Brain

Residents of the Italian island of Sardinia are known for their longevity. Now, a new study also shows that elderly Sardinians are less depressed and generally are in a better mental frame of mind than peers living elsewhere. The study, led by Maria Chiara Fastame and Maria Pietronilla Penna of the University of Cagliari in Italy and Paul Hitchcott from the Southampton Solent University in UK, is published in Springer's journal Applied Research in Quality of Life.

An unlit, deserted car park at night, footsteps in the gloom. The heart beats faster and the stomach ties itself in knots. We often feel threatening situations in our stomachs. While the brain has long been viewed as the centre of all emotions, researchers are increasingly trying to get to the bottom of this proverbial gut instinct.

New research led by the University of Kent shows that individuals who have consumed moderate amounts of alcohol in social situations are likely to view risky situations with greater caution when considering them as part of a group.

The research, by psychologists from the University of Kent and the University of East Anglia, produced the first evidence found outside of laboratory conditions that being in a group can reduce some effects of alcohol consumption. The findings could lead to the design of new interventions designed to promote safer recreational drinking.

Philadelphia, PA, May 22, 2014 – The list of brain receptor targets for opiates reads like a fraternity: Mu Delta Kappa. The mu opioid receptor is the primary target for morphine and endogenous opioids like endorphin, whereas the delta opioid receptor shows the highest affinity for endogenous enkephalins. The kappa opioid receptor (KOR) is very interesting, but the least understood of the opiate receptor family.

May 22, 2014-- Researchers from California State University, Long Beach, the University of Kent and the University of Missouri collaborated on a study to test whether briefly exposing participants to alcohol-related terms increases aggressive behavior. It has been well documented by previous research that the consumption of alcohol is directly linked to an increase in aggression and other behavioral extremes. But can simply seeing alcohol-related words have a similar effect on aggressive behavior?

Designing the experiment

An unprecedented research conducted by a group of neuroscientists has demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to train brain patterns associated with empathic feelings – more specifically, tenderness. The research showed that volunteers who received neurofeedback about their own brain activity patterns whilst being scanned inside a functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) machine were able to change brain network function of areas related to tenderness and affection felt toward loved ones.

Methamphetamine users showed less sensitivity to risk and reward in one region of the brain and greater sensitivity in other brain regions compared with non-users when performing an exercise involving risky decision making.

Deficiencies in decision making are linked to addiction. Chronic methamphetamine use is associated with abnormalities in the neural circuits of the brain involved in risky decision making. Faulty decision making is targeted in addiction therapy so understanding its causes could help in the development of more effective treatments.

LA JOLLA, CA—May 21, 2014—In surprise findings, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered that a protein with a propensity to form harmful aggregates in the body when produced in the liver protects against Alzheimer's disease aggregates when it is produced in the brain. The results suggest that drugs that can boost the protein's production specifically in neurons could one day help ward off Alzheimer's disease.

INDIANAPOLIS -- A group of 11 genes can successfully predict whether an individual is at increased risk of alcoholism, a research team from the United States and Germany reported Tuesday.

"This powerful panel of just 11 genes successfully identified who has problems with alcohol abuse and who does not in tests in three patient populations on two continents, in two ethnicities and in both genders," said Alexander B. Niculescu III, M.D., Ph.D., principal investigators and associate professor of psychiatry and medical neuroscience at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

When your car needs a new spark plug, you take it to a shop where it sits, out of commission, until the repair is finished. But what if your car could replace its own spark plug while speeding down the Mass Pike?

Of course, cars can't do that, but our nervous system does the equivalent, rebuilding itself continually while maintaining full function.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (May 21, 2014) – Researchers at the UNC School of Medicine have found a new target for treating chronic pain: an enzyme called PIP5K1C. In a paper published today in the journal Neuron, a team of researchers led by Mark Zylka, PhD, Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Physiology, shows that PIP5K1C controls the activity of cellular receptors that signal pain.

By reducing the level of the enzyme, researchers showed that the levels of a crucial lipid called PIP2 in pain-sensing neurons is also lessened, thus decreasing pain.

PITTSBURGH, May 21, 2014 – A precise rhythm of electrical impulses transmitted from cells in the inner ear coaches the brain how to hear, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. They report the first evidence of this developmental process today in the online version of Neuron.

The findings of a pioneering four-year educational study offer hope for thousands of children identified with intellectual disability or low IQ who have very little, if any, reading ability.

The study by researchers at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, is the first large-scale longitudinal study of its kind to demonstrate the reading potential of students with intellectual disability or low IQ, said lead author Jill H. Allor, principal investigator of the study, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

Every time we have an infection or a headache and take a pill, we get a lot more drugs than our body actually needs. The reason is that only a fraction of the drugs in a pill reaches the right places in the body; the rest never reaches its destination and may cause unwelcome side effects before they are flushed out of the body again. This kind of major overdosing is especially true when doctors treat brain diseases, because the brain does not easily accept entering drugs.

The headlights – two eyes, the radiator cowling – a smiling mouth: This is how our brain sometimes creates a face out of a car front. The same happens with other objects: in house facades, trees or stones – a "human face" can often be detected as well. Prof. Dr. Gyula Kovács from Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) knows the reason why. "Faces are of tremendous importance for human beings," the neuroscientist explains. That's why in the course of the evolution our visual perception has specialized in the recognition of faces in particular.