Brain

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have found evidence that an environmental pollutant may play an important role in causing multiple sclerosis and that a hypertension drug might be used to treat the disease.

TORONTO, ON – Many people say they wouldn't cheat on a test, lie on a job application or refuse to help a person in need.

But what if the test answers fell into your lap and cheating didn't require any work on your part? If you didn't have to face the person who needed your help and refuse them? Would that change your behaviour?

Montreal, November 23, 2010 – Pathological gamblers are risking more than their money, they are also three times more likely to commit suicide than non-betters. A new Montreal inter-university study has shown these gamblers are also plagued by personality disorders. These findings, published in a recent issue of the Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, may have implications for developing improved targeted suicide prevention programs.

Boston, Mass. – Medulloblastomas are the most common malignant brain tumors of childhood, with 40 to 50 percent overall mortality. One of the greatest challenges in treating them is that they vary substantially from patient to patient. In the largest genomic study of human medulloblastomas to date, researchers from Children's Hospital Boston, together with collaborators, have identified six subtypes with distinct molecular "fingerprints" that will improve doctors' ability to direct and individualize treatment.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — More than half of all combat-related injuries sustained by U.S. troops are the result of explosions, and many of those involve injuries to the head. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, about 130,000 U.S. service members deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan have sustained traumatic brain injuries — ranging from concussion to long-term brain damage and death — as a result of an explosion. A recent analysis by a team of researchers led by MIT reveals one possible way to prevent those injuries — adding a face shield to the helmet worn by military personnel.

MADISON — Like musical compression saves space on your mp3 player, the human brain has ways of recoding sounds to save precious processing power.

To whittle a recording of your favorite song down to a manageable pile of megabytes, computers take advantage of reliable qualities of sounds to reduce the amount of information needed. Collections of neurons have their own ways to efficiently encode sound properties that are predictable.

ATLANTA, GA – 22 November, 2010 – The College of Direct Support (CDS), an internet-based curriculum for Direct Support Professionals (DSPs) and managed in partnership by Elsevier/MC Strategies and the University of Minnesota's Research and Training Center, has introduced its latest offering in the form of a new genre of its online learning content. The new Learning Session is called "R&R Arcade: Direct Support Professionalism: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA)."

Insomnia is bad news for software engineers' quality of life and deserves greater recognition and attention, according to new research by Sara Sarrafi Zadeh and Khyrunnisa Begum from the University of Mysore in India. Their work shows that poor sleep has a bearing on quality of life - affecting physical and mental health in particular - in this group with high levels of job-related stress. Their paper is published online in Springer's journal Applied Research in Quality of Life.

Most patients who take anti-depressants give up their treatment in less than six months, the minimum period recommended for treating severe depression and other derived pathologies. This is the conclusion of a new study carried out by Catalan researchers, which reveals that only 25% continue their treatment for more than 11 months.

Johns Hopkins Children's Center scientists have discovered that high blood levels of a protein commonly found in the central nervous system can predict brain injury and death in critically ill children on a form of life support called extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation or ECMO.

ECMO, used to temporarily oxygenate the blood of patients whose heart and lungs are too weak or damaged to do so on their own, is most often used as a last resort because it can increase the risk for brain bleeding, brain swelling, stroke and death in some patients.

You detect an object flying at your head. What do you do? You probably first move out of the way -- and then you try to determine what the object is. Your brain is able to quickly switch from detecting an object moving in your direction to determining what the object is through a phenomenon called adaptation.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A new Mayo Clinic study (http://newsblog.mayoclinic.org/2008/12/03/brain-tumors-best-treatments-for-long-term-survival/) found that children with low-grade brain tumors (gliomas) (http://www.mayoclinic.org/brain-tumors/) who undergo aggressive surgery to completely remove the tumor have an increased chance of overall survival.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Elderly adults can improve their vision with perceptual training, according to a study from the University of California, Riverside and Boston University that has implications for the health and mobility of senior citizens.

The study, "Perceptual learning, aging, and improved visual performance in early stages of visual processing," appears in the current online issue of the Journal of Vision. It was funded by a $3.5 million grant from the National Institute on Aging.