Brain

Boys exposed prenatally to a common chemical used in plastics may be more likely to develop symptoms of anxiety and depression at age 10-12. The new study by researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) within the Mailman School of Public Health examined early life exposure to the chemical Bisphenol A (BPA). Results are published in the journal Environmental Research.

There is new hope in the fight against Huntington's disease. Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes discovered that changing a specific part of the huntingtin protein prevented the loss of critical brain cells and protected against behavioral symptoms in a mouse model of the disease.

Brain State Technologies announces the presentation of a study that describes how use of a wearable neurotechnology device by military personnel could improve sleep and thereby lower the risk of developing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The ideas and analysis are being presented today at the Military Health System Research Symposium (MHSRS), being held August 15-18, in Kissimmee, Florida.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - If you want to predict which political party someone will support, take note of the person's height.

The taller a person is, the more likely he or she is to support conservative political positions, support a conservative party and actually vote for conservative politicians, according to a new study using data from Britain.

Rush hour. The dreaded time of day when traffic conditions seem bent on making you late. As your car slowly creeps in line behind countless others stuck at a stop light, you think to yourself, "Why aren't these lights changing faster?" Traffic control scientists have long tried to solve this signaling problem. Unfortunately, the complexity of traffic situations has made the job extremely hard. A recent study suggests that machines can learn how to plan traffic signals just right to reduce wait times and make traffic queues shorter.

Boys and girls are equally capable of understanding the offside rule in football, but it is boys' everyday experience of the game that makes them better at identifying players in offside positions, recent research from London Metropolitan University has found.

How many words do we know? It turns out that even language experts and researchers have a tough time estimating this.

Armed with a new list of words and using the power of social media, a new study published in Frontiers in Psychology, has found that by the age of twenty, a native English speaking American knows 42 thousand dictionary words.

A study by researchers at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior has found that a healthy diet, regular physical activity and a normal body mass index can reduce the incidence of protein build-ups that are associated with the onset of Alzheimer's disease.

PITTSBURGH, August 15, 2016 - Neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh have identified the neural networks that connect the cerebral cortex to the adrenal medulla, which is responsible for the body's rapid response in stressful situations. These findings, reported in the online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), provide evidence for the neural basis of a mind-body connection.

Scientists from Oxford University and UCL have identified part of our brain that helps us learn to be good to other people. The discovery could help understanding of conditions like psychopathy where people's behaviour is extremely antisocial.

The researchers were led by Dr Patricia Lockwood, who explained: 'Prosocial behaviours are social behaviours that benefit other people. They are a fundamental aspect of human interactions, essential for social bonding and cohesion, but very little is currently known about how and why people do things to help others.

A protein complex called Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2), which plays a critical role in forming specific classes of nerve cells in the brain during development, also plays an important role in the adult brain where it may contribute to Huntington's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, according to a study conducted at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published August 15 in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Brain scans have revealed how a genetic mutation linked to major psychiatric disorders affects the structure, function and chemistry of the brain.

The study offers further clues about how the mutation increases the risk of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.

Experts say the findings could help in the quest for new treatments.

Researchers led by the University of Edinburgh scanned the brains of people that have a specific genetic mutation that causes part of one chromosome to swap places with another.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -Black adults rate school violence and racial inequities higher on their list of children's health concerns than other groups, a new national poll says.

Among black adults, 61 percent believe racial inequities are "a big problem" for children in the U.S., compared to 17 percent of white adults and 45 percent of Hispanic adults, according to the 2016 annual survey of top children's health concerns by the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health.

DALLAS - Aug. 15, 2016 -While medications can quickly reduce depressive symptoms, monitoring work productivity can provide unique insight into whether a patient will require additional treatments to achieve long-term remission, a new study through the Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute finds.

The study found that medications improved work productivity of most participants but that those whose productivity increased more quickly showed more significant reduction in their depression symptoms and were more likely to recover over the long term.

EUGENE, Ore. -- Aug. 15, 2016 - Combining insights from psychology, behavioral economics and neuroscience, University of Oregon researchers have found converging signs of pure altruism and behavior that increase with age in the brain.

People give to charity for numerous non-altruistic reasons, such as showing off their generosity to others. To isolate pure altruism from other motivations, researchers triangulated methods from the three fields.