Brain

The development of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is much like that of children without ASD at 6 months of age, but differs afterwards. That's the main finding of the largest prospective, longitudinal study to date comparing children with early and later diagnosis of ASD with children without ASD. The study appears in the journal Child Development and has implications for clinical work, public health, and policy.

Children who are homeless or move frequently have chronically lower math and reading skills than other low-income students who don't move as much.

That's the finding of a new longitudinal study on children's risk and resilience conducted through a university-community partnership by researchers at the University of Minnesota, the Minneapolis Public Schools, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Iowa, and Hong Kong Sue Yan University. The study appears in the journal Child Development.

[Family-based association study of ADHD and genes increasing the risk for smoking behaviours Online First doi 10.1136/archdischild-2012-301882][Shared biological risks that influence brain and behaviour Online First doi 10.1136/archdischild-2012-302461]

A variation of a particular gene may link the behaviours typical of childhood attention hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD for short, and those associated with smoking, suggests research published online in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

There is a long history of research on impaired eye movements associated with schizophrenia. Using a series of simple viewing tests, researchers of a new paper in Biological Psychiatry explored the ability of these eye movement tests to distinguish people with and without the diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Using their complete dataset, they were able to develop a model that could discriminate all schizophrenia cases from healthy control subjects with an impressive 98.3% accuracy.

High-intensity interval training makes middle-aged people not only healthier but smarter, showed a Montreal Heart Institute (MHI) study led by Dr. Anil Nigam of the MHI and University of Montreal, in collaboration with the Montreal Geriatric University Institute.

A regular exercise routine can make you fitter than ever – mentally fit.

In a new study, previously sedentary adults were put through four months of high-intensity interval training. At the end, their cognitive functions – the ability to think, recall and make quick decisions – had improved significantly, says Dr. Martin Juneau, director of prevention at the Montreal Heart Institute.

"If you talk to people who exercise, they say they feel sharper. Now we've found a way to measure that," says Dr. Juneau.

Primates' brains see the world through triangular grids, according to a new study published online Sunday in the journal Nature.

Scientists at Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University, have identified grid cells, neurons that fire in repeating triangular patterns as the eyes explore visual scenes, in the brains of rhesus monkeys.

BOSTON – Maintaining a healthy body weight may be difficult for many people, but it's reassuring to know that our brains and bodies are wired to work together to do just that—in essence, to achieve a phenomenon known as energy balance, a tight matching between the number of calories consumed versus those expended. This careful balance results from a complex interchange of neurobiological crosstalk within regions of the brain's hypothalamus, and when this "conversation" goes awry, obesity or anorexia can result.

New research presented in October at the 6th Neurodegenerative Conditions Research and Development Conference in San Francisco demonstrates the role of the investigational compound IRX4204 in alleviating cognitive decline in animal models of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The presentation entitled "Investigation of the RXR-specific agonist IRX4204 as a Disease Modifying Agent of Alzheimer's Disease Neuropathology and Cognitive Impairment" was made by lead researcher Giulio Maria Pasinetti, MD, PhD, of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.

(NEW YORK, N.Y., October 26, 2012) – The Early Start Denver Model (ESDM), a comprehensive behavioral early intervention program that is appropriate for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as young as 12 months, has been found to be effective in improving social skills and brain responses to social cues in a randomized controlled study published online today in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

An intensive early intervention therapy that is effective for improving cognition and language skills among very young children with autism also normalizes their brain activity, decreases their autism symptoms and improves their social skills, a nationwide study has found. The researchers said the study is the first to demonstrate that an autism early intervention program can normalize brain activity.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – While powerful magnetic stimulation of the frontal lobe of the brain can alleviate symptoms of depression, those receiving the treatment did not report effects on sleep or arousal commonly seen with antidepressant medications, researchers say.

"People's sleep gets better as their depression improves, but the treatment doesn't itself cause sedation or insomnia." said Dr. Peter B. Rosenquist, Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Health Sciences University.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Mayo Clinic researchers are presenting new findings on the early treatment of child and adolescent attention deficit hyperactivity disorder this week at the American Academy of Childhood and Adolescent Psychiatry annual meeting in San Francisco. They include a method to get better input from parents and teachers of children who are being diagnosed with ADHD for the first time -- allowing for more effective treatment upon the first consultation.

Growing evidence suggests that there may be a link between diabetes and Alzheimer's disease, but the physiological mechanisms by which diabetes impacts brain function and cognition are not fully understood. In a new study published in Aging Cell, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies show, for the first time, that diabetes enhances the development of aging features that may underlie early pathological events in Alzheimer's.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Had a bad day? Extending your normal exercise routine by a few minutes may be the solution, according to Penn State researchers, who found that people's satisfaction with life was higher on days when they exercised more than usual.