Brain

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 15, 2012 -- In today's tough job market, more job-seekers could be facing interview questions like this: Why are manholes round? Or how many barbershops are there in San Francisco?

New job-hunters need to be prepared for these "puzzle interview" questions, says SF State researcher Chris Wright, even though they may consider them to be unfair or irrelevant.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Companionship has the potential to reduce pain linked to nerve damage, according to a new study.

Mice that were paired with a cage-mate showed lower pain responses and fewer signs of inflammation in their nervous system after undergoing surgery that affected their nerves than did isolated mice, suggesting that the social contact had both behavioral and physiological influences.

The social contact lowered the pain response and signs of inflammation even in animals that had experienced stress prior to the nerve injury.

A study by researchers from Emory University and Indiana University found that the beneficial effects daily exercise can have on the regeneration of nerves also require androgens such as testosterone in both males and females. It is the first report of both androgen-dependence of exercise on nerve regeneration and of an androgenic effect of exercise in females.

Children who undergo brain radiation therapy run a significant risk of suffering from permanent neurocognitive adverse effects. These adverse effects are due to the fact that the radiation often encounters healthy tissue. This reduces the formation of new cells, particularly in the hippocampus – the part of the brain involved in memory and learning.

NEW ORLEANS — New studies presented today offer vivid examples of how advances in basic brain research help reduce the trauma and suffering of innocent landmine victims, amateur and professional athletes, and members of the military. The research was presented today at Neuroscience 2012, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world's largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.

"Addiction is a brain disease" was the title of an editorial in the renowned journal "Science" 15 years ago. The author argued that recognising addiction as a disorder of the brain can impact society´s overall health and social policy strategies and help diminish the health and social costs associated with drug abuse and addiction (Leshner, 1997). Such a presentation of the complex concept of addiction was revolutionary, as social and psychological aspects were largely considered as the most important, although not the only ones involved.

One in six people in England aged over 50 are socially isolated. They have few socially orientated hobbies, little civic or cultural engagement with society, and may have very limited social networks. This was a key finding from the most recent report of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), a comprehensive study that aims to understand the economic, social, psychological and health concerns of an ageing society.

NEW ORLEANS, La. —New research links motor skills and perception, specifically as it relates to a second finding—a new understanding of what the left and right brain hemispheres "hear." Georgetown University Medical Center researchers say these findings may eventually point to strategies to help stroke patients recover their language abilities, and to improve speech recognition in children with dyslexia.

Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine are presenting important discoveries on the involvement of the immune system and dopamine cells in the onset of depression at Neuroscience 2012, the Society for Neuroscience's 42nd annual meeting on October 13 -17 in New Orleans, and are available for interviews.

Parents from poorer backgrounds are less likely to encourage their kids to finish high school, according to a new analysis from the University of Melbourne.

About six in 10 children from low socio-economic households in Australia currently complete high school, while 90% of students from more affluent homes finish their secondary studies.

Lead researcher Dr Cain Polidano (0409 703 296), from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, said the attitudes of parents played a crucial role.

An Indiana University study has provided preliminary evidence that by measuring brain activity through the use of neuroimaging, researchers can predict who is likely to have an easier time getting off drugs and alcohol, and who will need extra help.

"We can also see how brain activity changes as people recover from their addictions," said Joshua Brown, assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, part of the College of Arts and Sciences.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study in animals shows that chronic stress during pregnancy prevents brain benefits of motherhood, a finding that researchers suggest could increase understanding of postpartum depression.

Rat mothers showed an increase in brain cell connections in regions associated with learning, memory and mood. In contrast, the brains of mother rats that were stressed twice a day throughout pregnancy did not show this increase.

Last year, researchers in a multi-institutional study discovered a DNA change found to be the cause of more than 40 percent of inherited and 10 percent of spontaneous cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Up to this point, no other reliable genetic cause was known for the most common, sporadic form of these progressive neurodegenerative diseases.

Emma Gregory, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in cognitive science at the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at The Johns Hopkins University, studied whether retrograde amnesia (loss of memory for information acquired before the onset of an illness or trauma) affected a broader range of knowledge than those tested in most previous studies of amnesia.

Early in the 20th century, bird dealers discovered that female birds injected with the sex hormone testosterone sang more complicated songs, like their male counterparts. A Johns Hopkins research team decided to investigate how female canary brains changed with exposure to testosterone to affect their behavior.