Brain

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Children learn a great deal about the world from their own exploration, but they also rely on what adults tell them. Studies have shown that children can figure out when someone is lying to them, but cognitive scientists from MIT recently tackled a subtler question: Can children tell when adults are telling them the truth, but not the whole truth?

WASHINGTON D.C. June 10, 2014 -- All the billions of flat, biconcave disks in our body known as red blood cells (or erythrocytes) make three basic, tumbling-treadmill-type motions when they wend their way through the body's bloodstream ferrying oxygen from our lungs to our brains and other tissues. That is, unless they are infected with malaria parasites, in which case their motions are completely different.

Using a type of human stem cell, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have created a three-dimensional complement of human retinal tissue in the laboratory, which notably includes functioning photoreceptor cells capable of responding to light, the first step in the process of converting it into visual images.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- About 11 percent of school-age children in the United States have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). While many of these children eventually "outgrow" the disorder, some carry their difficulties into adulthood: About 10 million American adults are currently diagnosed with ADHD.

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Babies born 32 to 36 weeks into gestation may have smaller brains and other brain abnormalities that could lead to long-term developmental problems, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology.

Much of the existing knowledge on preterm birth and brain development has been drawn from studies of individuals born very preterm, or less than 32 weeks into gestation at birth.

(PHILADELPHIA) – Costs for a lifetime of support for each individual with autism spectrum disorder may reach $2.4 million, according to a new study from researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Researchers are a step closer to establishing the link between a protein with a split personality and type 1 diabetes.

New research, published today in the journal PNAS, shows how a protein, called GAD65, changes its shape when it turns itself on and off. Curiously, this characteristic may also link it to type 1 diabetes.

In the human brain, GAD65 performs an essential role: it makes 'neurotransmitters' - chemicals that pass messages between brain cells.

Neuroscientists agree that abuse of drugs hijacks circuits in the brain that are crucial for decision-making, but society as a whole tends to stigmatize addicted people for lacking self-control. Slowly but steadily, scientists say, they are making important progress in changing the perception of addiction as they identify new therapeutic interventions that could render addiction into the equivalent of a manageable disease like diabetes.

When the economy declines, African Americans are more likely to be seen as "Blacker" and to bear stereotypical features, according to a new study by psychology researchers at New York University. Their findings, which appear in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that economic duress may spur racial discrimination.

Boston (June 9, 2014) – The ability to hear soft speech in a noisy environment is difficult for many and nearly impossible for the 48 million in the United States living with hearing loss. Researchers from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Harvard Medical School and Harvard University programmed a new type of game that trained both mice and humans to enhance their ability to discriminate soft sounds in noisy backgrounds. Their findings will be published in PNAS Online Early Edition the week of June 9-13, 2014.

DUARTE, Calif. — Learning and memory are regulated by a region of the brain known as the hippocampus. New research from City of Hope has found that stimulating a specific gene could prompt growth – in adults – of new neurons in this critical region, leading to faster learning and better memories.

Anesthesia makes otherwise painful procedures possible by derailing a conscious brain, rendering it incapable of sensing or responding to a surgeon's knife. But little research exists on what happens when the drugs wear off.

Our ability to make choices — and sometimes mistakes — might arise from random fluctuations in the brain's background electrical noise, according to a recent study from the Center for Mind and Brain at the University of California, Davis.

"How do we behave independently of cause and effect?" said Jesse Bengson, a postdoctoral researcher at the center and first author on the paper. "This shows how arbitrary states in the brain can influence apparently voluntary decisions."

URBANA, Ill. – Is sleep one of your most important family values? A new University of Illinois study suggests that it should be, reporting that more parental sleep is related to more child sleep, which is related to decreased child obesity.

It's long been accepted – with little science to back it up – that people should spend roughly a third of their income on housing. As it turns out, that may be about how much a low-income family should spend to optimize children's brainpower.