Brain

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — As students' age they are verbally and physically bullied less but cyberbullied more, non-native English speakers are not bullied more often than native English speakers and bullying increases as students' transition from elementary to middle school.

Those are among the findings of a wide-ranging paper, "Examination of the Change in Latent Statuses in Bullying Behaviors Across Time," recently published in the journal School Psychology Quarterly.

TORONTO, Sept. 10, 2014 - Serena Williams won her third consecutive US Open title a few days ago, thanks to reasons including obvious ones like physical strength and endurance. But how much did her brain and its egocentric and allocentric functions help the American tennis star retain the cup?

Experiencing diverse communities by hearing different languages at the park, on a bus or in the grocery store may make babies more open-minded in their social learning, a new study finds.

Employing a measure rarely used in sleep apnea studies, researchers at the UCLA School of Nursing have uncovered evidence of what may be damaging the brain in people with the sleep disorder — weaker brain blood flow.

OAK BROOK, Ill. – People with multiple sclerosis (MS) lose myelin in the gray matter of their brains and the loss is closely correlated with the severity of the disease, according to a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study. Researchers said the findings could have important applications in clinical trials and treatment monitoring. The study appears online in the journal Radiology.

Before they reach young adulthood, most children in the United States will experience their parents separating, divorcing, finding another partner, or getting remarried.

Research tells us that children have more behavior problems (such as aggression and defiance) when families change structure. Now a new study has found that behavior problems in children increased in families in which parents separated only in higher-income families, and that children's age also played a part in their likelihood of having behavior problems.

The researchers warn that unwarranted long-term use should be considered a public health concern.

Dementia currently affects about 36 million people worldwide and this number is expected to double every 20 years, reaching 115 million by 2015. Although a increased risk of dementia has been identified in benzodiazepine users, the nature of this association, whether causal or not, remains unclear.

Individuals who are daily users of cannabis before age 17 are over 60% less likely to complete high school or obtain a degree compared to those who have never used the drug, new research published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal shows. The large meta-analysis also indicates that daily users of cannabis during adolescence are seven times more likely to attempt suicide, have an 18 times greater chance of cannabis dependence, and are eight times as likely to use other illicit drugs in later life.

Some people avoid risks at all costs, while others will put their wealth, health, and safety at risk without a thought. Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found that the volume of the parietal cortex in the brain could predict where people fall on the risk-taking spectrum.

West Orange, NJ. September 9, 2014. Kessler Foundation scientists have shown that working memory may be an underlying mechanism of cognitive reserve in multiple sclerosis (MS). This finding informs the relationships between working memory, intellectual enrichment (the proxy measure for cognitive reserve) and long-term memory in this population.

The number of Americans needing long-term care — also called long-term services and supports (LTSS) — is projected to more than double to 27 million by 2050. Approximately 70 percent of people over the age of 65 will rely on some form of LTSS for an average of three years. The latest issue of Public Policy & Aging Report (PP&AR) lays down a policy prescription for a sustainable system of LTSS in the U.S., using the Federal Commission on Long-Term Care's 2013 final report as its foundation.

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Contrary to popular opinion, unruly students are not driving out teachers in droves from America's urban school districts. Instead, teachers are quitting due to frustration with standardized testing, declining pay and benefits and lack of voice in what they teach.

So finds a Michigan State University education scholar – and former high school teacher – in her latest research on teacher turnover, which costs the nation an estimated $2.2 billion a year.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed artificial intelligence (AI) software that is significantly better than any previous technology at predicting what goal a player is trying to achieve in a video game. The advance holds promise for helping game developers design new ways of improving the gameplay experience for players.

As Alzheimer's disease progresses, it kills brain cells mainly in the hippocampus and cortex, leading to impairments in "neuroplasticity," the mechanism that affects learning, memory, and thinking. Targeting these areas of the brain, scientists hope to stop or slow the decline in brain plasticity, providing a novel way to treat Alzheimer's. Groundbreaking new research has discovered a new way to preserve the flexibility and resilience of the brain.

People can become addicted to eating for its own sake but not to consuming specific foods such as those high in sugar or fat, research suggests.

An international team of scientists has found no strong evidence for people being addicted to the chemical substances in certain foods.

The brain does not respond to nutrients in the same way as it does to addictive drugs such as heroin or cocaine, the researchers say.

Instead, people can develop a psychological compulsion to eat, driven by the positive feelings that the brain associates with eating.