Brain

[PRESS RELEASE, 28 November 2008] Mice that were fed a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol for nine months developed a preliminary stage of the morbid irregularities that form in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. The study results, published in a doctoral thesis from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet (KI), give some indications of how this difficult to treat disease might one day be preventable.

Attending a high quality pre-school followed by an academically effective primary school gives a significant boost to children's development. These are the findings of a new study which shows that a stimulating early years home-learning environment also provides a sound foundation on which these experiences build.

A PREGNANT woman who knows her unborn child has Down's syndrome might one day be able to prevent some symptoms before giving birth.

That at least is the hope raised by experiments in mice. When fetal mouse pups that had a syndrome similar to Down's were treated with nerve-protecting chemicals, some of the developmental delays that are part of the condition were removed.

Devaux and Gow demonstrate how a tight junction protein called claudin 11 makes the neuronal myelin sheath a snug fit. The study will be published in the December 1, 2008 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology (www.jcb.org).

Like the rubber coating on a copper wire, the myelin sheath—a membrane extension of glial cells that spirals around the axons of neurons—creates an insulation layer that prevents current leakage from axons and aids electrical conduction along the length of the axon.

Faint magnetic signals from brain activity in children with autism show that those children process sound and language differently from non-autistic children. Identifying and classifying these brain response patterns may allow researchers to more accurately diagnose autism and possibly aid in developing more effective treatments for the developmental disorder.

CHICAGO – Abnormalities in auditory and language processing may be evaluated in children with autism spectrum disorder by using magnetoencephalography (MEG), according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

CHICAGO – Older adults who exercise regularly show increased cerebral blood flow and a greater number of small blood vessels in the brain, according to findings presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

The study, conducted at the University of North Carolina (UNC) – Chapel Hill, is the first to compare brain scans of older adults who exercise to brain scans of those who do not.

Boston, MA -- Researchers have hypothesized that people with lower IQs may have a higher risk of adult mental disorders, but few studies have looked at the relationship between low childhood IQ and psychiatric disorders later in life. In a new, long-term study covering more than three decades, researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) found that children with lower IQs showed an increased risk of developing psychiatric disorders as adults, including schizophrenia, depression and generalized anxiety disorder.

WASHINGTON — Drivers make more mistakes when talking on a cell phone than when talking to passengers, new research shows.

This finding addresses the common question about whether driver distraction comes from cell-phone use specifically or conversation generally. A full report appears in the December issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, published by the American Psychological Association.

Westchester, Ill. — A study in the Dec. 1 issue of the journal Sleep is the first to show that high levels of prenatal smoking exposure strongly modify sleep patterns in preterm neonates, which places infants at a higher risk for developmental difficulties that could persist throughout early and middle childhood.

SALT LAKE CITY -- Drivers are far more distracted by talking on a cellular phone than by conversing with a passenger in an automobile, according to a new study by University of Utah psychologists Frank Drews, David Strayer and Monisha Pasupathi.

The study, which used a sophisticated driving simulator, found that when drivers talk on a cell phone, they drift out of their lanes and missed exits more frequently than drivers conversing with a passenger.

Research shows for the first time that a group-based psychological treatment, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), could be a viable alternative to prescription drugs for people suffering from long-term depression.

Researchers at the Texas A&M Health Science Center Institute of Biosciences and Technology, and the University of Edinburgh have uncovered how a bacterial pathogen interacts with the blood coagulation protein fibrinogen to cause methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections, a finding that could aid in developing therapeutics against the potentially deadly disease. Their work appears November 28 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens.

MADISON -- U.S. science and engineering students emerge from graduate school exquisitely trained to carry out research. Yet when it comes to the other major activity they'll engage in as professors – teaching – they're usually left to their own devices.

If chromosomes snuggle up too closely at the wrong times, the results can be genetic disaster.

Now researchers have found the molecular machines in fruit flies that yank chromosomes, the DNA-carrying structures, apart when necessary.

The machines, proteins called condensin II, separate chromosomes by twisting them into supercoils that kink up and therefore can no longer touch.

Scientists had known of condensin II but did not know how it functioned inside cells.