Brain

A new study led by researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine finds that the brains of obese children literally light up differently when tasting sugar.

Published online in International Journal of Obesity, the study does not show a causal relationship between sugar hypersensitivity and overeating but it does support the idea that the growing number of America's obese youth may have a heightened psychological reward response to food.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- A large international group of scientists, including an Oregon Health & Science University neuroscientist, is publishing this week the results of a first-ever look at the genome of dozens of common birds. The scientists' research tells the story of how modern birds evolved after the mass extinction that wiped out dinosaurs and almost everything else on Earth 66 million years ago, and gives new details on how birds came to have feathers, flight and song.

Montréal, December 11, 2014 - Researchers in Montréal led by Jacques Drouin, D.Sc., uncovered a mechanism regulating dopamine levels in the brain by working on a mouse model of late onset Parkinson's disease. The study, conducted in collaboration with Dr. Rory A. Fisher from the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, is published online today by the scientific journal PLoS Genetics.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - If dieting is on your New Year agenda, it might pay to be mindful of a study suggesting there is little hard evidence that mindfulness leads to weight loss.

Advances in treatment for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have made it possible for people with HIV to survive much longer. As they age, however, many experience impaired thinking, memory loss, mood swings and other evidence of impaired mental function.

DURHAM, N.C. -- His office is filled with all sorts of bird books, but Duke neuroscientist Erich Jarvis didn't become an expert on the avian family tree because of any particular interest in our feathered friends. Rather, it was his fascination with how the human brain understands and reproduces speech that brought him to the birds.

The ascetic and moralizing movements that spawned the world's major religious traditions--Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Christianity--all arose around the same time in three different regions, and researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on December 11 have now devised a statistical model based on history and human psychology that helps to explain why. The emergence of world religions, they say, was triggered by the rising standards of living in the great civilizations of Eurasia.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Some drugs used to treat diabetes mimic the behavior of a hormone that a University at Buffalo psychologist has learned controls fluid intake in subjects. The finding creates new awareness for diabetics who, by the nature of their disease, are already at risk for dehydration.

MAYWOOD, Il. - Riding a couple roller coasters at an amusement park appears to have triggered an unusual stroke in a 4-year-old boy, according to a report in the journal Pediatric Neurology.

The sudden acceleration, deceleration and rotational forces on the head and neck likely caused a tear in the boy's carotid artery. This tear, called a dissection, led to formation of a blood clot that triggered the stroke, Loyola University Medical Center neurologist Jose Biller, MD and colleagues report.

Researchers have found new evidence that explains how some aspects of our personality may affect our health and wellbeing, supporting long-observed associations between aspects of human character, physical health and longevity.

A team of health psychologists at The University of Nottingham and the University of California in Los Angeles carried out a study to examine the relationship between certain personality traits and the expression of genes that can affect our health by controlling the activity of our immune systems.

A cold 'sensor' which triggers the skin's vascular response to the cold could represent an exciting new therapeutic target for the treatment of frostbite and hypothermia, according to scientists at King's College London.

Phoenix, AZ (December 11th, 2014) - Signs of cognitive decline related to aging populations, and even the severe cognitive losses seen in Alzheimer's disease and neurodegenerative disorders, may emerge many years earlier, according to a report presented today at the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology annual meeting in Phoenix (Arizona). The study suggests that early signs of cognitive decline are already present for some individuals during midlife, and that they are linked with risk factors such as elevated blood pressure.

TORONTO, Dec. 11, 2014 -- Nearly seventeen per cent of adults surveyed in Ontario said they have suffered a traumatic brain injury that left them unconscious for five minutes or required them to be hospitalized overnight, according to new research. These same adults also reported more substance use, smoking and recent psychiatric distress.

Researchers compared the prevalence of reported TBI with current substance use, cigarette smoking and psychological distress among 1,999 Ontario adults.

WASHINGTON -- A five-minute functional MRI (fMRI) test can pick up neuronal dysfunction in HIV-positive individuals who don't yet exhibit cognitive decline, say neuroscientists and clinicians at Georgetown University Medical Center.

Their study in Neuroimaging: Clinical provides proof-of-concept that imaging can help track neural functioning in this population, known to be affected by the virus and potentially by the treatments meant to keep HIV at bay.

Treatment of acute traumatic brain injury with the hormone progesterone provides no significant benefit to patients when compared with placebo, a NIH-funded phase III clinical trial has concluded.

The results are scheduled for publication Dec. 10 in the New England Journal of Medicine.