Brain

Storrs, CT - A team of researchers at the University of Connecticut is reexamining a decades-long debate as to whether deaf children should learn sign language to maximize their potential for optimal development.

Research has shown that children born deaf frequently exhibit learning deficits and as a result, often underperform in school. Yet research on deaf children has also found children from signing families develop language, cognition and literacy on normal timetables.

The advantages of speaking a second language - for health and mental ability - are to come under the spotlight at an event at the AAAS annual meeting in Washington, DC.

Experts in bilingualism will examine how learning a second language at any age not only imparts knowledge and cultural understanding, but also improves thinking skills and mental agility. It can delay brain ageing and offset the initial symptoms of dementia.

Bilinguals use and learn language in ways that change their minds and brains, which has consequences -- many positive, according to Judith F. Kroll, a Penn State cognitive scientist.

"Recent studies reveal the remarkable ways in which bilingualism changes the brain networks that enable skilled cognition, support fluent language performance and facilitate new learning," said Kroll, Distinguished Professor, psychology, linguistics and women's studies.

The $1,000,000 Preregistration Challenge, launched one month ago by the Center for Open Science (COS), is testing how addressing scientists' incentives can elicit new behaviors and improve the reproducibility of published research. 1,000 researchers will earn $1,000 each for publishing the results of preregistered research.

Strides are being made with wildlife conservation that invites recreational wildlife enthusiasts to report online observations that help with modeling and migration. Work is also being done to use crowdsourcing to help discover new materials for more environmentally friendly fuels, batteries, etc.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health say they have developed tiny "mini-brains" made up of many of the neurons and cells of the human brain -- and even some of its functionality -- and which can be replicated on a large scale.

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Is your boss ethical? Does he or she do what's right, as opposed to what's profitable?

If so, they may turn downright abusive the next day.

New research on leader behavior by Russell Johnson, associate professor of management at Michigan State University, suggests ethical conduct leads to mental exhaustion and the "moral licensing" to lash out at employees.

Why do we remember some events, places and things, but not others? Our brains prioritize rewarding memories over others, and reinforce them by replaying them when we are at rest, according to new research from the University of California, Davis, Center for Neuroscience, published Feb. 11 in the journal Neuron.

"Rewards help you remember things, because you want future rewards," said Professor Charan Ranganath, a UC Davis neuroscientist and senior author on the paper. "The brain prioritizes memories that are going to be useful for future decisions."

One in 15 adults has moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, a disorder in which a person's breathing is frequently interrupted during sleep -- as many as 30 times per hour.

People with sleep apnea also often report problems with thinking such as poor concentration, difficulty with memory and decision-making, depression, and stress.

A clinical trial of an experimental drug for treatment-resistant major depression finds that modulation of the endogenous opioid system may improve the effectiveness of drugs that target the action of serotonin and related monoamine neurotransmitters.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Humans, like all social animals, have a fundamental need for contact with others. This deeply ingrained instinct helps us to survive; it's much easier to find food, shelter, and other necessities with a group than alone. Deprived of human contact, most people become lonely and emotionally distressed.

Feb. 11, 2016 - Social support has well-known benefits for physical and mental health. But giving support -- rather than receiving it -- may have unique positive effects on key brain areas involved in stress and reward responses, suggests a study in Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society.

BOSTON (Feb. 11, 2016) - The genome of developing brain cells harbors 27 clusters or hotspots where its DNA is much more likely to break in some places than others, researchers from the Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine (PCMM) at Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute report in the journal Cell.

Feb. 11, 2016 - Social support has well-known benefits for physical and mental health. But giving support -- rather than receiving it -- may have unique positive effects on key brain areas involved in stress and reward responses, suggests a study in Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society.

Jewish Israelis may feel more hopeful when they hear messages of hope from Palestinians regardless of whether they are portrayed as peace activists or former militia members who had attacked Israeli military targets, according to new research published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

However, similar hopeful messages from outside experts had no effect in instilling hope, the study found. The group's research may provide insight not only for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but for other societies embroiled in protracted intergroup conflict.