Brain

There are "things hidden in plain sight" all around us. But art can help students see their world anew, unlocking discoveries in fields ranging from plant biology to biomedical imaging, according to University of Delaware professor John Jungck.

Jungck's sentiments were echoed by a panel of experts speaking on "Artful Science" on Feb. 15 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston. Jungck organized the panel and also spoke at the event.

In a pair of new papers, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences upend a long-held view about the basic functioning of a key receptor molecule involved in signaling between neurons, and describe how a compound linked to Alzheimer's disease impacts that receptor and weakens synaptic connections between brain cells.

The findings are published in the Feb. 18 early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Can an individual's state of mind effect how well a vaccine may work? In the case of seniors and shingles, the answer is yes.

Reporting in the current online edition of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, Dr. Michael Irwin, a professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, demonstrates a link between untreated depression in older adults and decreased effectiveness of the herpes zoster —or shingles — vaccine.

TORONTO, ON – A new study led by an international team of biologists has identified some of the brain chemicals that allow seals to sleep with half of their brain at a time.

The study was published this month in the Journal of Neuroscience and was headed by scientists at UCLA and the University of Toronto. It identified the chemical cues that allow the seal brain to remain half awake and asleep. Findings from this study may explain the biological mechanisms that enable the brain to remain alert during waking hours and go off-line during sleep.

Nonetheless, "although the observers cannot recognise the cause properly, when babies cry because they are in pain, this causes a more intense affective reaction than when they cry because of angry or fear," outlines Chóliz.

For the experts, the fact that pain is the most easily recognisable emotion can have an adaptive explanation, since crying is a warning of a potentially serious threat to health or survival and thus requires the carer to respond urgently.

Anger, fear and pain

Males and females differ in a lot of traits (besides the obvious ones) and some evolutionary psychologists have proposed hypotheses to explain why. Some argue, for example, that males' slight, but significant, superiority in spatial navigation over females – a phenomenon demonstrated repeatedly in many species, including humans – is probably "adaptive," meaning that over the course of evolutionary history the trait gave males an advantage that led them to have more offspring than their peers.

URBANA – A University of Illinois study has established a possible link between high-fat diets and such childhood brain-based conditions as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and memory-dependent learning disabilities.

Amsterdam, NL, 19 February 2013 – Raman spectroscopy has enabled incredible advances in numerous scientific fields and is a powerful tool for tissue classification and disease recognition, although there have been considerable challenges to using the method in a clinical setting. Scientists have now demonstrated the advantages of wavelength-modulated Raman spectroscopy, opening the door to wider biomedical and clinical applications such as real-time assessment of tissues during surgery. This study is published in Biomedical Spectroscopy and Imaging.

Atherosclerosis is one of the commonest causes of death in modern societies. The condition is characterized by the build-up of fatty deposits called atherosclerotic plaques on the inner surfaces of arteries, which restrict, and may eventually cut off, blood flow. The deposits can also be dislodged from their site of origin and may then block major vessels in the heart or the brain, leading to life-threatening myocardial infarction or stroke.

A study of eye movements in schizophrenia patients provides new evidence of impaired reading fluency in individuals with the mental illness.

The findings, by researchers at McGill University in Montreal, could open avenues to earlier detection and intervention for people with the illness.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 18, 2013) — A study by a leading Alzheimer's researcher at the University of Kentucky provides new evidence that will help researchers home in on the molecular mechanisms involved in inflammation of the central nervous system (CNS) and aid drug-development strategies for treating inflammatory neurological diseases.

This technological prowess was made possible by the development of a "simplified artificial brain" that reproduces certain types of so-called "recurrent" connections observed in the human brain.

The artificial brain system enables the robot to learn, and subsequently understand, new sentences containing a new grammatical structure. It can link two sentences together and even predict how a sentence will end before it is uttered. This research has been published in the Plos One journal.

New York, NY—February 18, 2013—A new study by Columbia Engineering researchers finds that the infant brain does not control its blood flow in the same way as the adult brain. The paper, which the scientists say could change the way researchers study brain development in infants and children, is published in the February 18 Early Online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Some 90,000 patients per year are treated for Parkinson's disease, a number that is expected to rise by 25 percent annually. Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), which consists of electrically stimulating the central or peripheral nervous system, is currently standard practice for treating Parkinson's, but it can involve long, expensive surgeries with dramatic side effects. Miniature, ultra-flexible electrodes developed in Switzerland, however, could be the answer to more successful treatment for this and a host of other health issues.

For an amputee, replacing a missing limb with a functional prosthetic can alleviate physical or emotionaldistress and mean a return of vocational ability or cosmetics. Studies show, however, that up to 50 percent ofhand amputees still do not use their prosthesis regularly due to less than ideal functionality, appearance, andcontrollability.But Silvestro Micera, of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, is paving the wayfor new, smart prosthetics that connect directly to the nervous system.