Brain

CHAPEL HILL – For years, research has hinted that the time of day that cancer patients receive chemotherapy can impact their chances of survival. But the lack of a clear scientific explanation for this finding has kept clinicians from considering timing as a factor in treatment.

Now, a new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has suggested that treatment is most effective at certain times of day because that is when a particular enzyme system – one that can reverse the actions of chemotherapeutic drugs – is at its lowest levels in the body.

Vicks® VapoRub®, the popular salve used to relieve symptoms of cough and congestion, may be harmful for infants and toddlers. New research appearing in the January issue of CHEST, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), shows that Vicks® VapoRub® (VVR) may stimulate mucus production and airway inflammation, which can have severe effects on breathing in an infant or toddler. Research findings are consistent with current VVR labeling which indicates the product should not be used on children under 2 years of age.

WASHINGTON, DC—For the first time, scientists at Children's National Medical Center have successfully identified a key developmental program for the amygdala—the part of the limbic system that impacts how the brain creates emotional memories and responses.

This knowledge could help scientists to better understand autism and similar disorders in which altered function of this region is known to occur.

LOS ANGELES (January 13, 2009) – Scientists seeking to harness the power of the immune system to eradicate brain tumors face two major hurdles: recruiting key immune cells called dendritic cells into areas of the brain where they are not naturally found and helping them recognize tumor cells as targets for attack.

Findings from a study conducted in mice, published in the open access journal PLoS Medicine next week, provide new insights into how an effective immune response to brain tumors could potentially be brought about in humans.

The healthy brain is in a constant struggle between learning new experiences and remembering old experiences, a new study in this week's PLoS Biology reports. Virtually all social interactions require the rapid exchange of new and old information. For instance, normal conversation requires that while listening to the new information another person is providing, we are already retrieving information in preparation of an appropriate reply. Yet, some memory theories assume that these different modes of memory cannot happen at the same time and compete for priority within our brain.

PITTSBURGH, Jan. 12 – A new area of the cerebral cortex has evolved to enable man and higher primates to pick up small objects and deftly use tools, according to neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Pittsburgh's Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Two new studies show that hormone therapy for women is linked to brain shrinkage, but not to the small brain lesions that are the first sign of cerebrovascular disease. The studies are published in the January 13, 2009, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Earlier studies showed that estrogen with or without added progestin increased the risk for developing dementia and cognitive decline, or difficulty with thinking skills and memory in women age 65 and older.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Two new studies show that commonly prescribed forms of postmenopausal hormone therapy may slightly accelerate the loss of brain tissue in women 65 and older beyond what normally occurs with aging.

The studies' findings appear as companion papers in the Jan. 13 issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Both papers report on analyses from the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study, a substudy of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) landmark Women's Health Initiative (WHI) hormone therapy clinical trials.

Patients with dementia and diabetes appear to display a different pattern of injuries in their brains than patients with dementia but without diabetes, according to an article posted online today that will appear in the March print issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

A study from a team of researchers led by Dr. Andrew P. Makrigiannis, Director of the Molecular Immunology Research Unit at the IRCM, has identified a new mechanism regulating interferon production. This discovery, co-authored by scientists from the International Medical Center of Japan (Tokyo), the National Cancer Institute at Frederick (Maryland) and the McGill Centre for the Study of Host Resistance, was published on December 22, 2008 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Each year tens of millions of Americans, young and old, choose to learn about science outside of the classroom in informal settings such as museums, aquariums, zoos, and after-school programs, as well as through educational media.

For 30 years, scientists have been studying stone-handling behavior in several troops of Japanese macaques to catch a unique glimpse of primate culture. By watching these monkeys acquire and maintain behavioral traditions from generation to generation, the scientists have gained insight into the cultural evolution of humans.

Girls targeted by bullies at primary school are two and a half times more likely to remain victims than boys, according to research from the University of Warwick and University of Hertfordshire.

Researchers found girls being directly victimised by bullies (being beaten and suffering physical or verbal threats) at six years old were significantly more likely to still be a direct victim at age ten.

CHESTNUT HILL, MA (January 12, 2009) – German scientist Otto H. Warburg's theory on the origin of cancer earned him the Nobel Prize in 1931, but the biochemical basis for his theory remained elusive.

His theory that cancer starts from irreversible injury to cellular respiration eventually fell out of favor amid research pointing to genomic mutations as the cause of uncontrolled cell growth.