Brain

The cognitive effects of poverty can be mitigated during middle school with a targeted intervention, according to researchers at the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas.

In a paper published today in the open-access journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, researchers for the first time examine the efficacy of cognitive training in a large and diverse group of 7th and 8th grade public middle school students as compared to typically developing students who received no specific training.

In a sample of U.S. emergency departments, compared to attending physicians alone, supervised visits (involving both resident and attending physicians) were associated with a greater likelihood of hospital admission and use of advanced imaging and with longer emergency department stays, according to a study in the December 10 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical education.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Thinking you're good at math and actually being good at it are not the same thing, new research has found.

About one in five people who say they are bad at math in fact score in the top half of those taking an objective math test. But one-third of people who say they are good at math actually score in the bottom half.

"Some people mis-categorize themselves. They really don't know how good they are when faced with a traditional math test," said Ellen Peters, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at The Ohio State University.

Irvine, Calif., Dec. 9, 2014 -- A learning technique that maximizes the brain's ability to make and store memories may help overcome cognitive issues seen in fragile X syndrome, a leading form of intellectual disability, according to UC Irvine neurobiologists.

SAN FRANCISCO (DECEMBER 9, 2014) -Common variations in four genes related to brain inflammation or cells' response to damage from oxidation may contribute to the problems with memory, learning and other cognitive functions seen in children treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), according to a study led by researchers from Boston Children's Hospital, The Children's Hospital at Montefiore, and Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center.

Timing is key for brain cells controlling a complex motor activity like the singing of a bird, finds a new study published by PLOS Biology.

"You can learn much more about what a bird is singing by looking at the timing of neurons firing in its brain than by looking at the rate that they fire," says Sam Sober, a biologist at Emory University whose lab led the study. "Just a millisecond difference in the timing of a neuron's activity makes a difference in the sound that comes out of the bird's beak."

Nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, has shown early promise as a potential treatment for severe depression in patients whose symptoms don't respond to standard therapies. The pilot study, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is believed to be the first research in which patients with depression were given laughing gas.

When it comes to remembering where a tasty titbit was left, female great tit birds are miles ahead of their male counterparts. This ability might have evolved because the females come second when there's food to be shared, argue Anders Brodin and Utku Urhan of Lund University in Sweden. In Springer's journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, they present one of only a handful of cases in nature in which the female of a bird species has better spatial and learning abilities than the male.

What drives some subsidiaries to strive for so much autonomy that they are actually harming the parent company? A new study in the Journal of International Marketing shows that these dysfunctional business relationships can be understood and improved using basic psychology.

SAN FRANCISCO (DECEMBER 9, 2014) -Common variations in four genes related to brain inflammation or cells' response to damage from oxidation may contribute to the problems with memory, learning and other cognitive functions seen in children treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), according to a study led by researchers from Boston Children's Hospital, The Children's Hospital at Montefiore, and Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Maybe distraction is not always the enemy of learning. It turns out in surprising Brown University psychology research that inconsistent distraction is the real problem. As long as our attention is as divided when we have to recall a motor skill as it was when we learned it, we'll do just fine, according to the new study.

December 9, 2014 - Within a few months after drug withdrawal, patients in recovery from dependence on prescription pain medications may show signs that the body's natural reward systems are normalizing, reports a study in the Journal of Addiction Medicine, the official journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

Physical aggression in toddlers has been thought to be associated with the frustration caused by language problems, but a recent study by researchers at the University of Montreal shows that this isn't the case. The researchers did find, however, that parental behaviours may influence the development of an association between the two problems during early childhood. Frequent hitting, kicking, and a tendency to bite or push others are examples of physical aggression observed in toddlers.

Scientists can now explore nerves in mice in much greater detail than ever before, thanks to an approach developed by scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Monterotondo, Italy. The work, published online today in Nature Methods, enables researchers to easily use artificial tags, broadening the range of what they can study and vastly increasing image resolution.

TORONTO - Dec. 9, 2014 (Toronto) - Scientists at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) have identified a novel drug target that could lead to the development of better antipsychotic medications.

Dr. Fang Liu, Senior Scientist in CAMH's Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute and Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, and her team published their results online in the journal Neuron.