Brain

The article has been published in the journal Ethology, Ecology and Evolution, with a title the researcher Roberto Cazzolla Gatti borrowed from the novel by Lewis Carroll: "Self-consciousness: beyond the looking-glass and what dogs found there".

Three biomarker-based categories, called biotypes, outperformed traditional diagnoses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder with psychosis, in sorting psychosis cases into distinct subgroups on the basis of brain biology, report researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health. A hallmark of severe mental illness, psychosis is marked by hallucinations and delusions, or false, irrational beliefs.

People are less willing to rely on their knowledge and say they know something when they have access to the Internet, suggesting that our connection to the web is affecting how we think.

TORONTO, Dec. 8, 2015 - Researchers have discovered how to diagnose Alzheimer's disease with more than 82 per cent accuracy by evaluating the interplay between four linguistic factors; and developing automated technology to detect these impairments.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- More than one in four doctors in the early stages of their careers has signs of depression, a comprehensive new study finds. And the grueling years of training for a medical career may deserve some of the blame.

That's bad news not just for the young doctors themselves, but also for the patients they care for now and in the future. Depressed doctors are known to be more likely to make mistakes or give worse care.

One can't help but notice that migration is increasing. The trend over the last century has been toward greater mobility for more people around the world. Many people today live in a place different from where they were born, with different social norms and customs.

Cranky or grumpy after a long night? Your brain's ability to regulate emotions is probably compromised by fatigue. This is bad news for 30 percent of American adults who get less than six hours of sleep per night, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

BINGHAMTON, NY - If you don't want to send the wrong message, watch how you punctuate your texts. Text messages that end with a period are perceived to be less sincere than messages that do not, according to newly published research from Binghamton University.

A drug destined for the scrap heap has been rescued by Oxford scientists, who may have found it a new role in treating bipolar disorder.

A team from Oxford University, led by Dr Grant Churchill and Dr Sridhar Vasudevan of the Department of Pharmacology, in collaboration with Professor Phil Cowen of the Department of Psychiatry, used a database of 'failed' drugs, found to be safe but ineffective for their proposed use, to identify ebselen as a possible alternative to lithium, the main treatment for people who are bipolar.

ROCHESTER, Minn. - Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered a series of proteins that could be diagnostic markers to identify bipolar I disorder. If this discovery sample can be validated through replication these markers may help as a diagnostic tool for psychiatrists treating mood disorders. The findings appear in the journal Translational Psychiatry.

Opting for smaller rewards immediately instead of waiting for bigger payoffs later is associated with problems such as impulsivity and addiction to food, drugs and alcohol. Now, new research indicates that such decision-making tendencies have a genetic link to brain pathways that underlie these disorders.

The researchers, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, report their findings Tuesday, Dec. 8, at the annual meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, in Hollywood, Fla.

Social networks have been found to influence academic performance: students tend to perform better with high-performers among their friends, as some people are capable of inspiring others to try harder, according to Maria Yudkevich, Sofia Dokuka and Dilara Valeyeva of the HSE Centre for Institutional Studies.

Most sociologists recognise four factors affecting student academic performance, namely:

Philadelphia, PA, December 8, 2015 - Mounting evidence indicates that disturbances in the brain's glutamate pathway contribute to symptoms of schizophrenia. Thus, the glutamate pathway has become the target of a number of new drug therapies. Findings published in the journal Biological Psychiatry suggest that at least one of these drugs may be an effective treatment for individuals in the early course of the illness.

Change your attitude. Change your behavior. Change your brain. Discussing the costs of pursuing the unrealistic thin beauty ideal reduces valuation of this idea.

DALLAS - December 8, 2015 - In a groundbreaking study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center, a comprehensive set of empirical biomarkers has been established to aid in diagnosis and treatment of psychosis.

To date, the gold standard for diagnosis of psychosis has been clinical observation, classifying patients into schizophrenia, schizoaffective, and bipolar disorders. But in this study, the Bipolar-Schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes (B-SNIP) identified three neurobiologically distinct biotypes that do not always match up with the conventional clinical diagnosis.