Brain

Dr. Janet D. Latner, an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, has co-authored an article in the July 2009 edition of the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy on "Weight Stigma in Existing Relationships."

The research—conducted jointly by Professor Latner and New Zealand clinical psychologist Dr. Alice D. Boyes (www.aliceboyes.com)—addresses body image, weight, romantic relationships, and differences between men and women.

June 23, 2009–Oakland, Calif. – A groundbreaking study conducted by Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland is the first to reveal a new avenue for harvesting stem cells from a woman's placenta, or more specifically the discarded placentas of healthy newborns. The study also finds there are far more stem cells in placentas than in umbilical cord blood, and they can be safely extracted for transplantation.

The classic symptoms of Parkinson's disease involve tremor, stiffness and slow movements. Over the last decade, neurologists have been paying greater attention to non-motor symptoms, such as digestive and sleep problems, loss of sense of smell and depression.

A genetically engineered mouse reproduces many of the non-motor symptoms associated with Parkinson's disease seen in humans and sheds light on their possible causes, Emory scientists report in the June 24 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Drosophila larvae avoid light during the foraging stage of their development. Research published in the open access journal BMC Neuroscience shows that both 5-HT (serotonergic) and corazonergic neurons have a role in regulating this behavior.

Implicit stereotypes – thoughts that people may be unwilling to express or may not even know that they have – may have a powerful effect on gender equity in science and mathematics engagement and performance, according to a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

PITTSBURGH—A new algorithm developed by Carnegie Mellon University computer scientists has revealed for the first time how genetic networks in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, evolve during the insect's life cycle.

June 22, 2009 -- New research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found substantial reductions in binge drinking since the national drinking age was set at 21 two decades ago, with one exception: college students. The rates of binge drinking in male collegians remain unchanged, but the rates in female collegians have increased dramatically.

For the past 2 million years, the size of the human brain has tripled, growing much faster than other mammals. Examining the reasons for human brain expansion, University of Missouri researchers studied three common hypotheses for brain growth: climate change, ecological demands and social competition. The team found that social competition is the major cause of increased cranial capacity.

Four percent of all children suffer from amblyopia, better known as "lazy eye syndrome." Traditional treatment for the condition requires the use of an eye patch, often for months at a time, before the eye is corrected. This can lead to social stigma during a formative part of childhood, and worse, it's not 100% effective.

Schizophrenia, a chronic and debilitating disorder marked in part by auditory hallucinations and paranoia, can strike in late adolescence or early adulthood at a time when people are ready to stand on their own two feet as fully independent adults.

Researchers have what they say is the first direct proof of a very old idea: that when we use a tool—even for just a few minutes—it changes the way our brain represents the size of our body. In other words, the tool becomes a part of what is known in psychology as our body schema, according to a report published in the June 23rd issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

SINGAPORE and DURHAM, N.C. – In the fruit fly's developing brain, stem cells called neuroblasts normally divide to create one self-renewing neuroblast and one cell that has a different fate. But neuroblast growth can sometimes spin out of control and become a brain tumor.

Researchers at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore have found a tumor-suppressing protein in the fly's brain, with a counterpart in mammals, that can apparently prevent brain tumors from forming.

DAVIS--"To thine own self be true" may take on a new meaning—not with people or animal behavior but with plant behavior.

Plants engage in self-recognition and can communicate danger to their "clones" or genetically identical cuttings planted nearby, says professor Richard Karban of the Department of Entomology, University of California, Davis, in groundbreaking research published in the current edition of Ecology Letters.

Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II alpha (CaMKII alpha) is an enzyme that adds phosphates to a variety of protein substrates to modify their functions. CaMKII alpha is enriched in the hippocampus, the memory center of the brain, and is believed to be an essential mediator of activity-dependent synaptic plasticity and memory functions. However, the causative role of the enzymatic activity of CaMKII alpha in such processes has not been demonstrated yet, because this enzyme has multiple protein functions other than the kinase activity.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Neural "noise" may cause you to miss important changes in your environment when you are concentrating on something else, new research indicates.

The research by Sam Ling, a postdoctoral researcher in Vanderbilt University's Psychology Department, and Randolph Blake, Centennial Professor of Psychology, is currently in press at Psychological Science.