Brain

The act of handling money makes young children work harder and give less, according to new research published by the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management and University of Illinois at Chicago. The effect was observed in children who lacked concrete knowledge of money's purpose, and persisted despite the denomination of the money.

Watching a lot of TV and having a low physical activity level as a young adult were associated with worse cognitive function 25 years later in midlife, according to an article published online by JAMA Psychiatry.

Few studies have investigated the association between physical activity in early adulthood and cognitive function later in life. Coupled with the increasing prevalence of sedentary or screen-based activities, such as watching television, these trends are of concern for upcoming generations of young people.

Difficulty handling emotions and keeping them under control can cause various psychological issues and even lead to full-blown psychiatric problems (in cases of emotionally catastrophic events). This is especially true in childhood. Trauma experienced in youth can contribute to later problems such as depression, anxiety and even more serious conditions.

A new study published in Developmental Psychology put to test the hypothesis that adolescents become less similar to their friends and more similar to romantic partners after they start a new romantic relationship. Results of the study showed that adolescents who dated were more similar to dating partners than to friends on measures of alcohol abuse. Non-daters who started dating changed from being more similar to friends to being more similar to romantic partners.

CHICAGO - Researchers in the Netherlands studying thousands of healthy adults have found a connection between very early stages of brain and heart disease. Results of their study were presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

A Personal View, published today in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal, highlights that the global diet is getting sweeter, particularly when it comes to beverages. This Personal View paper is written by Professor Barry M Popkin, School of Public Health, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, and Dr Corinna Hawkes, City University London, UK.

Part of the reason people find smoking difficult to quit is that each time they have a cigarette, feelings of craving, irritability and anxiety melt away. This component of addiction is known as negative reward and is controlled in part by a region of the brain called the habenula. The neurotransmitters acetylcholine and glutamate are thought to influence nicotine dependence in the habenula, but the molecular details of this regulation are unclear.

Babies learn about the world by exploring how their bodies move in space, grabbing toys, pushing things off tables and by watching and imitating what adults are doing.

But when roboticists want to teach a robot how to do a task, they typically either write code or physically move a robot's arm or body to show it how to perform an action.

MAYWOOD, Ill. - In addition to treating depression, a commonly used antidepressant medication also protects against compounds that can cause memory loss and dementia, a Loyola University Medical Center study has found.

The study found that blood levels of two neurotoxic compounds dropped significantly in depressed patients after they were treated with the antidepressant escitalopram (Lexapro®).

The study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, provides new insights into how the immune system responds to depression.

Antiretroviral therapies, or ART, have enabled people with HIV and AIDS to live much longer lives, transforming what was considered a death sentence into a chronic condition. Yet concerns for these patients remain. Up to half of people with HIV on these drug regimens have some sort of cognitive impairment, such as memory loss or problems with executive functioning, despite the virus being almost undetectable in their bodies.

AUGUSTA, Ga. - A novel peptide appears to enhance a natural mechanism for protecting stressed brain cells and improve cognitive function following cardiac arrest, scientists report.

The brain is the body's biggest user of oxygen and glucose, and "The minute your heart stops beating, blood flow is compromised to the brain. It's called global cerebral ischemia," said Dr. Darrell W. Brann, vice chairman of the Department of Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.

You may believe that you have forgotten the Chinese you spoke as a child, but your brain hasn't. Moreover, that "forgotten" first language may well influence what goes on in your brain when you speak English or French today.

In a paper published today in Nature Communications, researchers from McGill University and the Montreal Neurological Institute describe their discovery that even brief, early exposure to a language influences how the brain processes sounds from a second language later in life. Even when the first language learned is no longer spoken.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - A new study from the University of Michigan finds adults with cerebral palsy are more likely to have secondary chronic health conditions, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, than adults without cerebral palsy.

The findings raise questions about how to prevent or reduce these conditions among the high-risk population.

New research published in the December 2015 issue of The FASEB Journal, shows that in mouse models of the disease oral administration of magnesium-L-threonate (MgT) alleviated cognitive decline by suppressing the Aβ deposition in amyloid plaques in an APH-1α/1β-dependent manner. Although questions still remain about how MgT permeates the blood-brain barrier, the work suggests that scientists may have found the key to a new series of Alzheimer's disease treatments.

Scientists have identified a network of nine genes that play a key role in the onset of Alzheimer's Disease.

The finding could help scientists develop new treatments to delay the onset of the disease, said lead researcher Associate Professor Mauricio Arcos-Burgos from The Australian National University (ANU).

In a study of a family of 5,000 people in Columbia, scientists identified genes that delayed the disease, and others that accelerated it, and by how much.