Brain

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- In Western styles of music, from classical to pop, some combinations of notes are generally considered more pleasant than others. To most of our ears, a chord of C and G, for example, sounds much more agreeable than the grating combination of C and F# (which has historically been known as the "devil in music").

For decades, neuroscientists have pondered whether this preference is somehow hardwired into our brains. A new study from MIT and Brandeis University suggests that the answer is no.

FORT COLLINS, COLO. - It's no secret that Calculus I is a major hurdle in the quest for a science degree. But, according to a new paper by Colorado State University researchers, the class is far more likely to discourage women than men from continuing on in their chosen field. How much more likely? One-and-a-half times. And it doesn't take a math degree to spot that as a serious imbalance.

New research, using a Bayesian inference model of audio and visual stimuli, has shown how our perception of time lies mid-way between reality and our expectations.

90 participants were tested across four experiments, and asked to report on the timing of the last event in a regular sequence of beeps or flashes.

Peptide based drug candidates are being discovered at an increasingly rapid pace as therapeutics for many diseases and pain management. . For decades the opioid receptors have been an attractive therapeutic target for pain management and many endogenous opioid peptides have been known to produce opioid activity and analgesia. However, their therapeutic potential has been limited due to a major drawback regarding their use as CNS drugs, mainly due to a lack of biodistribution to the brain caused by poor metabolic stability and an inability to penetrate the blood brain barrier.

Transmission of information from one individual to another forms the basis of long-term traditions and culture, and is critical in adjusting to changing environmental conditions. Animals frequently observe each other to learn about food, predators and their social environment. The study fills an important gap in our understanding of how different types of social connections affect animals' ability to learn from the behavior of others.

Johns Hopkins University researchers are the first to glimpse the human brain making a purely voluntary decision to act.

Regular cocaine and methamphetamine users can have difficulty choosing between right and wrong, perhaps because the specific parts of their brains used for moral processing and evaluating emotions are damaged by their prolonged drug habits. This is according to a study among prison inmates by Samantha Fede and Dr. Kent Kiehl's laboratory at the University of New Mexico and the nonprofit Mind Research Network. The findings [1] of the study, which was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, are published in Springer's journal Psychopharmacology.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Daughters and sons of mothers who tied the knot young are more likely to want to marry early too, but only if Mom stayed married, new research has found.

And millennials whose moms divorced tend to want to move more slowly, perhaps in the interest of avoiding the mistakes of their parents.

Potential brides and grooms appear to be heavily influenced by their mothers' marriages, divorces and choices to live with a partner, according to a new nationwide study that included 2,581 moms and 3,914 of their children.

The vast majority of cases of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are idiopathic - the cause is unknown. In a paper published this month in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues across the nation and world, have created a "mini-brain" model, derived from persons with a particular form of idiopathic ASD characterized by over-sized brains, revealing a defective molecular pathway during brain development that results in early neuronal overgrowth and dysfunctional cortical networks.

Research has shown children have racial biases from an early age, but a new University of British Columbia study has found that it is possible to combat prejudice in older kids.

The study-- the first of its kind to examine developmental differences in the capacity to reduce racial prejudice in children-- found that telling stories that depict black individuals contributing positively to the community successfully reduced implicit, or automatic, race bias in children between the ages of nine and 12.

HOUSTON - (July 13, 2016) - Scientists have elucidated the genetic programs that guide the formation and development of specific regions within the brain of rhesus monkeys. This study is important because it can help better understand how the human brain develops and identify neurodevelopmental processes involved in disorders such as autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia. The results appear today in Nature.

Queen's University researcher Ian Gilron has uncovered a more effective way of treating fibromyalgia, a medical condition characterized by chronic widespread pain typically accompanied by fatigue, as well as sleep, mood and memory problems.

The results of the trial suggest that combining pregabalin, an anti-seizure drug, with duloxetine, an antidepressant, can safely improve outcomes in fibromyalgia, including not only pain relief, but also physical function and overall quality of life. Until now, these drugs have been proven, individually, to treat fibromyalgia pain.

• Researchers determine that the immune system affects - and even controls - social behavior.
• Blocking a single type of immune molecule made mouse brains go hyperactive and caused abnormal behavior; restoring it fixed both.
• Discovery could have enormous implications for neurological conditions such as autism and schizophrenia.
• "It's crazy, but maybe we are just multicellular battlefields for two ancient forces: pathogens and the immune system. Part of our personality may actually be dictated by the immune system."

The hungrier parents are at mealtimes, a new study shows, the more they may feed their young children, which could have implications for childhood obesity.

FINDINGS

While measuring brain activity with magnetic resonance imaging during blood pressure trials, UCLA researchers found that men and women had opposite responses in the right front of the insular cortex, a part of the brain integral to the experience of emotions, blood pressure control and self-awareness.