Brain

A detailed analysis of the feet of Homo floresiensis—the miniature hominins who lived on a remote island in eastern Indonesia until 18,000 years ago—may help settle a question hotly debated among paleontologists: how similar was this population to modern humans? A new research paper, featured on the cover of the current issue of Nature, may answer this question. While the so-called "hobbits" walked on two legs, several features of their feet were so primitive that their gait was not efficient.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — A team led by researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory has now pinpointed the exact gene responsible for a 2007 breakthrough in which mice with symptoms of Alzheimer's disease regained long-term memories and the ability to learn.

In the latest development, reported in the May 7 issue of Nature, Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor of Neuroscience, and colleagues found that drugs that work on the gene HDAC2 reverse the effects of Alzheimer's and boost cognitive function in mice.

We are surrounded by a multitude of different accents every day. Even when a speaker of another English dialect pronounces words differently than we do, we are typically able to recognize their words. Psychologist Catherine Best from MARCS Laboratories, University of Western Sydney, along with colleagues from Haskins Laboratories and Wesleyan University, report a ground-breaking study on the early development of this cross-dialect skill, which they term "phonological constancy."

Researchers have raised serious concerns about the lack of guidance and training provided for nurses involved in assessing the parenting capacity of mothers with serious mental illnesses.

Writing in the May issue of the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, the team have highlighted the need for an audit of current UK services and greater links between health and social care professionals.

But they point out that the basic issues they explored are pertinent to health care systems worldwide.

A study on schizophrenia has implicated machinery that maintains the flow of potassium in cells and revealed a potential molecular target for new treatments. Expression of a previously unknown form of a key such potassium channel was found to be 2.5 fold higher than normal in the brain memory hub of people with the chronic mental illness and linked to a hotspot of genetic variation.

How would you respond if you were told that you had an 80% chance of surviving an operation – would you give consent? How about if you were told you had a 20% chance of dying? The answer may partly depend on your genetic make-up, according to new research from UCL (University College London) and funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Decision-making is a complex process, particularly when we are uncertain about outcomes. This makes decisions open to influence depending on whether the options are phrased positively or negatively, known as the "framing effect".

Scientists at the University of Rochester have discovered that the hormone estrogen plays a pivotal role in how the brain processes sounds.

The findings, published in today's issue of The Journal of Neuroscience, show for the first time that a sex hormone can directly affect auditory function, and point toward the possibility that estrogen controls other types of sensory processing as well. Understanding how estrogen changes the brain's response to sound, say the authors, might open the door to new ways of treating hearing deficiencies.

PITTSBURGH—A new study out of the University of Pittsburgh suggests that a moderate dose of alcohol increases a person's mind wandering, while at the same time reducing the likelihood of noticing that one's mind has wandered.

The paper, titled "Lost in the Sauce: The Effects of Alcohol on Mind Wandering," explores this phenomenon and is published in this month's issue of Psychological Science.

BOSTON – Delirium often develops in elderly patients during hospitalization or serious illness, and this acute state of confusion and agitation has long been suspected of having ties to Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. Now a study led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Hebrew Senior Life confirms that an episode of delirium rapidly accelerates cognitive decline and memory loss in Alzheimer's patients. The findings are reported in the May 5 issue of the journal Neurology.

CHICAGO – Infants who receive the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) following the combination vaccine for diphtheria, polio, tetanus, pertussis and Haemophilus influenzae type b (DPTaP-Hib vaccine) appear to experience less pain than those who are immunized in the opposite order, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a theme issue on vaccines.

CHICAGO – About half of women whose symptoms of severe premenstrual syndrome are relieved by the antidepressant sertraline appear to experience relapse within six to eight months after stopping medication, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Women with more severe symptoms and those who took the drug for a shorter period of time may be more likely to relapse.

CHICAGO – Toddlers with autism appear more likely to have an enlarged amygdala, a brain area associated with numerous functions, including the processing of faces and emotion, according to a report in the May issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. In addition, this brain abnormality appears to be associated with the ability to share attention with others, a fundamental ability thought to predict later social and language function in children with autism.

"Timely identification and diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can impact a child's development and is the key to opening the door to the services and therapies available to children with autism," says Paul Shattuck, Ph.D., assistant professor at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. "Unfortunately, our research shows that the average age of autism diagnosis is nearly six years old, which is three to four years after diagnosis is possible."

MAYWOOD, Ill. – After nine years of suffering in silence and living in fear of leaving the house, Anna Raisor, 53, turned to physicians at Loyola University Health System (LUHS) for alternative measures to treat the embarrassing side effects of incontinence.

LUHS physicians enrolled Raisor in a clinical trial using cognitive therapy to manage her overactive bladder. Cognitive therapy employs deep-breathing and guided-imagery exercises that train the brain to control the bladder without medication or surgery.

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center investigators have uncovered a mechanism that helps explain how lithium, a drug widely used to treat bipolar mood disorder, also protects the brain from damage that occurs during radiation treatments.

In the May 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Fen Xia, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues show that lithium promotes DNA repair in healthy cells but not in brain tumor cells. The findings suggest that lithium treatment could offer a way to protect healthy brain tissue from damage that may occur during cranial radiation treatments.