Brain

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- The clot-busting drug rt-PA remains the most beneficial proven emergency treatment for strokes caused by blood clots, according to an editorial in the November issue of Archives of Neurology by Dr. José Biller.

"The benefits of treatment outweigh the risks in patients treated with intravenous rt-PA within 4.5 hours of symptom onset," Biller wrote. Biller is chairman of the Department of Neurology at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and an internationally recognized expert on stroke care.

DALLAS – Nov. 9, 2010 – A hormone already responsible for increasing blood pressure by prompting the kidneys to retain salt appears to moonlight as a major stimulator of the brain centers that control the vascular system and blood pressure.

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center studied patients who overproduce aldosterone to see whether the hormone had any effect on sympathetic nerve activity responsible for blood pressure increases.

The amount of time parents spend talking about numbers has a much bigger impact on how young children learn mathematics than was previously known, researchers at the University of Chicago have found.

For example, children whose parents talked more about numbers were much more likely to understand the cardinal number principle--which states that the size of a set of objects is determined by the last number reached when counting the set (e.g., a set of 10 items is larger than a set of seven items).

Montreal November 9, 2010 – Potential investors might wish to examine the fingers of their financial advisor prior to signing over any savings. A new study from Concordia University has found the length between the second and fourth finger is an indicator of high levels of prenatal testosterone, risk-taking and potential financial success in men. The findings, published in the journal of Personality and Individual Differences, suggest that alpha males may take greater risks in relationships, on the squash court and in the financial market.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Rural and small town libraries are one of the newest forces being tapped to improve the science literacy of Americans through lifelong, "free-choice learning" opportunities in which people learn scientific, engineering and technical information somewhere other than school.

A newly designed tool is helping researchers shed light on the quality of life (QoL) of children with lupus around the world, according to research presented at the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) annual meeting, held Nov. 7-11, in Atlanta.

New Rochelle, NY, November 9, 2010—The link between maternal cigarette smoking during pregnancy and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) may relate to the negative effects of nicotine on the development of brain centers that regulate breathing, according to an article in the recent issue of Pediatric Allergy, Immunology, and Pulmonology, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com).

Speaking two languages can be handy when traveling abroad, applying for jobs, and working with international colleagues, but how does bilingualism influence the way we think? In the current issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Ellen Bialystok (York University), Fergus I.M. Craik (Rotman Research Institute), David W. Green (University College London), and Tamar H.

The amount of time parents spend talking about numbers has a much bigger impact on how young children learn mathematics than was previously known, researchers at the University of Chicago have found.

Researchers suspect that a protein superstructure called amyloid beta is responsible for much of the neural damage of Alzheimer's disease.

A recommendation letter could be the chute in a woman's career ladder, according to ongoing research at Rice University. The comprehensive study shows that qualities mentioned in recommendation letters for women differ sharply from those for men, and those differences may be costing women jobs and promotions in academia and medicine.

A tiny, translucent juvenile zebrafish, on the hunt for even littler prey, has offered up a big insight into how a specific circuit of nerve cells functions in the brain. The technique used to illuminate this circuitry, and the fish model itself, provide one of the first insights into the way individual sets of neurons control a specific behavior.

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Multidetector computed tomography (CT) helps pinpoint the causes of ischemic strokes, the most common type of stroke, potentially speeding the delivery of life-saving treatments, according to a study published online and in the January issue of Radiology.

"Our results suggest that multidetector CT could become the first-line imaging tool for identifying the cause of acute ischemic stroke," said the study's lead author, Loic Boussel, M.D., Ph.D., professor of radiology at Louis Pradel Hospital in Bron, France.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Older people who are leading active, healthy lifestyles often have silent vascular disease that can be seen on brain scans that affect their ability to think, according to a new study led by UC Davis researchers and published online today in the Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA Archives journals.