Brain

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — University of Michigan Health System researchers have found new evidence that our genes help determine our susceptibility to depression.

Their findings, published online today in the Archives of General Psychiatry, challenge a 2009 study that called the genetic link into question and add new support to earlier research hailed as a medical breakthrough.

The smoking cessation medications bupropion and varenicline may both beassociated with changes in the way the brain reacts to smoking cues,making it easier for patients to resist cravings, according to tworeports posted online today that will appear in the May print issue ofArchives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

New York, NY (January 3, 2010) --- Parent education programs delivered through pediatric primary care offices increased parent-child play and reading activities critical for child development and school readiness during infancy in at-risk families, according to two concurrent reports in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms appear to be associated with longer-term physical (headache, tinnitus), emotional (irritability) and cognitive (diminished concentration or memory) symptoms, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Conversely, concussion/mild traumatic brain injuries (MTBI) do not appear to have long-term negative effects on troops.

Elementary school students who participated in a three-month anti-bullying program in Seattle schools showed a 72 percent decrease in malicious gossip.

The study, led by the University of Washington, is the first to show that the widely-used Steps to Respect bullying prevention program can curb children's gossip, an element of playground culture often seen as harmless but capable of causing real harm.

Reston, Va. (January 3, 2011) — Sudden, catastrophic childhood epilepsy is a parent's worst nightmare, especially in the case of fever-induced refractory epileptic encephalopathy in school-age children (FIRES). While not much is known about the condition, new research published in the January issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine shows that positron emission tomography (PET) scans can offer an evaluation of cognitive dysfunction of FIRES, its evolution and further prognosis.

Hydrocephalus in Ugandan children and other developing countries is seasonal, linked to farm animals and in part, caused by previous bacterial infection, according to an international team of researchers from Uganda and the United States, who believe that the best approach to this problem is prevention.

The use of general anesthesia is a routine part of surgical operations at hospitals and medical facilities around the world, but the precise biological mechanisms that underlie anesthetic drugs' effects on the brain and the body are only beginning to be understood. A review article in the December 30 New England Journal of Medicine brings together for the first time information from a range of disciplines, including neuroscience and sleep medicine, to lay the groundwork for more comprehensive investigations of processes underlying general anesthesia.

NEW YORK (Dec. 30, 2010) -- The brain under general anesthesia isn't "asleep" as surgery patients are often told -- it is placed into a state that is a reversible coma, according to three neuroscientists who have published an extensive review of general anesthesia, sleep and coma, in the Dec. 30 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. This insight and others reported in their review article could eventually lead to new approaches to general anesthesia and improved diagnosis and treatment for sleep abnormalities and emergence from coma.

Scientists have discovered that the amygdala, a small almond shaped structure deep within the temporal lobe, is important to a rich and varied social life among humans. The finding was published this week in a new study in Nature Neuroscience and is similar to previous findings in other primate species, which compared the size and complexity of social groups across those species.

Scientists at IRB Barcelona have discovered that some brain tumours in larvae of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster use the genetic programme of germline cells to grow. The removal of some of these genes leads to healthy brains. This finding demonstrates that these genes are crucial for tumour development. The study, headed by ICREA researcher Cayetano González, is published today in the prestigious journal Science.

A psychology professor has found that the way people perceive the Silhouette Illusion, a popular illusion that went viral and has received substantial online attention, has little to do with the viewers' personality, or whether they are left- or right-brained, despite the fact that the illusion is often used to test these attributes in popular e-quizzes.

Niko Troje says that a reported preference for seeing the silhouette spinning clockwise rather than counter-clockwise is dependent upon the angle at which the viewer is seeing the image.

A multinational research team led by scientists at the National Institutes of Health has found that a genetic variant of a brain receptor molecule may contribute to violently impulsive behavior when people who carry it are under the influence of alcohol. A report of the findings, which include human genetic analyses and gene knockout studies in animals, appears in the Dec. 23 issue of Nature.

DALLAS – Dec. 22, 2010 – UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have pinpointed a tiny site in the brain where the hormone leptin may help trigger the onset of puberty.

The findings in mice indicate that a site within the hypothalamus called the ventral premammillary nucleus, or PMV, is the target where the hormone leptin effectively kick starts puberty in females.