Brain

Past research has shown that the pleasure and reward centers of the brain are activated similarly by dangerous drugs as well as by exercise, which is why therapies have been developed for drug addicts that include lots of exercise. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have found that activating these pleasure and reward receptors in the brain could provide the "reward" of dangerous drugs without having to consume those drugs.

Repeating aloud boosts verbal memory, especially when you do it while addressing another person, says Professor Victor Boucher of the University of Montreal's Department of Linguistics and Translation. His findings are the result of a study that will be published in the next edition of Consciousness and Cognition. "We knew that repeating aloud was good for memory, but this is the first study to show that if it is done in a context of communication, the effect is greater in terms of information recall," Boucher explained.

San Francisco, CA, October 15, 2015 - Amblyopia, commonly known as "lazy-eye," has been classically treated by patching the strong eye to force the weaker eye to be used. However, the concept of binocular dysfunction, in which the brain suppresses the image from the weaker eye in favor of the stronger eye, has motivated new approaches to amblyopia treatment.

Researchers from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA, show for the first time that common marmosets -- Callithrix jacchus, a species of New World monkey -- that receive oxytocin in nose-drops attract more social interaction from their mates. Oxytocin is a hormone released naturally in the blood and brains of humans and other mammals, during social and sexual behaviors. Previous studies showed that individuals who receive an oxytocin boost show greater sociability, through increased cooperation, altruism and communication with members of the same social group.

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have shown that treating hypoglycemia, or low blood glucose, in newborns according to current recommendations is safe and appears to prevent brain damage.

Scientists from the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw in cooperation with the Institute of Physics of the PAS and the University of Jena have developed the concept of a simple chemical computer made of microdroplets capable of searching databases. Computer simulations, carried out on databases of malignant tumours, have confirmed the validity of the adopted new design strategy, which opens the door to the popularisation of chemical methods of processing information.

Scientists describe a perinatal group of Saurolophus angustirostris, a giant hadrosaur dinosaur, all likely from the same nest, found at "Dragon's Tomb" in Mongolia, according to a study published October 14, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Leonard Dewaele from Ghent University and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Belgium and colleagues.

Washington, DC--When a pregnant woman has gestational diabetes, her unborn child tends to react more slowly to sounds after the mother consumes sugary foods or drinks compared to the offspring of a woman who does not have the condition, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

PHILADELPHIA - Epilepsy affects more than 65 million people worldwide. One-third of these patients have seizures that are not controlled by medications. In addition, one-third have brain lesions, the hallmark of the disease, which cannot be located by conventional imaging methods. Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have piloted a new method using advanced noninvasive neuroimaging to recognize the neurotransmitter glutamate, thought to be the culprit in the most common form of medication-resistant epilepsy.

Face-matching experts at the Australian Passport Office are 20 per cent more accurate than average people at detecting fraud using automatic face recognition software, new research shows.

The UNSW-led study is the first to test how well people perform on this difficult but common operational task carried out by passport officers.

Women's prisons should be places of learning with a clear focus on the needs, problems, and relevant educational and qualificational requirements of female inmates. This is one of the core conclusions of the multilateral FEFI - Finding Education for Female Inmates project, in which academic and practice-oriented organizations based in Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Italy, France, Malta, Belgium, and Turkey have been collaborating since November 2013.

A pair of neurons have been found in the brain of male nematode worms that allow them to remember and seek sex even at the expense of food. These neurons, which are male-specific, are required for sex-based differences in learning, suggesting that sex differences in cognitive abilities can be genetically hardwired.

This is important as very little is known about how brains vary to give the two sexes different preferences, aptitudes and judgments.

Emotional abuse may be as harmful as physical abuse and neglect. This finding led by a team of researchers at McGill complements previous imaging research showing that emotional and physical pain both activate the same parts of the brain.

Different types of abuse, same consequences

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and the Sahlgrenska Academy in Sweden might be one step closer to finding an effective drug for alcohol dependence. In two separate studies, they show that the dopamine stabilizer OSU6162 can reduce the craving for alcohol in alcohol dependent people and normalises the level of dopamine in the brain reward system of rats that have consumed alcohol over a long period of time. However, thorough clinical studies are needed to determine if the OSU6162 also can help alcohol dependent people drink less alcohol.

MRT study on test subjects