Brain

EUGENE, Ore. -- (June 16, 2014) -- Maybe turning to sleep gadgets -- wristbands, sound therapy and sleep-monitoring smartphone apps -- is a good idea. A new University of Oregon-led study of middle-aged or older people who get six to nine hours of sleep a night think better than those sleeping fewer or more hours.

The results from the initial clinical studies involving the microwave helmet Strokefinder confirm the usefulness of microwaves for rapid and accurate diagnosis of stroke patients. This is shown in a scientific article being published on June 16. Strokefinder enables earlier diagnosis than current methods, which improves the possibility to counteract brain damage.

Individuals with celiac disease often experience 'brain fog' in addition to intestinal problems, but a new study shows that adhering to a gluten-free diet can lead to improvements in cognition that correlate with the extent of intestinal healing. The Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics findings indicate that ridding the diet of gluten may help address problems that celiac disease patients can experience related to attention, memory, and other mental tasks.

This news release is available in French.

Philadelphia, PA, June 16, 2014 – The amygdala is a key "fear center" in the brain. Alterations in the development of the amygdala during childhood may have an important influence on the development of anxiety problems, reports a new study in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry.

Researchers at the University of Florida, USA, led by Dr. K. Wang have demonstrated that inhibition of Rho-associated kinase (ROCK) and subsequent cofilin dephosphorylation is mediating neurite outgrowth in PC12 cells. The lack of axonal regeneration in adult central nervous system (CNS) is one of the main cause of neurodegenerative disorders. Thus ROCK inhibition mediated neurite outgrowth is clinically relevant to treat CNS diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury and stroke (Zhang et al., 2006).

• Death rate of youth nearly twice that of combat troops in wartime Iraq and Afghanistan
• Researchers surprised that risky behaviors in adolescence predict death 10 years later
• Females and Hispanics are among the most vulnerable to violent death

CHICAGO --- Delinquency in youth predicts a significantly higher rate of violent death in adulthood -- especially from firearms -- and females are among the most vulnerable, reports a new Northwestern Medicine® study.

June 15, 2014 (San Francisco) – With the increase in childhood obesity and the associated increase in type 2 diabetes among children and adolescents, there is growing interest in how children's bodies process the foods they eat and how obesity and diabetes begin to develop at early ages. Two studies presented at the American Diabetes Association's 74th Scientific Sessions® help to shed light on this topic.

To watch TAT at work, Dr. Roll-Mecak and her colleagues took high resolution movies of individual TAT molecules interacting with microtubules in real time. They saw that TAT surfs through the inside of microtubules and although it can find acetylation sites quickly, the process of adding the tag occurs very slowly.

In general, tagging reactions work like keys fitting into locks: the better the key fits, the faster the lock can open. Similarly, the rate of the reactions is determined by how well TAT molecules fit around tagging sites.

Recent mass killings in Isla Vista, California, and elsewhere have again raised concern among lawmakers and the media about the possible connection between mental illness and gun violence. A new study sets the record straight and recommends an evidence-based approach to limiting firearms fatalities.

A group of international scholars, including co-author Vickie Mays of UCLA, analyzed dozens of epidemiological studies on gun violence and mental illness and compared the results to media-fueled public perceptions about the dangerousness of mentally ill individuals.

A new drug target to fight Alzheimer's disease has been discovered by a research team led by Gong Chen, a Professor of Biology and the Verne M. Willaman Chair in Life Sciences at Penn State University. The discovery also has potential for development as a novel diagnostic tool for Alzheimer's disease, which is the most common form of dementia and one for which no cure has yet been found. A scientific paper describing the discovery will be published in Nature Communications on 13 June 2014.

DALLAS – June 12, 2014 – UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have generated fresh insights that could aid in the development of rapid-acting antidepressants for treatment-resistant depression.

For some cigarette smokers, strategies to aid quitting work well, while for many others no method seems to work. Researchers have now identified an aspect of brain activity that helps to predict the effectiveness of a reward-based strategy as motivation to quit smoking.

The researchers observed the brains of nicotine-deprived smokers with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and found that those who exhibited the weakest response to rewards were also the least willing to refrain from smoking, even when offered money to do so.

In today's digitally driven world, access to information appears limitless.

But when you have something specific in mind that you don't know, like the name of that niche kitchen tool you saw at a friend's house, it can be surprisingly hard to sift through the volume of information online and know how to search for it. Or, the opposite problem can occur – we can look up anything on the Internet, but how can we be sure we are finding everything about the topic without spending hours in front of the computer?

Meticulous design very promising