Brain

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — If there's one thing that everyone knows about newborn babies, it's that they don't sleep through the night, and neither do their parents. But in fact, those first six months of life are crucial to developing the regular sleeping and waking patterns, known as circadian rhythms, that a child will need for a healthy future.

Since Galaxy Zoo's launch in July 2007, some 150,000 members of the public, inspired by the opportunity to be the first to see and classify a galaxy, have helped professional astronomers via this on-line mass-participation project to carry out real scientific research.

Two of Galaxy Zoo's founders, Chris Lintott, from the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford, and Kate Land reflect on the project's success in September's Physics World.

A deficiency of B-vitamins may cause vascular cognitive impairment, according to a new study. Researchers at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts University used an experimental model to examine the metabolic, cognitive, and microvascular effects of dietary B-vitamin deficiency. Their findings appear in the August 26, 2008 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Scientists at Penn State have developed a new computational method that they say will help them to understand how life began on Earth. The team's method has the potential to trace the evolutionary histories of proteins all the way back to either cells or viruses, thus settling the debate once and for all over which of these life forms came first. "We have just begun to tap the potential power of this method," said Randen Patterson, a Penn State assistant professor of biology and one of the project's leaders.

DURHAM, NC -- The Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act (FDAMA, 1997), designed to stimulate more drug safety studies in children, has resulted in more than 130 label changes since its inception nearly six years ago, according to researchers at Duke Children's Hospital.

Their analysis appears in the September issue of Pediatrics.

Being an athlete or merely a fan improves language skills when it comes to discussing their sport because parts of the brain usually involved in playing sports are instead used to understand sport language, new research at the University of Chicago shows.

OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA – The estimated rate of anaphylaxis in young women after human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination was significantly higher – 5 to 20 fold – than that identified in comparable school-based vaccination programs, according to a study published in CMAJ http://www.cmaj.ca/press/179_6_525.pdf. However, the overall rates of anaphylaxis were low with no associated serious lasting effects.

Older age among fathers may be associated with an increased risk for bipolar disorder in their offspring, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Brain scans taken at different times of year suggest that the actions of the serotonin transporter—involved in regulating the mood-altering neurotransmitter serotonin—vary by season, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. These fluctuations may potentially explain seasonal affective disorder and related mood changes.

Low-birth-weight children appear to be at higher risk for psychiatric disturbances from childhood through high school than normal-birth-weight children, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. In addition, low-birth-weight children from urban communities may be more likely to have attention problems than suburban low-birth-weight children.

Family-focused therapy, when combined with medication, appears effective in stabilizing symptoms of depression among teens with bipolar disorder, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Background

The autistic disorder was first described, more than sixty years ago, by Dr. Leo Kanner of the Johns Hopkins Hospital (USA), who created the new label ´early infantile autism´. At the same time an Austrian scientist, Dr. Hans Asperger, described a milder form of the disorder that became known as Asperger Syndrome, characterised by higher cognitive abilities and more normal language function. Today, both disorders are classified in the continuum of ´Pervasive Developmental Disorders´ (PDD), more often referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).

Westchester, Ill. — A neuroimaging study in the Sept. 1 issue of the journal Sleep is the first to find that cognitive processes related to verbal fluency are compromised in people with insomnia despite the absence of a behavioral deficit. These specific brain function alterations can be reversed, however, through non-pharmacological treatment with sleep therapy.

Westchester, Ill. – A study in the Sept. 1 issue of the journal Sleep is the first to objectively determine the prevalence of periodic limb movements during sleep (PLMS) in a population-based sample, finding a lower prevalence of PLMS in African-Americans and a higher rate of insomnia complaints in people with PLMS.