Brain

Every day, we constantly absorb information through our sensory organs, which the brain then needs to process correctly. The information initially reaches the main relay center, the thalamus, and then travels to the cerebral cortex. The neurons in the so-called higher-order thalamus form the connecting lines between both areas of the brain. Prior to this, their role in sensory processing was unknown. Scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now shown for the first time in an animal model that they enhance and temporarily store sensory information.

CAMBRIDGE, MA - A new brain imaging study from MIT and Harvard Medical School may lead to a screen that could identify children at high risk of developing depression later in life.

PHILADELPHIA -- A powerful new machine-learning technique can be applied to large datasets in the biological sciences to uncover previously unknown features of organisms and their genes, according to a team led by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. For example, the technique learned the characteristic gene-expression patterns that appear when a pathogenic bacterium is exposed to low-oxygen conditions and robustly identified changes that occur in response to antibiotics.

Mindfulness, described as paying attention on purpose and being in the present moment with acceptance, could be an effective way to help children avoid obesity. New research published in the journal Heliyon suggests that the balance in brain networks in children who are obese is different compared to healthy-weight children, making them more prone to over-eating.

PHILADELPHIA - Lab-grown neural networks have the ability to replace lost axonal tracks in the brains of patients with severe head injuries, strokes or neurodegenerative diseases and can be safely delivered with minimal disruption to brain tissue, according to new research from Penn Medicine's department of Neurosurgical Research. Their work is published in the Journal of Neural Engineering.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The scars of childhood abuse and neglect affect adults' brains for decades to come - including their ability to process and act on information both quickly and accurately, new research suggests.

That kind of quick "go or don't go" thinking is crucial to everyday situations like driving or rare events like reacting to an emergency. And it appears to be less accurate and more impulsive in adults who suffered physical, emotional or sexual trauma in their early years than in those who did not, the study finds.

LA JOLLA--Salk researchers and collaborators have achieved critical insight into the size of neural connections, putting the memory capacity of the brain far higher than common estimates. The new work also answers a longstanding question as to how the brain is so energy efficient and could help engineers build computers that are incredibly powerful but also conserve energy.

Regions of the brain that normally work together to process emotion become decoupled in people who experience multiple episodes of depression, neuroscientists report. The findings may help identify which patients will benefit from longterm antidepressant treatment to prevent the recurrence of depressive episodes.

The study, led by researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is published in the journal Psychological Medicine.

Building on a 30-year, three-generation study of depressed individuals, their children and offspring, a study published in the journal Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging provides a better understanding of the familial risk for depression and the role neuroplasticity might have in increasing the risk of developing depression.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Just as most of the world's air travel passes through a few major hubs, the majority of information in the brain flows through similarly well-traveled routes, Indiana University scientists have found.

A new study, reported Jan. 19, 2016 in the journal Neuroscience, shows that 70 percent of all information within cortical regions in the brain passes through only 20 percent of these regions' neurons.

Hamilton, ON (Jan. 20, 2016) - Teens with food allergies are more likely to have depression, anxiety or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) -- and it's mom that notices it.

A McMaster University-led study has found that the mothers of teens with food allergies are more likely than the kids themselves to report that the youth have emotional and behavioural problems.

Leveraging publicly available social media posts could help disaster response agencies quickly identify impacted areas in need of assistance, according to a Penn State-led team of researchers. By analyzing the September 2013 Colorado floods, researchers showed that a combination of remote sensing, Twitter and Flickr data could be used to identify flooded areas.

In the early stages of life, peer play is an important factor in the developmental growth of a child. It is during play and children's interactions with peers when many essential and vital skills are learned, from social connections to emotional, language, and cognitive abilities.

Fukuoka, Japan - Manufacture of longer, thinner, and uncontaminated carbon nanotubes, and successfully isolating them, have been ongoing challenges for researchers. A newly developed method has opened up new possibilities in carbon nanotube development.

Yo-yoing between eating well during the week and bingeing on junk food over the weekend is likely to be just as bad for your gut health as a consistent diet of junk, new UNSW research suggests.

The study, led by Professor Margaret Morris, the Head of Pharmacology at UNSW, examined the impact of yo-yo dieting on the gut microbiota of rats. The findings have been published in the journal Molecular Nutrition and Food Research.