Brain

Naturally occurring changes in brain wiring can help patients at high genetic risk of developing bipolar disorder avert the onset of the illness, according to a new study led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published online today in the journal Translational Psychiatry. The study's findings open up new avenues for researchers to explore ways the brain can prevent disease expression, also known as resilience, with the hope of developing better treatments.

BEER-SHEVA, Israel... January 5, 2016 - A simple, computer-training task can change the brain's wiring to regulate emotional reactions, according to a recent study published in NeuroImage by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers.

TORONTO, Jan. 5, 2016--About half of all patients with Alzheimer's disease develop symptoms of psychosis, such as delusions or hallucinations.

But the pathological mechanisms that underlie psychotic symptoms are unclear, limiting the ability to manage and treat them. Some studies have suggested they are related to the underlying causes of Alzheimer's disease such as the protein deposits found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients, but others found no correlation.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA, JAN. 5, 2016). Researchers from Memphis, Tennessee, have examined intracranial gunshot wounds (GSWs) in children and adolescents, and identified nine clinical, laboratory, and radiological factors that were predictive of these patients' outcomes.

Amsterdam, NL, January 4, 2016 - Recent evidence has shown a greater risk of dementia, in particular Alzheimer's disease (AD), in individuals using anticholinergic medications regularly. These drugs are widely used by older adults to treat bladder dysfunction, mood, and pain, and many of them are available without prescription. Since these drugs are often used to treat both motor symptoms and non-motor symptoms in patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD), there is concern for increased risk of dementia.

The workings of neural circuits associated with creativity are significantly altered when artists are actively attempting to convey emotions, according to a new brain-scanning study of jazz pianists.

Penn State University scientists have discovered a novel drug target and have rescued functional deficits in human nerve cells derived from patients with Rett Syndrome, a severe form of autism-spectrum disorder. The research, led by Gong Chen, professor of biology and the Verne M. Willaman Chair in Life Sciences at Penn State, could lead to a new treatment for Rett Syndrome and other forms of autism-spectrum disorders. A paper describing the research will be published on January 4, 2016 in the online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"It was a privilege to be a part of this well-designed and executed study. Russell Ware presented the results at the ASH meeting, and 18 years ago, almost to the day, I presented the STOP study results to the same meeting," said Robert J. Adams, M.D., study principal investigator, MUSC professor of neurosciences and director of the South Carolina Stroke Center of Economic Excellence. "That study showed how effective transcranial Doppler risk stratification, followed by regular red cell transfusions in those with high risk blood flow, can be in the prevention of stroke in these children.

KNOXVILLE--In recent years, the argument that sexual orientation is innate has become a principal component of the advocacy for the rights of sexual minorities.

That belief may not be the most effective way to promote more positive attitudes toward lesbian, gay and bisexual people, according to new research from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Understanding the cellular building blocks of the brain, including the number and diversity of cell types, is a fundamental step toward understanding brain function. Researchers at the Allen Institute for Brain Science have created a detailed taxonomy of cells in the mouse visual cortex based on single-cell gene expression, identifying 49 distinct cell types in the largest collection of individual adult cortical neurons characterized by gene expression published to date. The work appears this month online in Nature Neuroscience.

The background to this new set of experiments lies in the debate regarding conscious will and determinism in human decision-making, which has attracted researchers, psychologists, philosophers and the general public, and which has been ongoing since at least the 1980s. Back then, the American researcher Benjamin Libet studied the nature of cerebral processes of study participants during conscious decision-making.

WASHINGTON -- People worldwide tend to gain self-esteem as they grow older, and men generally have higher levels of self-esteem than women, but this self-esteem gender gap is more pronounced in Western industrialized countries, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - No one wants to knowingly buy products made with child labor or that harm the environment.

But a new study shows that we also don't want to work too hard to find out whether our favorite products were made ethically. And we really don't like those good people who make the effort to seek out ethically made goods when we choose not to.

In fact, we denigrate consumers who act more ethically than we do, seeing them as less fashionable and more boring. Worst of all, seeing others act ethically when we don't undermines our commitment to pro-social values.

The workings of neural circuits associated with creativity are significantly altered when artists are actively attempting to express emotions, according to a new brain-scanning study of jazz pianists.

The combination of human and computer intelligence might be just what we need to solve the "wicked" problems of the world, such as climate change and geopolitical conflict, say researchers from the Human Computation Institute (HCI) and Cornell University.