Brain

Significant numbers of children in the UK are suffering from preventable levels of disability, particularly blindness, and premature death because of poor diagnosis of brain tumours.

A UC Irvine study has found that a gene called TOMM40 appears twice as often in people with Alzheimer's disease than in those without it. Alzheimer's, for which there is no cure, is the leading cause of elderly dementia.

Having the harmful form of TOMM40 significantly increases one's susceptibility when other risk factors – such as having a gene called ApoE-4 – are present, the new study reports. People who have ApoE-4 are three to eight times more likely to develop Alzheimer's.

A group of genes whose expression is significantly altered following exposure to drug paraphernalia after an enforced 'cold-turkey' period have been identified, write researchers in the journal BMC Neuroscience. They studied gene expression in the brains of heroin-addicted rats, identifying those genes that may be involved in precipitating a relapse.

Historically, many scientists have regarded itching as just a less intense version of pain. They have spent decades searching for itch-specific nerve cells to explain how the brain perceives itch differently from pain, but none have been found.

"That blasted siren. I can't focus." That reaction to undesired distraction may signal a person's low working-memory capacity, according to a new study.

Based on a study of 84 students divided into four separate experiments, University of Oregon researchers found that students with high memory storage capacity were clearly better able to ignore distractions and stay focused on their assigned tasks.

Help is on the way for anyone who has ever gotten lost at a hospital or other health-care setting.

That help is in the form of health-care signage symbols being developed by design students at the University of Cincinnati and three other U.S. universities.

Neurons communicate with each other with the help of nano-sized vesicles. Disruption of this communication process is responsible for many diseases and mental disorders like e.g. depression. Nerve signals travel from one neuron to another through vesicles - a nano-sized container loaded with neurotransmitter molecules. A vesicle fuses with the membrane surrounding a neuron, releases neurotransmitters into the surroundings that are detected by the next neuron in line. However, we still lack a more detailed understanding of how the fusion of vesicles occurs on the nano-scale.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. –University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Psychology researchers report that new parents identified less than half of the safety hazards in a simulated home environment, and most perceived that their children were less vulnerable to injuries than other children.

The findings will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention. UAB doctoral student Joanna Gaines, M.A., is the lead author of the study, and UAB pediatric psychologist David Schwebel, Ph.D., is its co-author.

Two University of Alberta researchers and a colleague from Sweden have found some answers to why positive expectations lead to positive results in three different studies on expectations for recovery.

Linda Carroll, in the School of Public Health, looked at a cohort of over 6,000 adults with traffic-related whiplash injuries. She found that those that had positive outlooks towards their recovery actually recovered over three times faster than those who did not.

Students who learn history through "historically" based blockbuster movies may be doomed to repeat the historical mistakes portrayed within them, suggests a new study from Washington University in St. Louis.

The study, forthcoming in the journal Psychological Science, suggests that showing popular history movies in a classroom setting can be a double-edged sword when it comes to helping students learn and retain factual information in associated textbooks.

Both melanoma and glioblastoma multiforme brain cancer are the focus of an intensive effort in the department of nutritional sciences at The University of Arizona. Scientists are attempting to find natural, biologically active compounds that will sensitize the cancerous tumors to therapy without damaging normal tissue. By using the compounds in conjunction with conventional treatment, the researchers hope patient survival rates will ultimately increase.

Hearing aids and cochlear implants act as tiny amplifiers so the deaf and hard-of-hearing can make sense of voices and music. Unfortunately, these devices also amplify background sound, so they're less effective in noisy environments.

But help is on the way. Prof. Miriam Furst-Yust of Tel Aviv University's School of Electrical Engineering has developed a new software application named "Clearcall" for cochlear implants and hearing aids which improves speech recognition for the hard-of-hearing by up to 50%.

As we all know from experience, people eat not only because they are hungry, but also because the food just simply tastes too good to pass up. Now, a new study in the August 6th Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, helps to explain how leptin, a hormone produced by fat tissue, influences that motivation to eat.

A gut hormone plays an unanticipated and important role in the remote control of blood sugar production in the liver, according to a report in Cell Metabolism. What's more, the researchers show that rats fed a high-fat diet for a few days become resistant to the glucose-lowering hormone known as cholecystokinin (CCK).

"We show for the first time that CCK from the gut activates receptors to regulate glucose levels," said Tony Lam of the University of Toronto. "It does so via a gut-brain-liver neuronal axis."