Brain

When treating a patient with stroke, every minute counts. A specialized stroke ambulance (Stroke Emergency Mobile or STEMO) allows physicians to start specific treatment, such as thrombolysis, at scene. A recent study conducted by researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin investigated whether this earlier response time leads to an improved prognosis. Patients who received the appropriate treatment during transfer to the hospital were less likely to have a disability three months after their stroke than patients who received conventional treatment.

BOSTON - In a special report released August 23 in the journal Radiology, a team of researchers including Deborah Levine, MD, Director of Obstetric & Gynecologic ultrasound at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School (HMS), documented the brain abnormalities associated with congenital Zika in 45 confirmed and presumed cases from northeastern Brazil. Today, more than 50 countries and territories report the active transmission of Zika virus, a mosquito-borne illness linked to microcephaly in babies born to infected mothers.

A multidisciplinary team including researchers from the Montreal Neurological Institute has improved our understanding of how cannabinoids, the active agent in marijuana, affect vision in vertebrates.

Scientists used a variety of methods to test how tadpoles react to visual stimuli when they've been exposed to increased levels of exogenous or endogenous cannabinoids. Exogenous cannabinoids are artificially introduced drugs, whereas endogenous cannabinoids occur naturally in the body.

Peer pressure is a proven social motivator, and seeing a friend or colleague succeed at a task can boost individual effort. Researchers at the New York University Tandon School of Engineering probed this decidedly human attribute -- sensitivity to competition from peers -- and found that not only is virtual pressure from a computer-simulated peer just as motivating as the real thing, but that "fake" competition can be used for the good of science.

Infection by the Zika virus diverts a key protein necessary for neural cell division in the developing human fetus, thereby causing the birth defect microcephaly, a team of Yale scientists reported Aug. 24 in the journal Cell Reports.

The findings suggest that Zika virus might be susceptible to existing antiviral drugs that may prevent disruption to the developing nervous system, said the researchers.

CHAPEL HILL, NC - More than 100 million people worldwide take selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), such as Prozac and Zoloft, to treat depression, anxiety and related conditions, but these drugs have a common and mysterious side effect: they can worsen anxiety in the first few weeks of use, which leads many patients to stop treatment. Scientists at the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine have mapped out a serotonin-driven anxiety circuit that may explain this side effect and lead to treatments to eliminate it.

A 25-year-old man recovering from a coma has made remarkable progress following a treatment at UCLA to jump-start his brain using ultrasound. The technique uses sonic stimulation to excite the neurons in the thalamus, an egg-shaped structure that serves as the brain's central hub for processing information.

Fifty years to the day after the film Fantastic Voyage was first shown in theatres, the Polytechnique Montréal Nanorobotics Laboratory is unveiling a unique medical interventional infrastructure devoted to the fight against cancer. The outcome of 15 years of research conducted by Professor Sylvain Martel and his team, it enables microscopic nanorobotic agents to be guided through the vascular systems of living bodies, delivering drugs to targeted areas.

An action-packed 100,000-kilometre journey in the human body

Our beliefs about how farm animals are raised can shape our meat-eating experience, according to a new study led by Lisa Feldman Barrett, University Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University.

Montreal, August 24, 2016 -- Parents across North America are prepping their teens to head back to high school, hoping they will study hard to get straight A's. But new research shows that good grades aren't just based on smarts -- high marks also depend on a student's feelings of safety.

Simple changes in how we cook could go a long way towards preventing diabetes, say researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. A new randomized controlled trial, published online July 29 in the journal Diabetologia, found that obese individuals with signs of insulin resistance showed improvement simply by avoiding the intake of advanced glycation endproducts, or AGEs, a byproduct of cooking found most commonly in dry heat-cooked or heat-processed foods.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Preschool-aged children, and their parents, are more likely to view the physical actions of prayer (i.e., closing eyes, folding hands) to help with reflection and communicating with God. This is according to a new study by Rebekah Richert, a psychology professor at the University of California, Riverside. The paper, titled "Folding Your Hands Helps God Hear You: Prayer and Anthropomorphism in Parents and Children," was published in Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion.

The U.S. Supreme Court answered this question in two recent decisions (Miller v. Alabama, 2012; Montgomery v. Louisiana, 2016). "Rarely," the Court said, and only when developmental evidence shows that the juvenile is "irreparably corrupt." Moreover, in juvenile homicide cases, developmental evidence must now guide courts' assignment of lesser sentences than life with parole as well.

Understanding how parents cope while their child is in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) could lead to better support for the family and a more successful transition to home when the baby is healthy, according to Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Harrisburg researchers. Parental use of religious and secular coping strategies while their prematurely born baby receives intensive medical care may affect the family's interactions.

People who experience job loss, divorce, death of a loved one or any number of life's upheavals often adopt coping mechanisms to make the situation less traumatic.

While these strategies manifest as behaviors, a Princeton University and National Institutes of Health study suggests that our response to stressful situations originates from structural changes in our brain that allow us to adapt to turmoil.