Brain

ATLANTA--African-American girls in high-risk neighborhoods report encounters with aggression and sexual objectification, according to Georgia State University researchers.

In a recent study published in the journal School Psychology Forum, African-American girls in the fifth, sixth and seventh grades shared their experiences with strained relationships, recurring violence, internalized stereotypes and objectifying sexual activities.

A study by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), New York State Psychiatric Institute and colleagues in Finland reports an association between smoking during pregnancy and increased risk for schizophrenia in children. The paper evaluated nearly 1,000 cases of schizophrenia and matched controls among offspring born in Finland from 1983-1998 who were ascertained from the country's national registry.

Every day humans and animals face ambiguous circumstances. If we become sick after eating, we blame the food; however, if we then fall ill without having eaten that food, the causal link becomes ambiguous. New findings from the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Japan and New York University reveal where and how such ambiguous associations are processed in the brains of rats.

Using a miniature microscope that opens a window into the brain, UCLA neuroscientists have identified in mice how the brain links different memories over time. While aging weakens these connections, the team devised a way for the middle-aged brain to reconnect separate memories.

The findings, which were published today in the advance online edition of Nature, suggest a possible intervention for people suffering from age-related memory problems.

Great discoveries do come in small packages. Few know that better than Ann-Marie Broome, Ph.D., who feels nanotechnology holds the future of medicine with its ability to deliver powerful drugs in tiny, designer packages.

Her latest research finds the perfect application - targeting cancerous brain tumor cells.

Diagnosis, treatment and care of dementia is one of the major concerns in neurology research and associated healthcare programs. Dementia affects older age groups with a greater frequency, and as our population ages, the burden of dementia on public health is rapidly increasing. The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer's disease (AD), which accounts for 60 to 80 per cent of total cases.

TORONTO, May 18, 2016--Refugee children had similar academic success as other children if adequately supported, despite having more behavioural and emotional problems overall, a comprehensive review has found.

Emotional and behavioural issues were most prevalent in refugee children under the age of 10, with internalized issues such as anxiety and depression occurring more often than external problems, which included aggression or hyperactivity.

A special kind of immune cell serves as an intermediary between gut bacteria and the brain. Dr. Susanne Wolf of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC) discovered this in tests on mice and published her findings in the journal Cell Reports. The research findings are of significance when it comes to the effects of using antibiotics in the long term, and could also help to alleviate the symptoms of mental disorders.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Coprophagia, eating one's feces, is common in animals but rarely seen in humans. Mayo Clinic researchers reviewed the cases of a dozen adult patients diagnosed with coprophagia over the past 20 years and found that the behavior is associated with a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders, particularly neurodegenerative dementias. The findings are published in the Journal of Neurology.

MULTIMEDIA ALERT: Video and audio are available for download on the Mayo Clinic News Network.

The complexity of the human brain depends upon the many thousands of individual types of nerve cells it contains. Even the much simpler mouse brain probably contains 10,000 or more different neuronal cell types. Brandeis scientists Yasu Shima, Sacha Nelson and colleagues report in the journal eLife on a new approach for genetically identifying and manipulating these cell types.

Montreal, May 20 2016 - A type of brain cell known as microglia plays a key role in reducing the effects of cocaine in the brain, according to a major study by a team from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) in Montreal.

The discovery, published in the journal Neuron, establishes for the first time that microglia can diminish the adverse changes to neural circuitry brought on by the chronic use of cocaine and has significant implications for developing an effective treatment for addiction.

Antibiotics strong enough to kill off gut bacteria can also stop the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampus, a section of the brain associated with memory, reports a study in mice published May 19 in Cell Reports. Researchers also uncovered a clue to why-- a type of white blood cell seems to act as a communicator between the brain, the immune system, and the gut.

Studying fruit flies, whose sleep is remarkably similar to that in people, Johns Hopkins researchers say they've identified brain cells that are responsible for why delaying bedtime creates chronic sleepiness.

In a report on the research published online on May 19, 2016 in Cell, the scientists say they found a group of brain cells in charge of so-called sleep drive that becomes more active the longer flies are kept awake. The same mechanism, they say, also plays a role in putting the flies to sleep and keeping them that way.

Summary:

The importance of friendships and family support in helping prevent depression among teenagers has been highlighted in research from the University of Cambridge. The study, published in the open access journal PLOS ONE, also found that teenagers who had grown up in a difficult family environment were more likely than their peers to be bullied at school.