Brain

In the human brain, the BBB is not the Better Business Bureau but the blood brain barrier and the BBB is serious business in human physiology. The human BBB separates circulating blood from the central nervous system, thus protecting the brain from many infections and toxins. But the BBB also blocks the passage of many potentially useful drugs to the brain and it has long stymied scientists who want to learn more about this vital tissue because of the lack of realistic non-human lab models. Even less is known about the BBB in children.

The search for a living laboratory model of human neurons in the grip of Alzheimer's disease (AD)--the so-called "Alzheimer's in a dish"--has a new candidate. In work presented at the ASCB/IFCB meeting in Philadelphia, Håkan Toresson and colleagues at Lund University in Sweden report success in creating induced neurons that model Alzheimer's by starting with fibroblasts taken from skin biopsies. The differentiated cells express a full range of normal neuronal markers.

Physicians often ask their patients to "Please stick out your tongue". The tongue can betray signs of illness, which combined with other symptoms such as a cough, fever, presence of jaundice, headache or bowel habits, can help the physician offer a diagnosis. For people in remote areas who do not have ready access to a physician, a new diagnostic system is reported in the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology that works to combine the soft inputs of described symptoms with a digital analysis of an image of the patient's tongue.

A CT scan of the brain within 24 hours of a mild, non-disabling stroke can predict when patients will be at the highest risk of another stroke or when symptoms may worsen, according to new research published in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.

Like stroke, a transient ischemic attack (TIA) is caused by restricted blood supply to the brain. Symptoms may last only a few minutes.

WASHINGTON - Fear of police, language barriers, lack of knowledge of cardiac arrest symptoms and financial concerns prevent Latinos - particularly those of lower socioeconomic status - from seeking emergency medical help and performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), according to a study published online yesterday in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("Barriers to Calling 911 and Learning and Performing Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) for Residents of Primarily Latino, Hig

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Micheal L. Dent, a University at Buffalo psychologist, listens to what is inaudible to others. And what she's hearing might one day help us better understand human hearing loss.

The Social Cost of Carbon puts a dollar value on the climate damages per ton of CO2 released, and is used by - among others -policymakers to help determine the costs and benefits of climate policies. In the latest issue of the journal Science, a group of economists and lawyers urge several improvements to the government's Social Cost of Carbon figure that would impose a regular, transparent and peer-reviewed process to ensure the figure is reliable and well-supported by the latest facts.

People regularly engage in sophisticated 'mentalizing' (i.e. guessing the intentions or beliefs of others) whenever they convince, teach, deceive, and so on. Research published this week in PLOS Computational Biology demonstrates the laws that govern these intuitions and how efficient they are for anticipating the behaviour of other people.

Jean Daunizeau and colleagues from INSERM and CNRS combine mathematical modelling, experimental psychology and behavioural economics to measure the sophistication of human 'mentalizing'.

A public summer jobs program for high school students from disadvantaged neighborhoods in Chicago reduced violent crime arrests by 43 percent over a 16-month period, according to a new study from the University of Chicago Crime Lab and the University of Pennsylvania. The randomized controlled trial is published in the journal Science.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- In a study in the journal Neuron, scientists describe a new high data-rate, low-power wireless brain sensor. The technology is designed to enable neuroscience research that cannot be accomplished with current sensors that tether subjects with cabled connections.

Experiments in the paper confirm that new capability. The results show that the technology transmitted rich, neuroscientifically meaningful signals from animal models as they slept and woke or exercised.

The link between obesity and cardiovascular diseases is well acknowledged. Being obese or overweight is a major risk factor for the development of elevated blood pressure, and cardiovascular diseases. But it has net been known how obesity increases the risk of high blood pressure, making it difficult to develop evidence based therapies for obesity, hypertension and heart disease.

PHILADELPHIA--People with mental illness are more likely to have been tested for HIV than those without mental illness, according to a new study from a team of researchers at Penn Medicine and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published online this week in AIDS Patient Care and STDs.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- It's no secret that low-birth-weight babies face significantly greater risks for certain health problems early on, such as respiratory distress or infection. Now, a new study from researchers at the University of Florida and Northwestern University shows that lower weights at birth also have an adverse effect on children's performance in school, which is likely due to the early health struggles small babies often face.

Many patients with first-episode psychosis receive medications that do not comply with recommended guidelines for first-episode treatment, researchers have found. Current guidelines emphasize low doses of antipsychotic drugs and strategies for minimizing the side effects that might contribute to patients stopping their medication. A study finds that almost 40 percent of people with first-episode psychosis in community mental health clinics across the country might benefit from medication treatment changes.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A group of psychology researchers at Florida State University have developed a simple computer-based approach to treating anxiety sensitivity, something that could have major implications for veterans and other groups who are considered at risk for suicide.