Brain

Chestnut Hill, MA (November 4, 2014): Whether it's politics in the United States or violent conflict in the Mideast, the roots of the vitriol and intractability begin to grow not from a hatred of the other side, but from a misunderstanding of what's motivating the other side. According to a new study co-authored by a Boston College neuroscientist, not only does this misunderstanding pose a barrier to solutions, but it can be corrected through financial incentives.

Shift work, like chronic jet lag, is known to disrupt the body's internal clock (circadian rhythms), and it has been linked to a range of health problems, such as ulcers, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, and some cancers.

But little is known about its potential impact on brain function, such as memory and processing speed.

The researchers therefore tracked the cognitive abilities of more than 3000 people who were either working in a wide range of sectors or who had retired, at three time points: 1996; 2001; and 2006.

New research from the Center for Vital Longevity (CVL) at UT Dallas offers a different approach for looking at the way the brain operates on a network level, and could eventually lead to new clinical diagnostic criteria for age-related memory disorders.

The latest findings, published the week of Nov. 3 in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focus on how brain areas communicate with one another to form brain networks, and how brain networks may change as we age.

CHICAGO --- If you want to avoid chronic back pain, put out the cigarette. A new Northwestern Medicine® study has found that smokers are three times more likely than nonsmokers to develop chronic back pain, and dropping the habit may cut your chances of developing this often debilitating condition.

Symptoms of mental illness in children and adolescents do not appear to be increasing, according to a large study of Canadian youth published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)

"Popular media tends to perpetuate the idea that the prevalence of mental disorders is increasing," writes Dr. Ian Colman, Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Epidemiology and associate professor at the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, with coauthors. "However, research supporting this position has been inconsistent."

Roughly one-third of the 700,000 United States troops who fought in the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War have subsequently developed a distinct set of chronic health problems, dubbed Gulf War illness. Their symptoms, from fatigue, muscle pain and weakness to decreased cognitive function and gastrointestinal and skin problems, persist decades after the conflict.

Clemson researchers find that blending movement and computer programming supports girls in building computational thinking skills, according to an ongoing study funded by the National Science Foundation and emerging technology report published in journal Technology, Learning and Knowledge.

Even with increasing demands for computationally savvy workers, there is a lack of representation among women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields (STEM), the researchers say.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Fat and sugar aren't usually considered healthy staples, but scientists have found that a biological fat with a sugar attached is essential for maintaining the brain's store of stem cells.

Neural stem cells help the brain develop initially, then repopulate brain cells lost to usual cell turnover as well as to a trauma or malady, such as a head injury or stroke.

The school environment in which teachers work is related to their expectations of students, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Montreal. "It is known that low teacher expectations are negatively associated with student achievement and school effectiveness.

What we believed as children about the soul and the afterlife shapes what we believe as adults – regardless of what we say we believe now, according to a new Rutgers study.

"My starting point was, assuming that people have these automatic – that is, implicit or ingrained – beliefs about the soul and afterlife, how can we measure those implicit beliefs?," said Stephanie Anglin, a doctoral student in psychology in Rutgers' School of Arts and Sciences.

Virtual reality may be the key to predicting both the behaviour of sex offenders and the effectiveness of the therapies they have undergone, according to a study undertaken by Massil Benbouriche of the University of Montreal's School of Criminology. "It is currently impossible to define the circumstances in which patients will – or will not – contain their aggressive impulses following therapy or treatment or prevent themselves reoffending," Benbouriche said.

Where does HIV hide? Antiretroviral drugs can usually control the virus, but can't completely eliminate it. So any strategy to eradicate HIV from the body has to take into account not only the main group of immune cells the virus targets, called CD4 or helper T cells, but other infected cells as well.

New research from Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, sheds light on the question of which cells support viral replication and persistence, and the answers have implications for future efforts to eliminate HIV from the body in human patients.

WASHINGTON — New research points to tau, not amyloid-beta (Abeta) plaque, as the seminal event that spurs neuron death in disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. The finding, which dramatically alters the prevailing theory of Alzheimer's development, also explains why some people with plaque build-up in their brains don't have dementia.

The study is published online today in the journal Molecular Neurodegeneration.

Drug tests on 517 mothers in English inner city hospitals found that nearly 15% had taken recreational drugs during pregnancy and that mothers of babies with birth defects of the brain were significantly more likely to have taken drugs than mothers with normal babies. The study found no significant links between recreational drug use and any other type of birth defect.

Seizures and migraines have always been considered separate physiological events in the brain, but now a team of engineers and neuroscientists looking at the brain from a physics viewpoint discovered a link between these and related phenomena.