Brain

Montreal, November 10, 2010 – The initial findings of a survey on the prevalence of gambling in Quebec have been released. The study also deals with behavior problems associated with gambling. The study reveals that nearly 70 percent of Quebec adults report having bet or spent money on gambling during the previous 12 months. It also found Quebecers spend an average of $483 annually on gambling activities.

A new study has found that low amounts of albumin in the urine, at levels not traditionally considered clinically significant, strongly predict faster cognitive decline in older women. The study involved more than 1,200 women aged >70 years in the Nurses' Health Study who were phoned every two years for three cycles and tested for general cognition, verbal/word memory, verbal fluency (speed in making word associations), and working/short-term memory.

SINGAPORE – Researchers at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore have uncovered a novel feedback mechanism that controls the delicate balance of brain stem cells.

Zif, a newly discovered protein, controls whether brain stem cells renew themselves as stem cells or differentiate into a dedicated type of neuron (nerve cell).

The laboratory of Huda Zoghbi, where the discovery that mutations in the gene MECP2 cause the severe childhood neurological disorder Rett Syndrome was made, has taken yet another step toward unraveling the complex epigenetic functions of this gene, implicated also in cases of autism, bipolar disease and childhood onset schizophrenia. The November 11 issue of Nature reports that removing MECP2 from a small group of neurons that typically make the inhibitory neurotransmitter, GABA, recapitulates many symptoms of Rett as well as numerous neuropsychiatric disorders.

FORT COLLINS - In the last 50 years, modern medicine has made astounding advances in surgery, yet many of today's veterinary and human medicine students still hone basic surgical and suturing skills on carpet pads and pig's feet before transitioning to a live patient. An invention by Colorado State University veterinarians provides students with artificial body parts that look, feel, behave, and even bleed just like real skin, muscles and vessels.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – As the number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders continues to increase, the one thing that won't change is the need for those children to develop social skills. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri are developing an effective social competence curriculum, with a virtual classroom component, that could help educators meet the demand of this growing population.

A recent study (1) suggesting that amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) may be attributed to "repetitive head trauma experienced in collision sports" lacks scientific epidemiological evidence to support this claim. In a review of the 12-patient study, several experts specializing in motor neuron diseases challenge the findings as entirely pathological and without clinical merit. Their editorial, which aims to dispel doubts of Lou Gehrig's ALS diagnosis, is now available online in the peer-reviewed journal Muscle & Nerve.

College students participating in a new study on online courses said they felt less connected and had a smaller sense of classroom community than those who took the same classes in person – but that didnt keep online students from performing just as well as their in-person counterparts.

Physical activity promotes changes in the brain that may protect high-risk individuals against cognitive decline, including development of Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study done at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM).

J. Carson Smith, an assistant professor of health sciences, included in the study both people who carry a high-risk gene for Alzheimer's disease, and other healthy older adults without the gene.

A treatment model designed to accommodate the beliefs and concerns of Chinese immigrants appears to significantly improve the recognition and treatment of major depression in this typically underserved group. In a report in the December American Journal of Public Health, a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) research team describes how their model for screening and assessing patients for depression in a primary care setting increased the percentage of depressed patients entering treatment nearly sevenfold.

(Boston) - Five U.S. federal agencies recently cosponsored a set of expert work groups to formulate common data elements for research related to psychological adjustment and traumatic brain injury (TBI). Danny G. Kaloupek, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at Boston University School of Medicine, chaired the work group on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dr.

Successfully treating and reversing the effects of multiple sclerosis, or MS, may one day be possible using a drug originally developed to treat chronic pain, according to Distinguished Professor Linda Watkins of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Watkins and her colleagues in CU-Boulder's department of psychology and neuroscience discovered that a single injection of a compound called ATL313 -- an anti-inflammatory drug being developed to treat chronic pain -- stopped the progression of MS-caused paralysis in rats for weeks at a time.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins have identified a compound that could be used to starve cancers of their sugar-based building blocks. The compound, called a glutaminase inhibitor, has been tested on laboratory-cultured, sugar-hungry brain cancer cells and, the scientists say, may have the potential to be used for many types of primary brain tumors.

Montreal, November 18, 2010 – Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that differs between the sexes in terms of age at onset, symptomatology, response to medication, and structural brain abnormalities. Now, a new study from the Université de Montréal shows that there is gender difference between men and women's mental ability – with women performing better than men. These findings, published recently in, Schizophrenia Research, have implications for the more than 300 000 affected Canadians.