Brain

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – As the brain develops, each neuron must find its way to precisely the right spot to weave the intricate network of links the brain needs to function. Like the wiring in a computer, a few misplaced connections can throw off functioning for an entire segment of the brain.

WASHINGTON — Legal responses to juvenile offending should be grounded in scientific knowledge about adolescent development and tailored to an individual offender's needs and social environment, says a new report from the National Research Council. Accountability practices should not be carried over from criminal courts to juvenile courts; in particular, confinement should be used only in rare circumstances such as when a youth poses a high risk of harming others.

AUSTIN, Texas — University of Texas at Austin sociologist Chandra Muller and economist Sandra Black have received a $3.2 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to study the effects of cognition on health, mortality, education and employment from high school and beyond.

New Rochelle, NY, November 13, 2012—The average incidence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) among service members deployed in Middle East conflict zones has increased 117% in recent years, mainly due to proximity to explosive blasts. Therapeutic exposure to a high oxygen environment was hoped to minimize the concussion symptoms resulting from mild TBI, but hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) treatment may not offer significant advantages, according to an article in the Journal of Neurotrauma.

MINNEAPOLIS – A new study shows that people who have had a head injury and have lived or worked near areas where the pesticide paraquat was used may be three times more likely to develop Parkinson's disease. The study is published in the November 13, 2012, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Paraquat is a herbicide commonly used on crops to control weeds. It can be deadly to humans and animals.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Last year a clinical trial of L-DOPA -- a mainstay of Parkinson's disease therapy -- was launched for Angelman syndrome, a rare intellectual disorder that shares similar motor symptoms such as tremors and difficulty with balance. The clinical trial is based on a 10-year-old case report showing benefit with the drug, but few studies since have explored the neurological justification for using L-DOPA to treat parkinsonian features in Angelman syndrome.

PITTSBURGH—Math instructors promoting calculator usage in college classrooms may want to rethink their teaching strategies, says Samuel King, postdoctoral student in the University of Pittsburgh's Learning Research & Development Center. King has proposed the need for further research regarding calculators' role in the classroom after conducting a limited study with undergraduate engineering students published in the British Journal of Educational Technology.

PASADENA, Calif.—For speed daters, first impressions are everything. But it's more than just whether someone is hot or not.

Whether or not we like to admit it, we all may make snap judgments about a new face. Perhaps nowhere is this truer than in speed dating, during which people decide on someone's romantic potential in just a few seconds. How they make those decisions, however, is not well understood.

A new study demonstrates the dynamic role cilia play in guiding the migration of neurons in the embryonic brain. Cilia are tiny hair-like structures on the surfaces of cells, but here they are acting more like radio antennae.

In developing mouse embryos, researchers were able to see cilia extending and retracting as neurons migrate. The cilia appear to be receiving signals needed for neurons to find their places.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Communication can be challenging for any married couple, but a personality trait called alexithymia that keeps people from sharing or even understanding their own emotions can further impede marital bliss. University of Missouri interpersonal communication researchers found when one spouse suffers from alexithymia, the partners can experience loneliness and a lack of intimate communication that lead to poor marital quality.

A new study has found that participating in an 8-week meditation training program can have measurable effects on how the brain functions even when someone is not actively meditating. In their report in the November issue of Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston University (BU), and several other research centers also found differences in those effects based on the specific type of meditation practiced.

EVANSTON, Ill. --- A new Northwestern University study shows the power of language in infants' ability to understand the intentions of others.

As the babies watched intently, an experimenter produced an unusual behavior--she used her forehead to turn on a light. But how did babies interpret this behavior? Did they see it as an intentional act, as something worthy of imitating? Or did they see it as a fluke? To answer this question, the experimenter gave 14-month-old infants an opportunity to play with the light themselves.

Human intelligence and behavior require optimal functioning of a large number of genes, which requires enormous evolutionary pressures to maintain. A provocative hypothesis published in a recent set of Science and Society pieces published in the Cell Press journal Trends in Genetics suggests that we are losing our intellectual and emotional capabilities because the intricate web of genes endowing us with our brain power is particularly susceptible to mutations and that these mutations are not being selected against in our modern society.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Last year a clinical trial of L-DOPA -- a mainstay of Parkinson's disease therapy -- was launched for Angelman syndrome, a rare intellectual disorder that shares similar motor symptoms such as tremors and difficulty with balance. The clinical trial is based on a 10-year-old case report showing benefit with the drug, but few studies since have explored the neurological justification for using L-DOPA to treat parkinsonian features in Angelman syndrome.

Child protection professionals are to be offered new guidance on how best to involve families in the case reviews that follow the death or serious injury of a child as a result of abuse or neglect.

A report being launched today (Monday November 12) will reveal the results of a study led by experts at The University of Nottingham and commissioned by the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (BASPCAN).