Brain

A tiny silicon chip that works a bit like a nose may one day detect dangerous airborne chemicals and alert emergency responders through the cell phone network.

A new intervention, the result of a collaboration between researchers from the University of Haifa, City University of New York and Indiana University, was found to reduce the self-stigma and improve the quality of life and self-esteem among persons with serious mental illness.

Researchers at the Santa Fe Institute have developed new machine learning methods to study conflict. Their work appears in PLOS Computational Biology on May 13.

Quantitative studies of behavior traditionally rely on game theory to investigate the logic of conflict. Game theory seeks to identify normative strategies that maximize payoffs for individuals in the face of uncertainty.

Treatment decisions involving patients with severe brain injury vary widely between medical institutions and appear to be more driven by hospital and physician practices and priorities. In an article appearing today in the New England Journal of Medicine, physicians at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) argue that providers must take steps to develop a process of communication and decision-making that gives greater weight and voice to the informed preferences of patients and their families.

A team of neuroscientists has found that the mirror neuron system, which is thought to play a central role in social communications, responds normally in individuals with autism. Their findings, reported in the journal Neuron, counter theories suggesting that a mirror system dysfunction causes the social difficulties exhibited by individuals with autism.

A recent study provides intriguing information about the neural dynamics underlying behavioral changes associated with the development of new problem solving strategies. The research, published by the Cell Press in the May 13 issue of the journal Neuron, supports the idea of "a-ha" moments in the brain that are associated with sudden insight.

Edmonton, AB – Medical Researchers at the University of Alberta reported today evidence that the orphan generic drug Dichloroacetate (DCA) may hold promise as potential therapy for perhaps the deadliest of all human cancers: a form of brain cancer called glioblastoma. The report is published at the journal Science Translational Medicine, a journal of the American Association of the Advancement of Science; it appears today at the journal's web site http://www.sciencemag.org/

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Several barriers prevent minority children with ADHD from receiving the most effective treatments, according to a new study by Michigan State University researchers.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—In work that may one day correct or prevent genetic conditions tied to smaller-than-normal brains and shed light on the evolution of human head size, researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory analyzed the interaction of two proteins key to brain development.

New research suggests that a brain system called the mirror neuron system, previously implicated as being dysfunctional in autism appears to function normally in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The study, published by Cell Press in the May 13 issue of the journal Neuron, argues that difficulties in social communication experienced by individuals with ASD are caused by neural abnormalities other than a mirror neuron system dysfunction.

Scientists regularly discard up to 90 percent of the signals from monitoring of brain waves, one of the oldest techniques for observing changes in brain activity. They discard this data as noise because it produces a seemingly irregular pattern like those seen in river fluctuations, seismic waves, heart rates, stock market prices and a wide variety of other phenomena.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Moderate to severely depressed clients showed greater improvement in cognitive therapy when therapists emphasized changing how they think rather than how they behave, new research has found.

The results suggest cognitive therapists should concentrate, at least during the first few sessions, on using cognitive techniques to help those with more severe depression to break out of negative thought patterns and to see events in their lives more realistically.