Brain

Researchers from the University of Maryland, College Park, and Nanjing Medical University, China, have discovered a new way that white blood cells (neutrophils) defend our brains from infection--they move the microbes from our brains' blood vessels or vasculature so they can be disposed elsewhere instead of just killing them at the site of infection. The final version of the report appears in the March 2016 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology.

Objects -- everything from cars, birds and faces to letters of the alphabet -- look significantly different to people familiar with them, a new study suggests.

An international team of researchers lead by the University of Granada has scientifically proven, for the first time, that depression is associated with important alterations of the oxidative stress, so it should be considered a systemic disease.

An international team of researchers lead by the University of Granada (UGR) has scientifically proven, for the first time, that depression is more than a mental disorder: it causes important alterations of the oxidative stress, so it should be considered a systemic disease, since it affects the whole organism.

A team of scientists lead by Dmitry Vatolin, senior research fellow in Graphics & Media Lab, the Lomonosov Moscow State University , investigated the problem of headache provoked by 3D-movies for more than eight years. In mid-February the results of the research were presented in San-Francisco on a 27th annual conference Stereoscopic Displays & Applications: http://stereoscopic.org/2016/

LOS ANGELES - Amid the heightened awareness of concussion-related brain damage among professional football players, a new study reports that researchers can predict cognitive outcomes long after the players have retired by reviewing the players' concussion histories, game-related data and their overall mental abilities.

Arriving home from work to find your partner toiling away in the kitchen, odds are you'll jump in and help. That's human nature. But if you're flat out ordered to help? That's a different story.

Remove the perception of choice and you're in fact more likely to recoil from cooperation and go a different direction altogether. Maybe you suddenly have other plans for dinner.

Cognitive impairment following a traumatic brain injury (TBI) is common, often adversely affecting quality of life for those 1.7 million Americans who experience a TBI each year. Researchers at the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas have identified complex brain connectivity patterns in individuals with chronic phases of traumatic brain injury which may explain long term higher order cognitive function deficits.

Researchers have discovered one reason why adolescents are more prone to drug addiction than adults, with findings that could lead to new treatments for addictive disorders.

In two studies with mice and humans to be published together in the journal eLife, the investigators from Baylor College of Medicine, US, have found that the ability to produce (or synthesize) new proteins, regulated by the molecule eIF2, accounts for adolescents' hypersensitivity to both cocaine and nicotine.

OAK BROOK, Ill. - MRI shows surprising differences in brain structure among adult earthquake survivors with and without post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to a new study appearing online in the journal Radiology.

Supporting instructors of massive open online courses -- MOOCs -- may be just as important to the creation of long-term, successful courses as attracting and supporting students, according to a group of researchers.

The complex biochemistry of cannabis and how it affects the brain is only beginning to be understood. Lucy Troup, assistant professor of psychology at Colorado State University, has set out to answer specifically how, if at all, cannabis use affects one's ability to process emotions.

New psychology research from the University of Otago, Warwick Business School, and University of California, San Diego, is helping explain why male faces with feminine features are considered attractive in some contexts but not others.

The study findings provide a new explanation for why the "Johnny Depp Effect" - which involves women tending to prefer men with more feminine faces - holds in some contexts, but not in others.

PHILADELPHIA - The brain chemical dopamine regulates how mice learn to avoid a disagreeable encounter, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "We know that dopamine reinforces 'rewarding' behaviors, but to our surprise, we have now shown that situations that animals learn to avoid are also regulated by dopamine," said senior author John Dani, PhD, chair of the department of Neuroscience. The team's findings are published this month in Cell Reports.

WORCESTER, MA - Scientists at UMass Medical School have identified a cell membrane transporter--CarT--that maintains vision in the fruit fly Drosophila by recycling the neurotransmitter histamine in the brain. Details of the study were published in Cell Reports.

People who reach their 80s without cardiovascular disease are more likely to suffer from the effects of dementia than a heart attack or stroke, according to a study today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. In a small group of participants, an association was also found between zero or low levels of artery-clogging calcium deposits and a low risk of dementia and cardiovascular events, suggesting that the cardiovascular risk factors that lead to coronary heart disease could also affect the brain.