Brain

Caffeine, which is widely consumed around the world in coffee, tea and soft drinks, may help control movement in people suffering from Parkinson's. This is the finding of a study conducted at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI MUHC) that was recently published in Neurology®, the official journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study opens the door to new treatment options for Parkinson's disease that affects approximately 100 000 Canadians.

MINNEAPOLIS – While drinking caffeine each day does not appear to help improve sleepiness among people with Parkinson's disease, it may have a benefit in controlling movement, according to new research published in the August 1, 2012, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology .

Park Ridge, Ill. (August 1, 2012) – New research from Cornell University indicates that pregnant women who increase choline intake in the third trimester of pregnancy may reduce the risk of the baby developing metabolic and chronic stress-related diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes later in life.(i) The results, published in the latest edition of the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, suggest that choline, a nutrient found in high quantities in eggs, may help protect against the effects of a mother's stress during pregnancy.

"This study suggests that part of what it means to be intelligent is having a lateral prefrontal cortex that does its job well; and part of what that means is that it can effectively communicate with the rest of the brain," says study co-author Todd Braver, PhD, professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences and of neuroscience and radiology in the School of Medicine. Braver is a co-director of the Cognitive Control and Psychopathology Lab at Washington University, in which the research was conducted.

Hundreds of millions of daily posts on the social networking service Twitter are providing a new window into bullying — a tough nut to crack for researchers.

"Kids are pretty savvy about keeping bullying outside of adult supervision, and bullying victims are very reluctant to tell adults about it happening to them for a host of reasons," says Amy Bellmore, a University of Wisconsin–Madison educational psychology professor. "They don't want to look like a tattletale, or they think an adult might not do anything about it."

STANFORD, Calif. — A molecule widely assailed as the chief culprit in Alzheimer's disease unexpectedly reverses paralysis and inflammation in several distinct animal models of a different disorder — multiple sclerosis, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have found.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found evidence that a unique type of immune cell contributes to multiple sclerosis (MS). Their discovery helps define the effects of one of the newest drugs under investigation for treating MS – daclizumab – and could lead to a new class of drugs for treating MS and other autoimmune disorders.

The junior high and high school years are emotionally challenging even under the best of circumstances, but for adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), that time can be particularly painful. Lacking the social skills that enable them to interact successfully with their peers, these students are often ostracized and even bullied by their classmates.

There is growing evidence that, beyond what was previously believed, the adult human brain is remarkably malleable and capable of new feats -- even in the last decades of life.

In fact, new experiences can trigger major physical changes in the brain within just a few days, and certain conditions can accelerate this physical, chemical and functional remodeling of the brain.

DALLAS – Aug. 1, 2012 – A study by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers published online today in Nature reveals new insight into why the most common, deadly kind of brain tumor in adults recurs and identifies a potential target for future therapies.

ATLANTA – An international team of researchers, including a scientist at Georgia State University, found that black men who have sex with men (MSM) are more likely to have HIV than other MSM, and that social inequalities play a major role.

Examining data from nearly 200 studies in the U.S., the United Kingdom and Canada, the researchers found that stigma, poverty and inadequate access to health care were major factors in the disparities. The term "MSM" was used in the study, as some men who have sex with men do not identify with the terms gay or bisexual.

A new study raises concern about chronic exposure of workers in industry to a food flavoring ingredient used to produce the distinctive buttery flavor and aroma of microwave popcorn, margarines, snack foods, candy, baked goods, pet foods and other products. It found evidence that the ingredient, diacetyl (DA), intensifies the damaging effects of an abnormal brain protein linked to Alzheimer's disease. The study appears in ACS' journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.

Butterflies learn faster when a flower is rewarding than when it is not, and females have the edge over males when it comes to speed of learning with rewards. These are the findings of a new study, by Dr. Ikuo Kandori and Takafumi Yamaki from Kinki University in Japan. Their work, published online in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature, is the first to investigate and compare the speed at which insects learn from both rewarding and non-rewarding experiences.

Moving from sixth form, or college, into higher education (HE) can be a challenge for many students, especially those who start mathematically demanding courses. Life prior to university focuses on achieving maximum examination success to be sure of a place. Faced with this pressure, school and college maths courses pay little attention to preparing students to use maths in other areas of study according to a project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).