Brain

Older people who have experienced episodes of delirium are significantly more likely to develop dementia, according to new research. The study is published in the journal Brain today, Thursday, 09August.

A novel methodology shows that Wild meerkats engage in nine separate learning processes during foraging, and this method may provide general insight into learning mechanisms for groups of animals and culture development. The full report is published Aug. 8 in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

Vaginal birth triggers the expression of a protein in the brains of newborns that improves brain development and function in adulthood, according to a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers, who also found that this protein expression is impaired in the brains of offspring delivered by caesarean section (C-sections).

These findings are published in the August issue of PLoS ONE by a team of researchers led by Tamas Horvath, the Jean and David W. Wallace Professor of Biomedical Research and chair of the Department of Comparative Medicine at Yale School of Medicine.

MINNEAPOLIS – Just one week of speech therapy may reorganize the brain, helping to reduce stuttering, according to a study published in the August 8, 2012, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The Chinese study gives researchers new insights into the role of different brain regions in stuttering, which affects about one percent of adults.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- The brain has billions of neurons, arranged in complex circuits that allow us to perceive the world, control our movements and make decisions. Deciphering those circuits is critical to understanding how the brain works and what goes wrong in neurological disorders.

LA JOLLA, CA, August 8, 2012 – A fine-tuned combination of two existing pharmaceutical drugs has shown promise as a potential new therapy for people addicted to cocaine—a therapy that would reduce their craving for the drug and blunt their symptoms of withdrawal.

In laboratory experiments at The Scripps Research Institute, the potential therapy, which combines low doses of the drug naltrexone with the drug buprenorphine, made laboratory rats less likely to take cocaine compulsively—a standard preclinical test that generally comes before human trials.

Molecular missteps that disrupt brain function in the most common form of adult-onset muscular dystrophy have been revealed in a new study published by Cell Press. Myotonic dystrophy is marked by progressive muscle wasting and weakness, as well as excessive daytime sleepiness, memory problems, and mental retardation. A new mouse model reported in the August 9 issue of the journal Neuron reproduces key cognitive and behavioral symptoms of this disease and could be used to develop drug treatments, which are currently lacking.

A new study is the first to find a difference between how boys and girls respond to prenatal exposure to the insecticide chlorpyrifos. Researchers at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health (CCCEH) at the Mailman School of Public Health found that, at age 7, boys had greater difficulty with working memory, a key component of IQ, than girls with similar exposures. On the plus side, having nurturing parents improved working memory, especially in boys, although it did not lessen the negative cognitive effects of exposure to the chemical.

They're everywhere -- in magazines, on the Internet, on television—people with super-thin bodies who are presented as having the ideal body form. But despite the increasing pressure to be thin, more and more of us are overweight. Now, researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have found that normal weight teens who perceive themselves as fat are more likely to grow up to be fat.

Stressed and non-stressed persons use different brain regions and different strategies when learning. This has been reported by the cognitive psychologists PD Dr. Lars Schwabe and Professor Oliver Wolf from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in the Journal of Neuroscience. Non-stressed individuals applied a deliberate learning strategy, while stressed subjects relied more on their gut feeling. "These results demonstrate for the first time that stress has an influence on which of the different memory systems the brain turns on," said Lars Schwabe.

A new way to study the role of a critical neurotransmitter in disorders such as epilepsy, anxiety, insomnia, depression, schizophrenia, and alcohol addiction has been developed by a group of scientists led by Gong Chen, an associate professor of biology at Penn State University. The new method involves molecularly engineering a model synapse -- a structure through which a nerve cell send signals to another cell. This model synapse can precisely control a variety of receptors for the neurotransmitter called GABA, which is important in brain chemistry.

Heavy drinking is known to affect teenagers' developing brains, but certain patterns of brain activity may also help predict which kids are at risk of becoming problem drinkers, according to a study in the September issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

(Boston) – Investigators at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Veterans Affairs (VA) Boston Healthcare System have identified a new gene linked to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The findings, published online in Molecular Psychiatry, indicate that a gene known to play a role in protecting brain cells from the damaging effects of stress may also be involved in the development of PTSD.

DURHAM, N.C. -- If past experience makes you think there's going to be one more cashew at the bottom of the bowl, you're likely to search through those mixed nuts a little longer.

But what keeps the attention of a radiologist who sees just 70 suspicious lesions in 1,000 mammograms or a baggage screener who hasn't found a handgun in more than a year?

The answer, according to biological theory and a laboratory study conducted by Duke University psychologists, may be to make those professional searchers believe there are more targets to be found.

Children fed healthy diets in early age may have a slightly higher IQ, while those on heavier junk food diets may have a slightly reduced IQ, according to new research from the University of Adelaide.