Brain

A new study has voiced concern about the growing market for brain screening tests, which people can buy as part of a general health MOT.

Researchers warn that paid-for brain scans – increasingly popular with healthy people who want to allay fears about undiagnosed brain cancer and stroke – may do more harm than good.

Troy, N.Y. – Cities are organized like brains, and the evolution of cities mirrors the evolution of human and animal brains, according to a new study by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Just as advanced mammalian brains require a robust neural network to achieve richer and more complex thought, large cities require advanced highways and transportation systems to allow larger and more productive populations. The new study unearthed a striking similarity in how larger brains and cities deal with the difficult problem of maintaining sufficient interconnectedness.

"N60" might not be the first thing that comes to mind when people think of Alzheimer's disease, but thanks to researchers from the United States, South Korea and France, this might change. That's because these researchers have found that the N60 section of a protein called "RanBP9" might be the key that unlocks an entirely new class of Alzheimer's drugs, and with them, hope.

NEW YORK – New research from Columbia University Medical Center has illuminated a previously unknown leptin-serotonin pathway in the brain that simultaneously promotes appetite and bone mass accrual. The research, which explains how leptin – well-known appetite-suppressing hormone – acts in the brain, is published in the Sept. 4 issue of Cell.

A new study finds substantial improvement in a mouse model of a rare, hereditary neurodegenerative disease after transplantation of normal human neural stem cells. The research findings, published by Cell Press in the September 4th issue of the journal Cell Stem Cell, show that the transplanted cells provided a critical enzyme that was missing in the brains of the experimental mice and represent an important step toward what may be a successful therapeutic approach for a currently untreatable and devastating disease.

Financial imprudence is linked to other impulsive behaviour such as overeating, smoking and infidelity, according to a new study led by UCL researchers, published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

CLEMSON – An injectable biomaterial gel may help brain tissue grow at the site of a traumatic brain injury, according to findings by a ClemsonUniversity bioengineer.

A 'surviving sepsis' in-hospital project has been shown to improve the care of patients with sepsis. The educational program for early management of patients with septic shock, described in BioMed Central's open access journal Critical Care, increased compliance with sepsis guidelines and led to a 45% risk reduction for in-hospital death.

MADISON – Music is one of the surest ways to influence human emotions; most people unconsciously recognize and respond to music that is happy, sad, fearful or mellow. But psychologists who have tried to trace the evolutionary roots of these responses usually hit a dead end. Nonhuman primates scarcely respond to human music, and instead prefer silence.

An international team of psychologists from the United States, New Zealand, and France has found that the way we initially think about the emotions of others biases our subsequent perception (and memory) of their facial expressions. So once we interpret an ambiguous or neutral look as angry or happy, we later remember and actually see it as such.

The targeted therapy Avastin, alone and in combination with the chemotherapy drug CPT-11, significantly increased response rates, progression-free survival times and survival rates in patients with a deadly form of brain cancer that had recurred.

In a new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, Harriet Over and Malinda Carpenter of Germany's Max Planck Institute found that priming infants with subtle cues to affiliation increases their tendency to be helpful. In their study, the researchers showed a large group of 18-month-olds photographs of household objects, for example a teapot or a shoe.

Except in clumsy moments, we rarely knock over the box of cereal or glass of orange juice as we reach for our morning cup of coffee. New research at The University of Western Ontario has helped unlock the mystery of how our brain allows us to avoid these undesired objects.

The study, led by Canada Research Chair in Visual Neuroscience Mel Goodale, lead author Chris Striemer and colleagues in Western's Department of Psychology, has been published in the current issue of the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 2, 2009) – Brain injury researchers at the University of Kentucky have spent hundreds of hours watching YouTube videos of people getting smacked, punched and knocked in the head during sporting events and recreational activities. But those researchers weren't goofing off on the Internet; they were doing hard science.

According to a recent Washington Post study, approximately 20% of U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are psychologically damaged. Among them are a substantial number with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the high rate of suicide among PTSD sufferers has become unacceptable to Army commanders and the soldiers' families.

Thanks to new research from Tel Aviv University, however, doctors will now be able to forecast a soldier's chances of falling prey to PTSD, with the chance of intervening to prevent military-related suicides.