Brain

A team of University of Minnesota researchers have discovered how PTTH, a hormone produced by the brain, controls the metamorphosis of juvenile insects into adults.

The finding, published in the Dec. 4 issue of Science, will help scientists understand how insect body size is programmed in response to developmental and environmental cues and offers the opportunity to develop a new generation of more environmentally safe ways to control agricultural pests as well as insects that carry human pathogens.

HOUSTON -- (Dec. 3, 2009) –The master gene Math1 is involved in the genesis of the most common childhood brain tumor, medulloblastoma, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in a report in the current issue of the journal Science.

The finding provides a new treatment target in the deadly disease that most commonly affects children and young adults, said Dr. Huda Zoghbi, the report's senior author and professor of molecular and human genetics, pediatrics, neurology and neuroscience at BCM.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have identified a new factor that is necessary for the development of many forms of medulloblastoma, the most common type of malignant childhood brain cancer.

HHMI investigator Huda Y. Zoghbi and colleagues at Baylor College of Medicine prevented medulloblastoma from developing in mice by shutting down production of the protein Atoh1 in susceptible brain cells. The team's findings, reported in the December 4, 2009, issue of Science, suggest Atoh1 may be a new target for medulloblastoma treatment.

Stimulating the growth of new neurons to replace those lost in Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an intriguing therapeutic possibility. But will the factors that cause AD allow the new neurons to thrive and function normally? Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease (GIND) have discovered that two main causes of AD amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptides and apolipoprotein E4 (apoE4) impair the growth of new neurons born in adult brains. What is more, they have identified drug treatments that can normalize the development of these cells even in the presence of Aβ or apoE4.

Practice makes perfect. But imaginary practice? Elisa Tartaglia of the Laboratory of Psychophysics at Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) and team show that perceptual learning—learning by repeated exposure to a stimulus—can occur by mental imagery as much as by the real thing. The results, published in Current Biology, suggest that thinking about something over and over again could actually be as good as doing it.

Our ability to learn new information and adapt to changes in our daily environment, as well as to retain lifelong memories, appears to lie in the minute junctions where nerve cells communicate, according to a new study by NYU Langone Medicine Center researchers. The study is published online this week in the journal Nature.

Personality characteristics play a major role in determining who succeeds in medical school, according to new research published in the November issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology. The study, co-authored by University of Minnesota psychology professor Deniz Ones, followed an entire cohort of Belgian students through their seven-year medical school career, investigating which personal characteristics contribute to learning and performance in general.

Have you ever felt overly upset by a social snubbing? Your genetics, not your friends, may be at fault.

Scientists have long known that opium-like painkillers, called opioids, relieve not only physical pain, but also some forms of emotional stress. Now, a new study reviewed by Faculty of 1000 Biology member Markus Heilig shows that small genetic differences in the gene for the opioid receptor can determine the intensity of people's responses to social rejection.

Watertown, MA—Scientists at Boston Biomedical Research Institute (BBRI) and the University of Pennsylvania have found that combining two chemicals, one of which is the green tea component EGCG, can prevent and destroy a variety of protein structures known as amyloids. Amyloids are the primary culprits in fatal brain disorders such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's diseases. Their study, published in the current issue of Nature Chemical Biology (December 2009), may ultimately contribute to future therapies for these diseases.

DURHAM, N.C. – A pair of studies by Duke University neuroscientists shows powerful new evidence of a deep biological link between human music and speech.

The two new studies found that the musical scales most commonly used over the centuries are those that come closest to mimicking the physics of the human voice, and that we understand emotions expressed through music because the music mimics the way emotions are expressed in speech. Composers have long exploited the perception of minor chord music as sad and major chord music as happy, now the Duke team thinks they know why.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Male and female shopping styles are in our genes---and we can look to evolution for the reason.

Daniel Kruger, research faculty at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, says it's perfectly natural that men often can't distinguish a sage sock from a beige sock or that sometimes women can't tell if the shoe department is due north or west from the escalator.

Cambridge, Mass–December 1, 2009–Taking inspiration from genetic screening techniques, researchers from Harvard and MIT have demonstrated a way to build better artificial visual systems with the help of low-cost, high-performance gaming hardware.

The neural processing involved in visually recognizing even the simplest object in a natural environment is profound—and profoundly difficult to mimic. Neuroscientists have made broad advances in understanding the visual system, but much of the inner workings of biologically-based systems remain a mystery.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – New research shows that recreational users of the drug known as ecstasy may be at a higher risk for sleep apnea. The study is published in the December 2, 2009, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

"People who use ecstasy need to know that this drug damages the brain and can cause immediate and dangerous problems such as sleep apnea," said study author Una McCann, MD, of The John Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Repeated use of the drug popularly known as "ecstasy" significantly raises the risk of developing sleep apnea in otherwise healthy young adults with no other known risk factors for the sleep disturbance, a new study by Johns Hopkins scientists suggests. The finding is the latest highlighting the potential dangers of the amphetamine-style chemical, currently used illegally by millions of people in the United States.

PHOENIX, Ariz. – Dec. 2, 2009 – A team of scientists at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) won a $1,000 prize for best scientific paper presented at BIBM09, a premier bioinformatics and biomedicine conference.

The paper, Identifying MiRNA and Imaging Features Associated with Metastasis of Lung Cancer to the Brain, was selected as the best from among 233 scientific submissions at the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) International Conference on Bioinformatics & Biomedicine, held Nov. 1-4 in Washington, D.C.