not only can predict end-of-year achievement in math, literacy and vocabulary, but also was associated with the equivalent of several months of additional learning in kindergarten.

Mimicking the way in which a retina works is a hard as it sounds. Scientists from Stanford University, in the United States, have spent the past two years working on imitating the way in which information is processed in biological systems, in other words through the transmission of events in specifically connected networks (where information is captured and transmitted at the same time).

WASHINGTON, DC—When it comes to concussions, children and teens require different treatment, according to international experts who recently published consensus recommendations.

ATLANTA — Humans, from ancient exchanges of food to modern day home mortgages, have bartered or traded to receive something that they couldn't achieve on their own. It's the basis of the economy, and it requires a leap of faith to believe that each party will receive a payoff in return for taking a risk.

When confidence breaks down, such as what happened during the recent collapse of the housing market, the economy slows.

WESTCHESTER, Ill. – Computer/console gamers who play for more than seven hours a week and who identify their gaming as an addiction sleep less during the weekdays and experience greater sleepiness than casual or non-gamers, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Monday, June 8 at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies

WESTCHESTER, Ill. – Primary care pediatricians may be under-diagnosing sleep disorders in children and teens, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Monday, June 8 at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

WESTCHESTER, Ill. – According to a research abstract that will be presented on Monday, June 8 at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, in the presence of free access to food, sleep restricted subjects reported decrease in appetite, food cravings and food consumption; however, they gained weight over the course of the study. Thus, the finding suggests that energy intake exceeded energy expenditure during the sleep restriction

WESTCHESTER, Ill. –Napping may have a significant influence on young children's daytime functioning, according to a research abstract that will be presented on Monday, June 8 at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

Results indicate that children between the ages of 4 and 5 who did not take daytime naps were reported by their parents to exhibit higher levels of hyperactivity, anxiety and depression than children who continued to nap at this age.

CINCINNATI—New research led by the University of Cincinnati (UC) suggests that the hunger hormone ghrelin is activated by fats from the foods we eat—not those made in the body—in order to optimize nutrient metabolism and promote the storage of body fat.

The findings, the study's author says, turn the current model about ghrelin on its head and point to a novel stomach enzyme (GOAT) responsible for the ghrelin activation process that could be targeted in future treatments for metabolic diseases.

New Orleans, LA June 4, 2009---Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California will present new findings at the American Diabetes Association's scientific sessions June 5 – 9 in New Orleans, LA.

Bats can use the characteristics of other bats' voices to recognize each other, according to a study by researchers from the University of Tuebingen, Germany and the University of Applied Sciences in Konstanz, Germany. The study, published June 5 in PLoS Computational Biology, explains how bats use echolocation for more than just spatial knowledge.

ITHACA, N.Y. – Are you someone who squirms when confronted with slime, shudders at stickiness or gets grossed out by gore? Do crawly insects make you cringe or dead bodies make you blanch?

If so, chances are you're more conservative -- politically, and especially in your attitudes toward gays and lesbians -- than your less-squeamish counterparts, according to two Cornell University studies.

Increasing population density, rather than boosts in human brain power, appears to have catalysed the emergence of modern human behaviour, according to a new study by UCL (University College London) scientists published in the journal Science. High population density leads to greater exchange of ideas and skills and prevents the loss of new innovations. It is this skill maintenance, combined with a greater probability of useful innovations, that led to modern human behaviour appearing at different times in different parts of the world.

Johns Hopkins brain scientists have figured out why a faulty protein accumulates in cells everywhere in the bodies of people with Huntington's disease (HD), but only kills cells in the part of the brain that controls movement, causing negligible damage to tissues elsewhere. The answer, reported this week in Science, lies in one tiny protein called "Rhes" that's found only in the part of the brain that controls movement. The findings, according to the Hopkins scientists, explain the unique pattern of brain damage in HD and its symptoms, as well as offer a strategy for new therapy.

Reed warblers live with the threat that a cuckoo bird will infiltrate their nest, remove one of their eggs, and replace it with the cuckoo's own. This 'parasitism' enables the cuckoo to have its young raised by unsuspecting reed warblers.

However, scientists at the University of Cambridge have discovered that reed warblers will attack or 'mob' cuckoos on their territory and so prevent the parasites from laying eggs in their nests. However, this behaviour can backfire because it may cause injury and expose warblers to predators.