Brain

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Most people rarely sing publicly outside of a duty-bound rendition of "Happy Birthday." And since that particular song is usually offered as a group performance, even the reluctant join in the spirit of the occasion, hoping their individual shortcomings will be cloaked by the chorus.

Imagine being able to recognize your car as your own but never being able to remember where you parked it. Researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have induced this all-too-common human experience - or a close version of it - permanently in rats and from what is observed perhaps derive clues about why strokes and Alzheimer's disease can destroy a person's sense of direction.

The findings are published online in the current issue of Cell Reports.

Turns out your mom was right: Scratching an itch only makes it worse. New research from scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that scratching causes the brain to release serotonin, which intensifies the itch sensation.

The findings, in mice, are reported online in the journal Neuron. The same vicious cycle of itching and scratching is thought to occur in humans, and the research provides new clues that may help break that cycle, particularly in people who experience chronic itching.

Reading bedtime stories, engaging in conversation and eating nightly dinners together are all positive ways in which parents interact with their children, but according to new research, none of these actions have any detectable influence on children's intelligence later in life.

Berlin, Germany (November, 2014) - Sweating, panting, moving to the shade, or taking a dip are all time-honored methods used by animals to cool down. The implicit goal of these adaptations is always to keep the brain from overheating. Now a new study shows that armor-plated dinosaurs (ankylosaurs) had the capacity to modify the temperature of the air they breathed in an exceptional way: by using their long, winding nasal passages as heat transfer devices.

A new study by Brigham Young University and the Fox affiliate in Salt Lake City shows that choosing to broadcast a local favorite isn't always the smartest ratings decision.

The new study shows how TV execs should decide which games to air when the home-town team isn't playing - or in markets like Utah that don't have their own team. Traditionally the most popular teams in Utah have been the Broncos, Cowboys and 49ers.

LAWRENCE -- New study results from the University of Kansas to be presented this weekend at the Gerontological Society of America's annual meeting in Washington, D.C., bolster the adage that "heart healthy is brain healthy." The investigation shows neighborhoods that motivate walking can stave off cognitive decline in older adults.

"People can walk either to get somewhere or for leisure," said Amber Watts, assistant professor of clinical psychology, who will share her findings at a symposium Sunday, Nov. 9, in Liberty Salon K at the Washington Marriott Marquis.

Being shown pictures of others being loved and cared for reduces the brain's response to threat, new research from the University of Exeter has found.

The study discovered that when individuals are briefly presented pictures of others receiving emotional support and affection, the brain's threat monitor, the amygdala, subsequently does not respond to images showing threatening facial expressions or words. This occurred even if the person was not paying attention to the content of the first pictures.

How can a sequence of dance steps best be learned? This question was the subject of a project led by researchers from Bielefeld University and the Palucca University of Dance in Dresden, who developed the study along with dancers and dance instructors. Together they researched whether dancers learn a dance sequence better by seeing or by listening, that is, if a dance instructor first demonstrates the sequence, or if he or she first gives a spoken explanation.

Bethesda, MD -- After many generations, rats bred for their bad attitude behave differently from those selected for a calm demeanor around humans. Research published November 7 in the journal GENETICS identifies gene regions that contribute to differences between nasty and nice rats in their behavior and the activity of genes in the brain. These results may provide important clues as to which genes make tame animals like dogs behave so differently from their wild ancestors.

Emotions are powerful motivators of human behavior and attitudes. Emotions also play an important role in guiding policy support in conflict and other political contexts. Researchers at Tel Aviv University and the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya have studied the interaction between emotion and political ideology, showing that the motivating power of emotions is not the same for those on different ends of the ideological spectrum. Their research is published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Design of the study

The Lancet is pleased to announce that the following papers will be published as part of a Special Issue on the legacy of World War 1:

• Series: Changing attitudes during and since World War 1 towards:

  o Infectious Diseases

  o Military psychiatry

  o Surgical and amputation-related pain

How the brain decides when to modify old memories and when to carve new memories is revealed in a study published this week in PLOS Computational Biology.

MIT researcher Dr Samuel Gershman and his collaborators at Princeton propose a theoretical framework for understanding how the brain (to quote Plato) "carves nature at its joints".

This study has implications for how we understand the fundamental mechanisms of memory, as well as our view of how these mechanisms go awry after brain damage.

The researchers explain what happened to those study participants as a result of the sensorimotor conflict this way: "This spatiotemporal conflict was resolved by our participants by generating the illusory experience that the felt touch was not caused by themselves, but by another person behind them who was touching their back."

The findings explain an experience that has influenced mystical thought, fiction, and humanity itself, but it may shed light on schizophrenic hallucinations, too.

Parkinson's disease is an incurable movement disorder that affects millions of people around the world, but current treatment options can cause severe side effects and lose effectiveness over time. In a study published by Cell Press November 6th in Cell Stem Cell, researchers showed that transplantation of neurons derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) can restore motor function in a rat model of Parkinson's disease, paving the way for the use of cell replacement therapy in human clinical trials.