Brain

CHICAGO – Researchers using functional MRI (fMRI) have determined that the circuitry in the area of the brain responsible for suppressing memory is dysfunctional in patients suffering from stress-related psychiatric disorders. Results of the study will be presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

Romantic relationships establish special bonds between partners. Oftentimes, passionate rapport leads to permanent partnerships, and ultimately, the start of families.

Sometimes, however, one or both partners place too much emotional weight on their relationship. As a result, men or women may tend to evaluate their self-worth solely based on the outcomes of their romantic interactions. This is what psychologists term as relationship-contingent self-esteem (RCSE), and, according to University of Houston researcher Chip Knee, it's an unhealthy factor in romantic relationships.

Persons with temporal lobe epilepsy who do not respond to medication could receive a substantial gain in life expectancy and quality of life by undergoing surgery of the temporal lobe part of the brain, according to an analysis reported in the December 3 issue of JAMA.

After you eat a burger and fries or other fat-filled meal, a protein produced by the liver may send a signal that fat is on the way, suggests a report in the December issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication.

Researchers have new evidence to show that the heart beats to its own drummer, according to a report in the December issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication. They've uncovered some of the molecular circuitry within the cardiovascular system itself that controls the daily rise and fall of blood pressure and heart rate. The findings might also explain why commonly used diabetes drugs come with cardiovascular benefits, according to the researchers.

After almost twenty years since the first television subtitles were used, professors Cristina Cambra, Núria Silvestre and Aurora Leal, members of the UAB Research Centre on Hearing Impairment and Language Acquisition (GISTAL), were interested in discovering whether deaf viewers - the main users of this service - actually can understand the programmes, find it easy to read subtitles and understand the messages transmitted through the images.

WASHINGTON -- A new report from the Institute of Medicine proposes revisions to medical residents' duty hours and workloads to decrease the chances of fatigue-related medical errors and to enhance the learning environment for these doctors in training.

A more human approach to processing raw data could change the way that computers deal with information, according to academics at The University of Nottingham.

Researchers in the School of Computer Science at the University's Malaysia Campus are exploring 'granular computing' — a computer paradigm that looks at groups or sets of information, called information granules, rather than the high level of detail at which data is currently processed.

Where would we be without our ability to remember important information or, for that matter, to forget irrelevant details? Thanks to the flexibility of the nerve cell's communication units, called synapses, we are good at both. Up to now, only the receiving side of a synapse was believed to play an active role in this reorganization of the brain, which is thought to underlie our ability to learn but also to forget. An incorrect assumption, as scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried could now show.

Cognitive neuroscientists at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet (KI) have succeeded in making subjects perceive the bodies of mannequins and other people as their own. The findings are published in the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE, December 3.

A new universal test to predict the risk of someone succumbing to major depression has been developed by UCL (University College London) researchers. The online tool, predictD, could eventually be used by family doctors and local clinics to identify those at risk of depression for whom prevention might be most useful.

A team of researchers from Monash University, The Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston), Harvard Medical School and Vanda Pharmaceuticals has found a new drug with the potential to alleviate jet lag and sleep disorders caused by shift work.

Dr Shantha Rajaratnam from Monash University's School of Psychology, Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine said tasimelteon, a drug which acts on melatonin receptors in the brain, could be a highly effective treatment for circadian rhythm sleep disorders.

The research was released today in respected publication, The Lancet.

December 1, 2008, Amsterdam, The Netherlands -- A study published in the November issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease provides an insight into normal, physiological levels and association between proteins involved in development of Alzheimer's disease.

CHICAGO – New research has found that the availability of a portable eight-slice computed tomography (CT) scanner in an emergency room can significantly increase the number of stroke victims who receive a potentially life-saving treatment. Results of the study, conducted at North Shore Medical Center (NSMC)-Salem Hospital in Salem, Mass., will be presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

Once-promising drugs that were abandoned in the fight against breast cancer still could be effective in obese patients, new research suggests.

In laboratory tests, hormones produced by fat cells stimulate breast cancer cells to migrate and invade surrounding tissues, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine found. A class of drugs called epithelial growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors could block the stimulatory effects of the hormones.