Brain

In recent years it has become clear that athletes who experience repeated impacts to the head may be at risk of potentially serious neurological and psychiatric problems. But a study of sports programs at three major universities, published in the October 2 Journal of Neurosurgery, finds that the way the injury commonly called concussion is usually diagnosed – largely based on athletes' subjective symptoms – varies greatly and may not be the best way to determine who is at risk for future problems.

Researchers at Western University have created a mouse model that reproduces some of the chemical changes in the brain that occur with Alzheimer's, shedding new light on this devastating disease. Marco Prado, Vania Prado and their colleagues at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry's Robarts Research Institute, looked at changes related to a neurotransmitter or chemical messenger, named acetylcholine (ACh), and the kinds of memory problems associated with it. The research is now published online by PNAS.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The majority of languages — roughly 85 percent of them — can be sorted into two categories: those, like English, in which the basic sentence form is subject-verb-object ("the girl kicks the ball"), and those, like Japanese, in which the basic sentence form is subject-object-verb ("the girl the ball kicks").

New research from North Carolina State University, Brigham Young University and the University of California, Irvine finds that parental involvement is a more significant factor in a child's academic performance than the qualities of the school itself.

"Our study shows that parents need to be aware of how important they are, and invest time in their children – checking homework, attending school events and letting kids know school is important," says Dr. Toby Parcel, a professor of sociology at NC State and co-author of a paper on the work. "That's where the payoff is."

Researchers at HIIT and Max Planck Institute for Informatics show how computer vision -based hand tracking and vibration feedback on the user's hand can be used to steer the user's hand toward an object of interest. A study shows an almost three-fold advantage in finding objects from complex visual scenes, such as library or supermarket shelves.

Washington, DC — Scientists studying a rare genetic disorder have identified a molecular pathway that may play a role in schizophrenia, according to new research in the October 10 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings may one day guide researchers to new treatment options for people with schizophrenia — a devastating disease that affects approximately 1 percent of the world's population.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, the USC Brain and Creativity Institute and Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA) are delighted to announce a longitudinal research collaboration to investigate the emotional, social and cognitive effects of musical training on childhood brain development.

Researchers have discovered that a form of oxytocin—the hormone responsible for making humans fall in love—has a similar effect on fish, suggesting it is a key regulator of social behaviour that has evolved and endured since ancient times.

The findings, published in the latest edition of the journal Animal Behaviour, help answer an important evolutionary question: why do some species develop complex social behaviours while others spend much of their lives alone?

TEMPE, Ariz. - Just because a lizard can grow back its tail, doesn't mean it will be exactly the same. A multidisciplinary team of scientists from Arizona State University and the University of Arizona examined the anatomical and microscopic make-up of regenerated lizard tails and discovered that the new tails are quite different from the original ones.

The findings are published in a pair of articles featured in a special October edition of the journal, The Anatomical Record.

Women who choose to be permanently childfree perceive more social pressures to become mothers than other women, but feel less distress about not having kids than women who are childless from infertility or other reasons, a new national study shows.

URBANA – Recent studies have linked caffeine consumption to a reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease, and a new University of Illinois study may be able to explain how this happens.

"We have discovered a novel signal that activates the brain-based inflammation associated with neurodegenerative diseases, and caffeine appears to block its activity. This discovery may eventually lead to drugs that could reverse or inhibit mild cognitive impairment," said Gregory Freund, a professor in the U of I's College of Medicine and a member of the U of I's Division of Nutritional Sciences.

School-age children who participate in structured after-school activities improve their academic achievement, according to a new study from Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

The study by researchers in SMU's Simmons School of Education and Human Development measured academic performance of students enrolled in Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Dallas.

LOS ANGELES (Oct. 9, 2012) – Approximately 14 percent of individuals suffering from depression and other mental health issues in the United States are minorities in underserved communities, yet very few medications or psychosocial interventions have been developed utilizing the participation of these groups. This year, Bowen Chung, M.D.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have identified a new therapy for patients with neuromyelitis optica that appears to stop inflammation of the eye nerves and spinal cord. NMO is a debilitating central nervous system disorder that is often misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis (MS). In the study, patients with severe symptoms of the disease, also known as NMO, were given eculizumab, a drug typically used to treat blood disorders.

Boston, Mass.—Using tiny spheres filled with an anesthetic derived from a shellfish toxin, researchers at Boston Children's Hospital and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a way to delay the rise of neuropathic pain, a chronic form of pain that arises from flawed signals transmitted by damaged nerves.

The method could potentially allow doctors to stop the cascade of events by which tissue or nerve injuries evolve into neuropathic pain, which affects 3.75 million children and adults in the United States alone.