Brain

Amsterdam, November 10, 2009 – With about 35 million people around the world suffering from Alzheimer's disease (AD) by the year 2010 and an expectation that these numbers will double every twenty years with approximately 115 million cases by 2050, pressure on healthcare systems worldwide will be intense. In a special issue of the journal Behavioural Neurology, twelve contributions from an international group of researchers discuss imaging techniques that may contribute to early diagnosis and advancements in treatment for this devastating disease.

Researchers Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have discovered a mechanism that controls the brain's ability to create lasting memories. In experiments on genetically manipulated mice, they were able to switch on and off the animals' ability to form lasting memories by adding a substance to their drinking water. The findings, which are published in the scientific journal PNAS, are of potential significance to the future treatment of Alzheimer's and stroke.

Living with pain is stressful, but a surprisingly short investment of time in mental training can help you cope.

A new study examining the perception of pain and the effects of various mental training techniques has found that relatively short and simple mindfulness meditation training can have a significant positive effect on pain management.

Combination therapies to tackle multiple changes in the brain may be needed to combat the growing problem of dementia in ageing societies, according to a study published this week in the open access journal PLoS Medicine. The study shows that multiple abnormal processes in the brain are often involved in cases of dementia, and that the drugs currently in development to treat individual brain pathologies may have a limited impact on the overall burden of dementia in the population.

ST. LOUIS -- While too much amyloid beta protein in the brain is linked to the development of Alzheimer's disease, not enough of the protein in healthy brains can cause learning problems and forgetfulness, Saint Louis University scientists have found.

The finding could lead to better medications to treat Alzheimer's disease, said John Morley, M.D., director of the division of geriatrics at Saint Louis University and the lead researcher on the study.

"This research is very exciting because it causes us to look at amyloid beta protein in a different way," Morley said.

LA JOLLA, CA, November 9, 2009 - In research that sheds light on the perils of yo-yo dieting and repeated bouts of sugar-bingeing, researchers from The Scripps Research Institute have shown in animal models that cycling between periods of eating sweet and regular-tasting food can activate the brain's stress system and generate overeating, anxiety, and withdrawal-like symptoms.

The research is being published in an advance, online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) the week of November 9, 2009.

ST. PAUL, Minn. –Children with autism may have lower quality handwriting and trouble forming letters compared to children without autism, according to a study published in the November 10, 2009, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The study included 28 children between the ages of eight and 13. Half of the children had autism spectrum disorder. The other half had no developmental, psychiatric or brain disorders. All of the children scored within the normal range for perceptual reasoning on an IQ test.

Individuals with weaker muscles appear to have a higher risk for Alzheimer's disease and declines in cognitive function over time, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Alzheimer's disease is characterized by declines in memory and other cognitive (thinking, learning and memory) functions, according to background information in the article. However, it is also associated with other features, such as impaired gait and other motor functions, depression and decreased grip strength.

Your ability to make sense of Groucho's words and Harpo's pantomimes in an old Marx Brothers movie takes place in the same regions of your brain, says new research funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), one of the National Institutes of Health.

Irvine, Calif. – Human embryonic stem cells could help people with learning and memory deficits after radiation treatment for brain tumors, suggests a new UC Irvine study.

Research with rats found that transplanted stem cells restored learning and memory to normal levels four months after radiotherapy. In contrast, irradiated rats that didn't receive stem cells experienced a more than 50 percent drop in cognitive function.

MADISON — Becoming "hard of hearing" is a standard but unfortunate part of aging: A syndrome called age-related hearing loss affects about 40 percent of people over 65 in the United States, and will afflict an estimated 28 million Americans by 2030.

"Age-related hearing loss is a very common symptom of aging in humans, and also is universal among mammal species, and it's one of the earliest detectable sensory changes in aging," says Tomas Prolla, a professor of genetics and medical genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The long-held theory that our brains use different mechanisms for forming long-term and short-term memories has been challenged by new research from UCL, published today in PNAS.

Neuroscientists formed this theory based on observation of patients with amnesia, a condition that severely disrupts the ability to form long-lasting memories. Typically, amnesia is caused by injury to the hippocampi, a pair of brain structures located in the depth of the temporal lobes.

(Boston) – Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have shownthat intermittent access to foods rich in fat and sugar induces changes in the brain which are comparable to those observed in drug dependence. The findings, reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may explain how abstinence from these foods contributes to relapse eating among dieters as well as related eating disorders.

It is well known that fear memories are permanent. However, a recent paper in Science, evaluated by three Faculty Members for F1000, reports an extraordinary finding that supports the use of a drug to control recollections of traumatic incidents.

Jerusalem, Nov. 9, 2009 – Research carried out among thousands of people has shown a clear connection between depression and a loss of bone mass, leading to osteoporosis and fractures.

This was revealed by Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers, Prof. Raz Yirmiya, head of the Brain and Behavior Laboratory, and Prof. Itai Bab, head of the Bone Laboratory. They further revealed that the relationship between depression and bone loss is particularly strong among young women.