Brain

PHILADELPHIA – Studies at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine on brain electrical signaling offer a fresh perspective on vertebrate evolution, provide additional evidence supporting Darwinian views of evolution, and may also lead to more effective treatment of epileptic seizures in infants. Researchers discovered how evolutionary changes produced a series of improvements in molecules generating electrical signals in nerves between 550 and 400 million years ago.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Slices of living human brain tissue are helping scientists learn which drugs can block the waves of death that engulf and engorge brain cells following a stroke.

It's called anoxic depolarization and it primarily results from the brain getting insufficient blood and oxygen after a stroke, says Dr. Sergei Kirov, neuroscientist in the Medical College of Georgia Schools of Medicine and Graduate Studies.

Language in humans has evolved culturally rather than genetically, according to a study by UCL (University College London) and US researchers. By modelling the ways in which genes for language might have evolved alongside language itself, the study showed that genetic adaptation to language would be highly unlikely, as cultural conventions change much more rapidly than genes. Thus, the biological machinery upon which human language is built appears to predate the emergence of language.

An enzyme that lives in MRSA and helps the dangerous bacterium to grow and spread infection through the human body has been visualised for the first time, according to a study out today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Now, armed with detailed information about the structure of this enzyme, researchers hope to design new drugs that will seek it out and disable it, providing a new way of combating MRSA and other bacterial infections.

Giving pregnant mothers magnesium sulphate when they are at risk of very preterm birth can help protect their babies from cerebral palsy, according to an international review of research involving the University of Adelaide, Australia.

The findings of this review – published today on the international research website The Cochrane Library – could help decrease the incidence of this disabling condition, which affects one in 500 newborn babies overall and one in 10 very premature babies (less than 28 weeks gestation).

Female promiscuity appears to have triggered changes in the type of sperm a male produces, according to new research on fish from central Africa.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, examines how competition for reproduction influences the sperm of many species of African cichlids. These fish have extremely diverse mating behaviours, ranging from strict monogamy to species where females mate with many males in quick succession.

MADISON, WI, January 19, 2009 -- It started innocently enough. A collaborative research course taught at one university led to conversations about graduate teaching among colleagues residing at different universities. Exploratory meetings followed and, before any of them quite realized it, six faculty members at three universities spanning four time zones across the U.S. were teaching a graduate course together.

St. Louis, Jan. 21, 2009 — Many older adults worry — a lot. Almost one in 10 Americans over age 60 suffer from an anxiety disorder that causes them to worry excessively about normal things — like health, finances, disability and family. Although antidepressant drugs known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) can improve anxiety symptoms in younger adults, little has been known about their effects in older people.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Individuals with the so-called "warrior gene" display higher levels of aggression in response to provocation, according to new research co-authored by Rose McDermott, professor of political science at Brown University. In the experiment, which is the first to examine a behavioral measure of aggression in response to provocation, subjects were asked to cause physical pain to an opponent they believed had taken money from them by administering varying amounts of hot sauce.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — There may be a simple way to address racial bias: Help people improve their ability to distinguish between faces of individuals of a different race.

By tweaking a system in the ear that limits how much sound is heard, a global team of researchers has discovered one alteration that shows that the ability of the ear to turn itself down contributes to protecting against permanent hearing loss. The report appears this week in PLoS Biology.

Magnesium sulphate protects very premature babies from cerebral palsy, a new study shows. The findings of this Cochrane Review could help reduce incidence of the disabling condition, which currently affects around one in every 500 newborn babies overall, but up to one-in-ten very premature babies (< 28 weeks of gestation).

A range of complex surgical operations necessary to treat stroke victims, confront hardened arteries or address blockages in the bloodstream are about to be made safer as researchers from the Micro/Nanophysics Research Laboratory at Australia's Monash University put the final touches to the design of micro-motors small enough to be injected into the human bloodstream.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Researchers at Mayo Clinic have found that the experimental drug they are testing to treat a deadly form of thyroid cancer turns on a powerful tumor suppressor capable of halting cell growth. Few other cancer drugs have this property, they say.

In the Feb. 15 issue of Cancer Research (available online Jan. 20), they report that RS5444, being tested in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial to treat anaplastic thyroid cancer, might be useful for treating other cancers. The agent is also known as CS-7017.

People who received a mild electrical current to a motor control area of the brain were significantly better able to learn and perform a complex motor task than those in control groups. The findings could hold promise for enhancing rehabilitation for people with traumatic brain injury, stroke and other conditions.