Brain

ORLANDO (June 1, 2009)—Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers report that a combination of trastuzumab and neratinib (HKI-272) a novel small molecule inhibitor of the HER2 receptor (ErbB2) appears active in women with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer who have progressed on previous trastuzumab based therapies. More than one-quarter of the women in a phase I/II trial had their tumors shrink on the combination therapy.

STANFORD, Calif. — Once symptoms start, there's only a tiny window of time for stroke victims to get life-saving treatment. Now, research from the Stanford University School of Medicine has cracked that window open a bit wider.

If a patient arrives at the emergency room within three hours of experiencing stroke symptoms, doctors can administer a potent clot-busting medication and often save critical brain tissue. But if more than three hours have passed, current clinical guidelines say the medication should not be used.

CHICAGO --- Surprisingly few pharmacies in the U.S. are able to translate prescription medication instructions into Spanish, making it difficult for patients who speak only Spanish to understand how to take their medications properly, according to a new study from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

When someone becomes dependent on drugs or alcohol, the brain's pleasure center gets hijacked, disrupting the normal functioning of its reward circuitry.

Researchers investigating this addiction "switch" have now implicated a naturally occurring protein, a dose of which allowed them to get rats hooked with no drugs at all.

The research will be published Friday in the journal Science.

Just as our world buzzes with distractions — from phone calls to e-mails to tweets — the neurons in our brain are bombarded with messages. Research has shown that when we pay attention, some of these neurons begin firing in unison, like a chorus rising above the noise. Now, a study in the May 29 issue of Science reveals the likely brain center that serves as the conductor of this neural chorus.

Portions of the brain that activate when people view pictures of objects compared to scrambled images can also be activated by touch alone, confirms a new report published online on May 28th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

"That's the nub of the paper," said Harriet Allen of the University of Birmingham. "Part of the brain is for object processing irrespective of the sensory input coming in."

BIRMNGHAM, Ala. – An experimental drug derived from cottonseed shows promise in treating the recurrence of glioblastoma multiforme, widely considered the most lethal brain cancer, said researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

The new results are from a Phase II clinical trial of AT-101, a pill manufactured from a potent compound in cottonseed that overcomes the abnormal growth patterns of tumor cells. This cottonseed-based agent must be properly dosed and monitored by physicians.

(PHILADELPHIA) A pain condition common in people with migraines also has a high prevalence in patients with cluster headache, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Jefferson Headache Center at Jefferson Hospital for Neuroscience.

Approximately half of a group of patients with cluster headaches experienced cutaneous allodynia, a condition that causes patients to have pain as a response to normally inconspicuous sensations, according to Michael Marmura, M.D., assistant professor of Neurology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University.

A recent study finds that the antidepressant effects of drugs like Prozac involve both neurogenesis-dependent and -independent mechanisms, a finding that may lead to development of better treatments for depression and anxiety. The research, published by Cell Press in the May 28th issue of the journal Neuron, utilizes a new experimental mouse model of depression/anxiety that is the first to permit simultaneous examination of multiple effects of antidepressant treatment in the same animal.

A new study demonstrates that when faced with a difficult decision, the human brain calls upon multiple neural systems that code for different sorts of behaviors and strategies. The research, published by Cell Press in the May 28th issue of the journal Neuron, provides intriguing insight into the mechanisms that help the human brain rise to the formidable challenge of adaptive decision making in the real world.

DURHAM, N.C. – Watching people's brains in real time as they handle a set of decision-making problems can reveal how different each person's strategy can be, according to neuroscientists at the Duke University Medical Center.

Montreal, May 27, 2009 -- Our brain is wired to identify gender based on facial cues and coloring, according to a new study published in the Journal of Vision. Psychology Professor Frédéric Gosselin and his Université de Montréal team found the luminescence of the eyebrow and mouth region is vital in rapid gender discrimination.

TORONTO, Ont., May 28, 2009 — When Chicago Blackhawk's leading scorer Martin Havlat returned to the ice for game four of the Western Conference Final after sustaining a concussion only two days earlier, questions were raised surrounding his swift return. According to a new study by St. Michael's Hospital neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Cusimano, similar questions were raised by 25% of minor league hockey players who did not know if an athlete with symptoms of a concussion should continue to play hockey.

The learning of birdsong resembles the learning of speech in humans. Crucial for the process are acoustic perception and the ability to produce sound. Social isolation leads to a disturbed vocal development both in humans and in birds. When children grow up without contact to other humans they either develop no or a rudimentary form of human language.

Researchers have identified the locking mechanism that allows some neurons to form synapses to pass along essential information. Mutations of genes that produce a critical cell-adhesion molecule involved in the work were previously linked to autism.

The discovery -- captured with fluorescent imaging of excitatory neurons harvested from rat pups shortly after birth and studied in culture as they continued to develop -- is described in a paper placed online May 18 ahead of formal publication in the open-access journal Neural Development.