Brain

LEXINGTON, Ky (Nov. 13, 2014) -- A multi-institutional study has defined and established criteria for a new neurological disease closely resembling Alzheimer's disease called primary age-related tauopathy (PART). Patients with PART develop cognitive impairment that can be indistinguishable from Alzheimer's disease, but they lack amyloid plaques. Awareness of this neurological disease will help doctors diagnose and develop more effective treatments for patients with different types of memory impairment.

This news release is available in French.

Who would have thought a Sesame Street video starring the Cookie Monster, of all characters, could teach preschoolers self-control?

But that's exactly what Deborah Linebarger, an associate professor in Teacher and Learning at the University of Iowa, found when she studied a group of preschoolers who repeatedly watched videos of Cookie Monster practicing ways to control his desire to eat a bowl of chocolate chip cookies.

"Me want it," Cookie Monster sings in one video, "but me wait."

As our society ages, a University of Montreal study suggests the health system should be focussing on comorbidity and specific types of disabilities that are associated with higher health care costs for seniors, especially cognitive disabilities. Comorbidity is defined as the presence of multiple disabilities.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have succeeded in explaining how stem cells in the brain change to allow one type of stem cell to produce different cell types at different stages. In a study being published in the journal Neuron, researchers show that the signal molecule TGF-beta acts as a time signal that regulates the nerve stem cells' potential at different stages of the brain's development - knowledge that may be significant for future pharmaceutical development.

Frightening experiences do not quickly fade from memory. A team of researchers under the guidance of the University of Bonn Hospital has now been able to demonstrate in a study that the bonding hormone oxytocin inhibits the fear center in the brain and allows fear stimuli to subside more easily. This basic research could also usher in a new era in the treatment of anxiety disorders. The study has already appeared in advance online in the journal "Biological Psychiatry". The print edition will be available in a few weeks.

The liver stores excess glucose, sugar, in the form of glycogen--chains of glucose--, which is later released to cover body energy requirements. Diabetic patients do not accumulate glucose well in the liver and this is one of the reasons why they suffer from hyperglycemia, that is to say, their blood sugar levels are too high. A study headed by Joan J. Guinovart at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) demonstrates that high hepatic glucose stores in mice prevents weigh gain.

(Boston) - The Alzheimer's drug memantine may perform double-duty helping binge eaters control their compulsion. Researchers have demonstrated that memantine, a neuroprotective drug, may reduce the addictive and impulsive behavior associated with binge eating.

People can gauge the accuracy of their decisions, even if their decision making performance itself is no better than chance, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

People on the autistic spectrum may struggle to recognise social cues, unfamiliar people or even someone's gender because of an inability to interpret changing facial expressions, new research has found.

According to the study by academics at Brunel University London, adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), though able to recognise static faces, struggle with tasks that require them to discriminate between sequences of facial motion or to use facial motion as a cue to identity.

A cat always lands on its feet. At least, that's how the adage goes. Karen Liu hopes that in the future, this will be true of robots as well.

To understand the way feline or human behavior during falls might be applied to robot landings, Liu, an associate professor in the School of Interactive Computing (IC) at Georgia Tech, delved into the physics of everything from falling cats to the mid-air orientation of divers and astronauts.

Mice bred to carry a gene variant found in a third of ALS patients have a faster disease progression and die sooner than mice with the standard genetic model of the disease, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. Understanding the molecular pathway of this accelerated model could lead to more successful drug trials for all ALS patients.

Researchers at The University of Texas have found that compared to Caucasian Americans, African Americans have impaired blood flow regulation in the brain that could contribute to a greater risk of cerebrovascular diseases such as stroke, transient ischaemic attack ("mini stroke"), subarachnoid haemorrhage or vascular dementia. These findings were published in Experimental Physiology, the journal of The Physiological Society.

(PHILADELPHIA) - Glioblastoma is the most common aggressive primary brain tumor, and despite advances in standard treatment, the median survival is about 15 months (compared to 4 months without treatment). Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University have been working on a cancer vaccine that would extend that survival by activating the patient's immune system to fight the brain tumor.

A study in which more than 43,000 children were evaluated for head trauma offers an unprecedented picture of how children most frequently suffer head injuries, report physicians at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine.

The findings also indicate how often such incidents result in significant brain injuries, computerized tomography (CT) scans to assess head injuries, and neurosurgery to treat them.