Brain

Anyone who enjoys biting into a sweet, fleshy peach can now give thanks to the people who first began domesticating this fruit: Chinese farmers who lived 7,500 years ago.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2014 — Football season is here, and along with thousands of lost hours of productivity from fantasy teams, there's a renewed discussion on the impact of head injuries on players. This week's Speaking of Chemistry focuses on a brain disorder called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), whose symptoms include memory loss, depression and aggressive or violent behavior. Current detection methods can only identify CTE after a patient has died, leaving many NFL players with a diagnosis that came too late.

PITTSBURGH—Close and caring relationships are undeniably linked to health and well-being for all ages. Previous research has shown that individuals with supportive and rewarding relationships have better physical and mental health and lower mortality rates. However, exactly how meaningful relationships affect health has remained less clear.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — It may look like fresh blood and flow like fresh blood, but the longer blood is stored, the less it can carry oxygen into the tiny microcapillaries of the body, says a new study from University of Illinois researchers.

Using advanced optical techniques, the researchers measured the stiffness of the membrane surrounding red blood cells over time. They found that, even though the cells retain their shape and hemoglobin content, the membranes get stiffer, which steadily decreases the cells' functionality.

Does a distinctive mechanism work in the brain of congenitally blind individuals when understanding and learning others' gestures? Or does the same mechanism as with sighted individuals work? Japanese researchers figured out that activated brain regions of congenitally blind individuals and activated brain regions of sighted individuals share common regions when recognizing human hand gestures. They indicated that a region of the neural network that recognizes others' hand gestures is formed in the same way even without visual information.

PITTSBURGH—Yaoying Ma says that biology, by nature, has a yin and a yang—a push and a pull.

Addiction, particularly relapse, she finds, is no exception.

Ma is a research associate in the lab of Yan Dong, assistant professor of neuroscience in the University of Pittsburgh's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. She is the lead author of a paper published online today in the journal Neuron that posits that it may be possible to ramp up an intrinsic anti-addiction response as a means to fight cocaine relapse and keep the wolves of relapse at bay.

What makes people decide whether to persist or to give up on their goals in the face of setbacks? New research publishing online September 4 in the Cell Press journal Neuron reveals that when people perceive themselves as having control over the setbacks they encounter, a particular part of the brain is engaged, and they're more likely to persist in their goals.

Despite the barrage of visual information the brain receives, it retains a remarkable ability to focus on important and relevant items. This fall, for example, NFL quarterbacks will be rewarded handsomely for how well they can focus their attention on color and motion – being able to quickly judge the jersey colors of teammates and opponents and where they're headed is a valuable skill. How the brain accomplishes this feat, however, has been poorly understood.

Sometimes when people get upsetting news – such as a failing exam grade or a negative job review – they decide instantly to do better the next time. In other situations that are equally disappointing, the same people may feel inclined to just give up.

How can similar setbacks produce such different reactions? It may come down to how much control we feel we have over what happened, according to new research from Rutgers University-Newark.

Researchers at Lund University have published new research findings on the role of the intestinal barrier in the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis (MS).

Within medical science, it is not known for certain how MS develops or why the body's immune system attacks cells in the central nervous system. Inflammation develops for an unknown reason, which hinders transport of neural impulses. This can produce various physical and mental symptoms, including a loss of sensation, motor difficulties, blurred vision, dizziness and tiredness.

Many patients suffer from severe spinal cord injuries after being involved in traffic accidents or accidents at work. An injury to the spinal cord is a catastrophe for the individual, and often results in complete or partial paralysis of the person's arms and legs. Despite the paralysis, several patients experience problems with involuntary muscle contractions or spasms which impair the patient's quality of life.

Glucocorticoids are speculated to have a long-term impact on the development of the nervous system and increase the incidence of cerebral palsy in preterm infants. The existing studies concerning the role of dexamethasone in preterm infants are insufficiently reliable owing to short follow-up periods and small sample sizes in clinical studies, or the absence of randomized controlled trials. Ruolin Zhang and co-workers from the Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University in China conducted a meta-analysis of 10 relevant randomized controlled trials.

Students taking traditional, in-class science courses reported higher perceived learning gains than students enrolled in online distance education science courses. Notably, African-American students taking traditional science courses self-reported greater affective and psychomotor learning gains than students taking online science courses.

These are the key findings of a new study co-authored by a Clemson University researcher and published in the most recent issue of Black History Bulletin.

Athens, Ga. – Human eyes naturally contain yellow pigment in the macula, a spot near the center of the retina responsible for high-resolution vision. Those with more yellow in their macula may have an advantage when it comes to filtering out atmospheric particles that obscure one's vision, commonly known as haze. According to a new University of Georgia study, people with increased yellow in their macula could absorb more light and maintain better vision in haze than others.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2014 — Football season is here, and along with thousands of lost hours of productivity from fantasy teams, there's a renewed discussion on the impact of head injuries on players. This week's Speaking of Chemistry focuses on a brain disorder called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), whose symptoms include memory loss, depression and aggressive or violent behavior. Current detection methods can only identify CTE after a patient has died, leaving many NFL players with a diagnosis that came too late.