Brain

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Pregnant women who lived in close proximity to fields and farms where chemical pesticides were applied experienced a two-thirds increased risk of having a child with autism spectrum disorder or other developmental delay, a study by researchers with the UC Davis MIND Institute has found. The associations were stronger when the exposures occurred during the second and third trimesters of the women's pregnancies.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered a fundamental mechanism by which the brain maintains its internal balance. The mechanism, described in the June 22 advanced online publication of the journal Nature, involves the brain's most basic inner wiring and the processes that control whether a neuron relays information to other neurons or suppresses the transmission of information.

Ottawa – June 20, 2014 – In a report published today in Nature Communications, an Ottawa-led team of researchers describe the role of a specific gene, called Snf2h, in the development of the cerebellum. Snf2h is required for the proper development of a healthy cerebellum, a master control centre in the brain for balance, fine motor control and complex physical movements.

Einstein's theory of relativity envisions time as a spatial dimension, like height, width, and depth. But unlike those other dimensions, time seems to permit motion in only one direction: forward. This directional asymmetry — the "arrow of time" — is something of a conundrum for theoretical physics.

But is it something we can see?

Stroke hospitalizations among middle-aged blacks are increasing in South Carolina — highlighting the need for intervention among younger, high-risk groups, according to new research published in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.

Stroke, the No. 4 killer and a primary cause of long-term disability in the United States, affects more blacks than whites and is more prevalent in the southeastern regions known as the "Stroke Belt."

URBANA, Ill. – What social skills does a three-year-old bring to interactions with a new peer partner? If he has strong bonds to his parents, the child is likely to be a positive, responsive playmate, and he'll be able to adapt to a difficult peer by asserting his needs, according to a new University of Illinois study published in Developmental Psychology.

The circuitry of the central nervous system is immensely complex and, as a result, sometimes confounding. When scientists conduct research to unravel the inner workings at a cellular level, they are sometimes surprised by what they find.

Biologists have long considered cells to function like self-cleaning ovens, chewing up and recycling their own worn out parts as needed. But a new study challenges that basic principle, showing that some nerve cells found in the eye pass off their old energy-producing factories to neighboring support cells to be "eaten." The find, which may bear on the roots of glaucoma, also has implications for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other diseases that involve a buildup of "garbage" in brain cells.

Covert changes of mind can be discovered by tracking neural activity when subjects make decisions, researchers from New York University and Stanford University have found. Their results, which appear in the journal Current Biology, offer new insights into how we make decisions and point to innovative ways to study this process in the future.

A University of Central Florida research team has developed a facial recognition tool that promises to be useful in rapidly matching pictures of children with their biological parents and in potentially identifying photos of missing children as they age.

PHILADELPHIA (June 19, 2014) – We already know haters are predisposed to be that way. Now we see they also spend a lot of time at fewer activities than their non-hater counterparts.

But in a twist of irony, that grumpy person at work may actually be pretty good at their job since they spend so much time on fewer activities, thereby giving them the opportunity to hone their skills in specific tasks.

Cincinnati, OH, June 19, 2014 -- Physical fitness in childhood and adolescence is beneficial for both physical and mental health throughout life. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that it may also play a key role in brain health and academic performance. In a new study scheduled for publication in the Journal of Pediatrics, researchers studied the independent and combined influence of components of physical fitness on academic performance.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A new study from Bradley Hospital has found that bipolar children have greater activation in the right amygdala – a brain region very important for emotional reaction – than bipolar adults when viewing emotional faces. The study, now published online in JAMA Psychiatry, suggests that bipolar children might benefit from treatments that target emotional face identification, such as computer based "brain games" or group and individual therapy.

How do animals use their distinctive patterning to recognize each other? For some birds, recognizing one's own eggs can be a matter of life or death. In a new study, researchers from Harvard University and the University of Cambridge show that many birds parasitized by the Common Cuckoo have evolved distinctive pattern signatures on their eggs in order to distinguish them from those laid by a cuckoo cheat.

UT Arlington researchers have successfully used a portable brain-mapping device to show limited prefrontal cortex activity among student veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when they were asked to recall information from simple memorization tasks.