Brain

CARVER, Mass., July 19, 2016 - While decades of cranberry research has found that regular consumption of cranberry products promotes urinary tract health, leading scientists studying the bioactive components of fruits and other foods reported that cranberries possess whole body health benefits.

A research team led by Dr. Sonoko Ogawa at the University of Tsukuba showed that activation of an estrogen receptor in a region of the limbic system during the pubertal period is needed for adult mice to express typical male social behaviors.

Philadelphia, PA, July 19, 2016 - A new report in Biological Psychiatry reports that brain alterations in infants at risk for autism may be widespread and affect multiple systems, in contrast to the widely held assumption of impairment specifically in social brain networks.

Abnormalities in brain regions involved in forming insight may help explain why some people with anorexia nervosa have trouble recognizing their dangerous, dysfunctional eating habits.

Special Issue on Intervention published: Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications

Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications (CVIA) has just published its third issue which is available online now. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cscript/cvia/2016/00000001/00000003

PHILADELPHIA - Want to cut calories and make healthier meal choices? Try avoiding unhealthy impulse purchases by ordering meals at least an hour before eating. New findings from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Carnegie Mellon University show that people choose higher-calorie meals when ordering immediately before eating, and lower-calorie meals when orders are placed an hour or more in advance.

July 19, 2016 - Available research suggests that noninvasive stimulation of a specific brain area can reduce food cravings -- particularly for high-calorie, "appetitive" foods, according to a review in the Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, the official journal of the American Psychosomatic Society. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer.

Researchers have found how sensory nerve cells work together to transmit itch signals from the skin to the spinal cord, where neurons then carry those signals to the brain. Their discovery may help scientists find more effective ways to make itching stop.

The researchers, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, report the new findings online July 19 in the journal Science Signaling.

Irvine, Calif., July 19, 2016 -- People who selectively recalled positive information over neutral and negative information performed worse on memory tests conducted by University of California, Irvine neurobiologists, who said the results suggest that this discriminating remembrance may be a marker for early stages of memory loss in the elderly.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Using a robust model for Parkinson's disease, University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers and colleagues have discovered an interaction in neurons that contributes to Parkinson's disease, and they have shown that drugs now under development may block the process.

• Evidence leaves little doubt that categories we form bear the imprint of our language
• Findings have consequences for thinking and memory
• Naming things influences 9-month-olds' identification of discrete categories

EVANSTON, Ill. --- A new Northwestern University study shows that even in infants too young to speak, the object categories infants form and their predictions about objects' behavior, are sculpted by the names we use to describe them.

The same genes that make us prone to depression could also make us prone to positivity, two psychology researchers have suggested.

Professors Elaine Fox, from Oxford University, and Chris Beevers from the University of Texas at Austin reviewed a number of studies for their paper in Molecular Psychiatry. They say that there is a need to combine studies in mental health genetics with those that look at cognitive biases.

Chimpanzees who travel are more frequent tool users, according to new findings from the University of Neuchâtel and the University of Geneva, Switzerland, to be published in eLife.

Hawa is a wild chimpanzee from the Budongo Forest in Uganda who burns up a lot of energy travelling, which he has learnt to replenish with a dose of honey. His friend Squibs makes less of an effort to roam and has not acquired the skills needed to enjoy this high-energy treat. This pattern was repeated in other members of the study group over seven years of observation.

A new study on infantile memory formation in rats points to the importance of critical periods in early-life learning on functional development of the brain. The research, conducted by scientists at New York University's Center for Neural Science, reveals the significance of learning experiences over the first two to four years of human life; this is when memories are believed to be quickly forgotten--a phenomenon known as infantile amnesia.

Hummingbirds are among nature's most agile fliers. They can travel faster than 50 kilometres per hour and stop on a dime to navigate through dense vegetation.

Now researchers have discovered that the tiny birds process visual information differently from other animals, perhaps to handle the demands of their extreme aerial acrobatics.