Brain

A new study of Chinese-American youth has found that family obligation, for example caring for siblings or helping elders, plays a positive role in the mental health of Chinese-American adolescents and may prevent symptoms of depression in later teenage years.

WASHINGTON – A recent surge in immigration rates has led psychologists to study how these families are coping and thriving in their adopted countries. In a special June issue of the Journal of Family Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association, researchers report that close family ties are crucial for immigrants' successful transition to their new country.

A national Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) study led by a Medical College of Wisconsin Cancer Center physician at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee has found that a course of radiation therapy to the brain after treatment for locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer reduced the risk of metastases to the brain within the first year after treatment. The study was presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Orlando, June 1.

CINCINNATI—After a review of 284 cases, specialists at the Brain Tumor Center at the University of Cincinnati (UC) Neuroscience Institute have concluded that performing a stereotactic needle biopsy in an area of the brain associated with language or other important functions carries no greater risk than a similar biopsy in a less critical area of the brain.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--MIT engineers have built a fast, ultra-broadband, low-power radio chip, modeled on the human inner ear, that could enable wireless devices capable of receiving cell phone, Internet, radio and television signals.

Rahul Sarpeshkar, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and his graduate student, Soumyajit Mandal, designed the chip to mimic the inner ear, or cochlea. The chip is faster than any human-designed radio-frequency spectrum analyzer and also operates at much lower power.

Many hospitalized patients overestimate their chance of surviving an in-hospital cardiac arrest and do not know what CPR really involves, a University of Iowa study has shown.

The study further showed that this lack of understanding of cardiopulmonary resuscitation may affect a patient's choice about whether to have orders in place to be resuscitated if they are dying.

The study, which also involved researchers in the Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Center, appeared in the June 1 issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics.

WASHINGTON, DC —In the face of rising health care costs, a new study has found that older adults were less likely to identify the plan that minimized their total annual cost and were likely to mistakenly think they had chosen the lowest-cost plan. The study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation® Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research, is currently available online, and will be published in the August 2009 issue of Health Services Research.

A University of Toronto study provides the first direct evidence that our mood literally changes the way our visual system filters our perceptual experience - seeing the world through rose-coloured glasses could be more biological reality than metaphor.

It has been linked to learning impairment, stroke and premature death. Now research from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has found that snoring associated with sleep apnoea may impair brain function more than previously thought.

Sufferers of obstructive sleep apnoea experience similar changes in brain biochemistry as people who have had a severe stroke or who are dying, the research shows.

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Men and women may not be from two different planets after all when it comes to choosiness in mate selection, according to new research from Northwestern University.

When women were assigned to the traditionally male role of approaching potential romantic partners, they were not any pickier than men in choosing that special someone to date, according to the speed dating study.

PHILADELPHIA –- University of Pennsylvania psychologists studying the cognitive mechanisms behind human friendship have determined that how you rank your best friends is closely related to how you think your friends rank you. The results are consistent with a new theory called the Alliance Hypothesis for Human Friendship, distinct from traditional explanations for human friendship that focused on wealth, popularity or similarity.

The origins of many adult diseases can be traced to early negative experiences associated with social class and other markers of disadvantage. Confronting the causes of adversity before and shortly after birth may be a promising way to improve adult health and reduce premature deaths, researchers argue in a paper published today in The Journal of the American Medical Association. These adversities establish biological "memories" that weaken physiological systems and make individuals vulnerable to problems that can lie dormant for years.

June 2, 2009 —Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have created a line of fruit flies that may someday help shed light on the mechanisms that cause insomnia in humans. The flies, which only get a small fraction of the sleep of normal flies, resemble insomniac humans in several ways.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Why does dishing with a girlfriend do wonders for a woman's mood?

A University of Michigan study has identified a likely reason: feeling emotionally close to a friend increases levels of the hormone progesterone, helping to boost well-being and reduce anxiety and stress.

(Newark, NJ) – Researchers at the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience (CMBN) at Rutgers University in Newark have identified the need to develop a new framework for understanding "perceptual stability" and how we see the world with their discovery that visual input obtained during eye movements is being processed by the brain but blocked from awareness.