Brain

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- Minutes after having sexual intercourse with her boyfriend, a 35-year-old woman suddenly felt her left arm go weak. Her speech became slurred and she lost feeling on the left side of her face.

She was having a stroke. Doctors later concluded the stroke probably was due to several related factors, including birth control pills, a venous blood clot, sexual intercourse and a heart defect.

Doctors at Loyola University Medical Center describe the unusual case in the Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Disease.

CHAPEL HILL – Nearly every child who receives an antipsychotic medicine is first prescribed one of the second-generation, or “atypical” drugs, such as olanzapine and risperidone. However, there has never been evidence that these drugs are more effective than the older, first-generation medications.

Now a study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine suggests that molindone, a first-generation drug, is as effective as the newer ones and should be used as a first line of therapy in some children with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder.

Two newer atypical antipsychotic medications were no more effective than an older conventional antipsychotic in treating child and adolescent schizophrenia and may lead to more metabolic side effects, according to a new study funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The study was published online ahead of print September 15, 2008, in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

It will be the only magnetic resonance tomograph of the modern 7 tesla generation in the world, in which a metrology institute is also involved. Magnetic resonance tomographs, which use a magnetic field of 7 tesla, have not yet been in operation in hospitals and clinics, but have solely served research. For the first time in the world, cardiovascular research carried out on such a device is now also to play an important role.

A new type of drug could alleviate pain in a similar way to cannabis without affecting the brain, according to a new study published in the journal Pain on Monday 15 September.

The research demonstrates for the first time that cannabinoid receptors called CB2, which can be activated by cannabis use, are present in human sensory nerves in the peripheral nervous system, but are not present in a normal human brain.

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- New findings about the causes of mad cow disease show that sometimes it may be genetic.

"We now know it's also in the genes of cattle," said Juergen A. Richt, Regents Distinguished Professor of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology at Kansas State University's College of Veterinary Medicine.

LA JOLLA, CA — Neurons constituting the optic nerve wire up to the brain in a highly dynamic way. Cell bodies in the developing retina sprout processes, called axons, which extend toward visual centers in the brain, lured by attractive cues and making U-turns when they take the wrong path. How they find targets so accurately is a central question of neuroscience today.

STANFORD, Calif. - Marauding molecules cause the tissue damage that underlies heart attacks, sunburn, Alzheimer's and hangovers. But scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine say they may have found ways to combat the carnage after discovering an important cog in the body's molecular detoxification machinery.

The culprit molecules are oxygen byproducts called free radicals. These highly unstable molecules start chain reactions of cellular damage - an escalating storm that ravages healthy tissue.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- In work that could aid efforts to develop more brain-like computer vision systems, MIT neuroscientists have tricked the visual brain into confusing one object with another, thereby demonstrating that time teaches us how to recognize objects.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A study led by a team of education researchers from Mayo Clinic and published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) concludes that Internet-based education generally is effective.

Scientists at the University of Rochester have shown for the first time that our brains automatically consider many possible words and their meanings before we've even heard the final sound of the word.

Feeling blue? According to Prof. Leonid Yaroslavsky from Tel Aviv University, the saying may be more than just a metaphor.

Ask a teacher to name the most irritating invention of recent years and they will often nominate the mobile phone.

Exasperated by the distractions and problems they create, many headteachers have ordered that pupils must keep their phones switched off at school. Others have told pupils to leave them at home.

However, education researchers at The University of Nottingham believe it is time that phone bans were reassessed — because mobile phones can be a powerful learning aid, they say.

Our brains contain their own navigation system much like satellite navigation ("sat-nav"), with in-built maps, grids and compasses, neuroscientist Dr Hugo Spiers told the BA Festival of Science at the University of Liverpool today.

The brain's navigation mechanism resides in an area know as the hippocampus, which is responsible for learning and memory and famously shown to be different in London taxi drivers in a Wellcome Trust-funded study carried out by Professor Eleanor Maguire at UCL (University College London).

Scientists have finally identified a direct role for the missing protein that leaves cystic fibrosis patients open to attack from lung-damaging bacteria, the main reason most of them die before their 35th birthday, scientists heard today (Thursday 11 September 2008) at the Society for General Microbiology's Autumn meeting being held this week at Trinity College, Dublin.