Brain

Simultaneously using mobile phones, laptops and other media devices could be changing the structure of our brains, according to new University of Sussex research.

A study published today (24 September) reveals that people who frequently use several media devices at the same time have lower grey-matter density in one particular region of the brain compared to those who use just one device occasionally.

Miami, Fla. (September, 24, 2014)—Two decades after its initiation, the University of Miami (UM) Linda Ray Intervention Program for substance-exposed babies and toddlers demonstrates long-term success.

The program is designed to help children from birth to three years of age who are developmentally delayed, prenatally exposed to drugs and often with the additional risk of maltreatment, ultimately achieve their developmental milestones and be ready to enter kindergarten ready to learn.

Texting while driving with Google Glass is clearly a distraction, a new University of Central Florida study has concluded -- but there is a twist. In the study, texting Glass users outperformed smartphone users when regaining control of their vehicles after a traffic incident.

In the study, conducted by researchers David Just PhD., Ozge Sigirci, and Brian Wansink PhD. author of the forthcoming book, Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life, 139 diners in an Italian all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant were either charged $4 or $8 for the lunch buffet. The buffet offered pizza, salad, breadsticks, pasta, and soup. After finishing, diners were asked to rate the taste of the pizza and how much they enjoyed the dining experience on a 9 point scale.

Washington D.C., September 24, 2014 – A study published in the MONTH 2014 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that children who were conceived either less than 1 year or more than 5 years after the birth of their prior sibling were more likely to be diagnosed with autism than children conceived following an interval of 2-5 years.

(Philadelphia, PA) – Areas of the brain that respond to reward and pleasure are linked to the ability of a drug known as butorphanol to relieve itch, according to new research led by Gil Yosipovitch, MD, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Dermatology at Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM), and Director of the Temple Itch Center. The findings point to the involvement of the brain's opioid receptors—widely known for their roles in pain, reward, and addiction—in itch relief, potentially opening up new avenues to the development of treatments for chronic itch.

Brain cells that multiply to help birds sing their best during breeding season are known to die back naturally later in the year. For the first time researchers have described the series of events that cues new neuron growth each spring, and it all appears to start with a signal from the expiring cells the previous fall that primes the brain to start producing stem cells.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Infants' vocalizations throughout the first year follow a set of predictable steps from crying and cooing to forming syllables and first words. However, previous research had not addressed how the amount of vocalizations may differ between hearing and deaf infants. Now, University of Missouri research shows that infant vocalizations are primarily motivated by infants' ability to hear their own babbling.

• An early age of onset (AO) of drinking is a risk factor for subsequent heavy drinking and negative outcomes.
• New research looks at both an early AO, as well as a quick progression from initial alcohol use to drinking to the point of intoxication, as risk factors.
• Findings indicate that both are associated with high-school student alcohol use and binge drinking.

A team of researchers from McGill University and the Quebec government have discovered microplastics (in the form of polyethylene 'microbeads,' less than 2 mm in diameter) widely distributed across the bottom of the St. Lawrence River, the first time such pollutants have been found in freshwater sediments.

West Orange, NJ. September 23, 2014. Kessler Foundation scientists have published a study showing that use of a foot drop stimulator during a task-specific movement for 4 weeks can retrain the neuromuscular system. This finding indicates that applying the foot drop stimulator as rehabilitation intervention may facilitate recovery from this common complication of stroke. "EMG of the tibialis anterior demonstrates a training effect after utilization of a foot drop stimulator," was published online ahead of print on July 2 by NeuroRehabilitation (doi:10.3233/NRE-141126).

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A recent Oregon survey about an exercise DVD that adds short breaks of physical activity into the daily routine of elementary school students found it had a high level of popularity with both students and teachers, and offered clear advantages for overly sedentary educational programs.

Called "Brain Breaks," the DVD was developed and produced by the Healthy Youth Program of the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, and is available nationally.

Boulder, Colo., USA - An astonishing new rock formation has been revealed in the Colorado Rockies, and it exists in a deeply perplexing relationship with older rocks. Named the Tava sandstone, this sedimentary rock forms intrusions within the ancient granites and gneisses that form the backbone of the Front Range. The relationship is fascinating because it is backward: ordinarily, it is igneous rocks such as granite that would that intrude into sedimentary rocks.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — They are common suggestions to remedy stress: You just need a breath of fresh air. Walk it off. Get out and see people.

Turns out all those things combined may in fact make you feel better – a lot better – a new large scale study suggests.

Investigators at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center have published the first study to extensively characterize eosinophilic gastritis (EG). The study, published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, found that EG is a systemic disorder that has high levels of eosinophils in the blood and gastrointestinal tract, involves a series of allergy-associated-immune mechanisms and has a gene expression pattern (transcriptome) that is distinct from that of a related disorder, eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE).