Brain

The world's first control system that will allow engineers to programme satellites and spacecraft to think for themselves has been developed by scientists from the University of Southampton.

Professor Sandor Veres and his team of engineers have developed an artificially intelligent control system called 'sysbrain'.

The scientists now report in the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience that the visual system of the fruit fly is only able to develop correctly, when two genes work together – the genes, that are in charge of producing the proteins "Golden Goal" and "Flamingo". These two proteins are located at the tip of a growing axon, where they are believed to gather information about their environment from the surrounding tissue. The actions of these two proteins enable nerve cells in a number of ways to find their way in the brain and recognize their target area.

Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are two to three times more likely than children without the disorder to develop serious substance abuse problems in adolescence and adulthood, according to a study by UCLA psychologists and colleagues at the University of South Carolina.

JUPITER, FL, February 11, 2011 – Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have produced the first known compound to show significant effectiveness in protecting brain cells directly affected by Parkinson's disease, a progressive and fatal neurodegenerative disorder.

Silent strokes, which have no immediate symptoms but could cause long-term cognitive and learning deficits, occur in a significant number of severely anemic children, especially those with sickle cell disease, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2011.

DALLAS – Feb. 14, 2011 – UT Southwestern Medical Center scientists have helped develop a novel technology to diagnose Alzheimer's disease from blood samples long before symptoms appear.

This preliminary technology, which uses synthetic molecules to seek out and identify disease-specific antibodies, also could be used eventually in the development of specific biomarkers for a range of other hard-to-diagnose diseases and conditions, including Parkinson's disease and immune system-related diseases like multiple sclerosis and lupus, the researchers predict.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have shown for the first time that damage to a particular area of the brain and a consequent reduction in noradrenaline are associated with multiple sclerosis.

The study is available online in the journal Brain.

The pathological processes in MS are not well understood, but an important contributor to its progression is the infiltration of white blood cells involved in immune defense through the blood-brain barrier.

University Hospitals (UH) Stroke and Cerebrovascular Center recently reported that it has increased the use of tPA or "clot busting therapy" for ischemic stroke by 13.5 times throughout UH system hospitals since implementing the System Stroke Program (SSP). Launched in 2008, SSP sought to increase access to the lifesaving treatment for acute (urgent) ischemic stroke patients in the 15 counties surrounding Cleveland.

Targeting the neuroinflammatory causes of Parkinson's disease with a naturally present brain chemical signal could offer a better understanding of the clinical mechanisms of the disease and open a future therapeutic window, reports a team of researchers from the University of South Florida Department Neurosurgery and Brain Repair and the James A. Haley Veterans' Administration Hospital, Tampa.

Their findings are published online in the Journal of Neuroinflammation(http://www.jneuroinflammation).

University Hospitals (UH) Stroke and Cerebrovascular Center recently reported that it has increased the use of tPA or "clot busting therapy" for ischemic stroke by 13.5 times throughout UH system hospitals since implementing the System Stroke Program (SSP). Launched in 2008, SSP sought to increase access to the lifesaving treatment for acute (urgent) ischemic stroke patients in the 15 counties surrounding Cleveland.

Brain and spinal cord comprise more than just nerve cells. The extracellular matrix, a complex scaffold of proteins with sugar residues, surrounds the cells and influences their well-being. Prof. Wiese's team is interested in the interaction of the matrix with a specific kind of nerve cells, which transmit signals from the brain to muscles (motoneurons). Because injured motoneurons lead to paralysis, clinicians have great interest in being able to influence the growth of these cells.

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- Patients with strokes, brain tumors and spinal cord injuries are at high risk for life-threatening blood clots, but many do not receive preventive therapy, Loyola University Health System researchers report.

Neurologic and neurosurgical patients are prone to blood clots because they are immobile or because their blood is more likely to coagulate. But physicians often fail to recognize blood clots in such patients. And even when a blood clot is diagnosed, physicians sometimes fail to treat it with blood-thinning medications because of the risk of hemorrhage.

TORONTO, Ont., Feb. 11, 2011 -- The daughters of rats who took folic acid supplements before conception, during pregnancy and while breast-feeding have breast cancer rates twice as high as other rats, according to a new study.

They also had more tumours and developed them at a faster rate, according to the study led by Dr. Young-in Kim, a gastroenterologist at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.

Psychology students at Queen's University have discovered similarities between child soldier trauma in Uganda and those children caught up in Northern Ireland's Troubles.

Post-graduate students from the Doctoral Programme in Educational, Child and Adolescent Psychology at Queen's recently travelled to Uganda to a school for ex-child soldiers. Their study analysed the levels of post-traumatic stress among ex-soldiers, explained the symptoms of trauma to the children and offered psychological therapy to the most traumatised children.

In a bid to decrease brain injuries from skiing and snowboarding accidents, experts in an editorial published on bmj.com today are calling for more public awareness to promote ski helmets.

Dr Gerhard Ruedl and colleagues from the Department of Sport Science at the University of Innsbruck in Austria say there is convincing evidence that ski helmets protect against head injury. They argue that one way to increase helmet use is to ensure that they can be easily hired or included in skiing packages.