Brain

STANFORD, Calif. — An approach that attempted to prevent childhood obesity in African-American girls produced beneficial changes in cholesterol, diabetes risk and depressive symptoms but had little effect on youths' weight, in a trial conducted by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.

Most depressed teens who receive treatment appear to recover, but the condition recurs in almost half of adolescent patients and even more often among females, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the March 2011 print issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

An Australian study suggests that children who are sexually abused, especially if it involves penetration, appear to be at higher risk for developing schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Veterans diagnosed with any psychiatric illness appear to have an elevated risk of suicide, and men with bipolar disorder and women with substance abuse disorders may have a particularly high risk, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

DURHAM, N.C. – A study of adolescents who had a major depressive disorder found that nearly all recovered from their episode after treatment. But within five years, nearly half of them had relapsed, and females were at much higher risk of another major episode, researchers at Duke University Medical Center found.

"We need to learn why females in this age range have higher chances of descending into another major depression after they have made a recovery," said John Curry, Ph.D., lead author of the study and professor in the Duke Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

SALT LAKE CITY—University of Utah (U of U) medical researchers have uncovered a wiring diagram that shows how the brain pays attention to visual, cognitive, sensory, and motor cues. The research provides a critical foundation for the study of abnormalities in attention that can be seen in many brain disorders such as autism, schizophrenia, and attention deficit disorder. The study appears Nov. 1, 2010, online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Full-term babies are born with a key collection of networks already formed in their brains, according to new research that challenges some previous theories about the brain's activity and how the brain develops. The study is published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Anti-inflammatory drugs currently used to treat diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis may also help prevent cognitive decline after surgery, according to a new study led by researchers at UCSF and colleagues at Imperial College, London.

The research explains for the first time why many patients experience memory loss or other forms of cognitive dysfunction after surgery or critical illness, a process the researchers traced to a specific inflammatory response in the brain.

Anti-inflammatory drugs currently used to treat diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis may also help prevent cognitive problems after surgery, according to a new study by researchers at Imperial College London and University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

The research also reveals for the first time that a specific inflammatory response in the brain may explain why many patients experience memory loss or other forms of cognitive dysfunction after surgery or critical illness.

Anger is an interesting emotion for psychologists. On the one hand, it's negative, but then it also has some of the features of positive emotions. For a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers find that associating an object with anger actually makes people want the object—a kind of motivation that's normally associated with positive emotions.

Boston – November 1, 2010 – The Autism Consortium, an innovative Boston area collaboration of researchers, clinicians, funders and families dedicated to catalyzing research and enhancing clinical care for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), announced that it will begin a new initiative on Translational Medicine and Autism Therapeutics. The new focus was introduced at the Consortium's fifth annual symposium held October 26th, 2010, at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Honesty pays off, according to a new study of job seekers. When job applicants were warned that a pre-employment test could detect fake responses, they gave more honest answers -- a result that could improve their chances of being hired. Results were published in the human resources journal Applied HRM Research.

Researchers are calling for clear guidelines on childhood stroke after a study, published in the November issue of Acta Paediatrica, found wide variations in time lag to diagnosis, investigation and treatment.

They are also keen to see the development of appropriate rehabilitation services, after a follow-up study found that 85% of the children who survived a stroke had neurological dysfunction or limitations.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) is calling for any athlete who is suspected of having a concussion to be removed from play until the athlete is evaluated by a physician with training in the evaluation and management of sports concussion.

The request is one of five recommendations from a new position statement approved by the AAN's Board of Directors that targets policymakers with authority over determining the policy procedures for when an athlete suffers from concussion while participating in a sporting activity.