Brain

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Chronic exposure to dim light at night can lead to depressive symptoms in rodents -- but these negative effects can be reversed simply by returning to a standard light-dark cycle, a new study suggests.

While hamsters exposed to light at night for four weeks showed evidence of depressive symptoms, those symptoms essentially disappeared after about two weeks if they returned to normal lighting conditions.

Even changes in the brain that occurred after hamsters lived with chronic light at night reversed themselves after returning to a more normal light cycle.

Too often our memory starts acting like a particularly porous sieve: all the important fragments that should be caught and preserved somehow just disappear. So armed with pencils and bolstered by caffeine, legions of adults, especially older adults, tackle crossword puzzles, acrostics, Sudoku and a host of other activities designed to strengthen their flagging memory muscles.

The American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates (HOD) recently adopted Resolution 507: Diagnostic Ultrasound Utilization and Education, which was introduced by the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM) and cosponsored by 15 national and state medical societies. Medical societies represented included surgery, sports medicine, emergency medicine, urology, endocrinology, pain medicine, chest physicians, rheumatology, and physical medicine and rehabilitation, among others.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Stroboscopic training, performing a physical activity while using eyewear that simulates a strobe-like experience, has been found to increase visual short-term memory retention, and the effects last for 24 hours.

• A new study has examined heavy alcohol exposure during pregnancy using population-based data in Chile.
• Approximately 80 percent of the children examined had one or more abnormalities associated with alcohol exposure.
• Functional neurologic impairment was the most frequent and sometimes only sign of alcohol exposure.

• African American adolescents drink less than European American adolescents.
• A new study examines racial differences in disinhibition.
• Results indicate that European American youth have higher levels of sensation seeking while African American youth have higher levels of impulsivity.

• Visuomotor procedural memory processes include driving a car, riding a bike, and using a computer mouse.
• This study examined the separate and combined injurious effects of chronic alcoholism and HIV infection upon visuomotor procedural memory processes.
• Results indicate the two conditions differently affect the processes involved in procedural learning and memory of visuomotor information.

Most children exposed to high levels of alcohol in the womb do not develop the distinct facial features seen in fetal alcohol syndrome, but instead show signs of abnormal intellectual or behavioral development, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and researchers in Chile.

The FDA says baby bottles and sippy cups can no longer contain Bisphenol-A (BPA), an endocrine disruptor that mimics estrogen. But what about the hundreds of other plastic items, from water bottles to dental sealants, containing BPA?

The FDA didn't go far enough, said Mercyhurst University Public Health Department Chair Dr. David Dausey. Dausey addresses the FDA's recent BPA ban in his latest vlog, The Dausey File: Public Health News Today.

Infants are able to detect how speech communicates unobservable intentions, researchers at New York University and McGill University have found in a study that sheds new light on how early in life we can rely on language to acquire knowledge about matters that go beyond first-hand experiences.

Their findings appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

(Boston, Mass.)—Severe psychological and physical neglect produces measurable changes in children's brains, finds a study led by Boston Children's Hospital. But the study also suggests that positive interventions can partially reverse these changes.

Researchers led by Margaret Sheridan, PhD, and Charles Nelson, PhD, of the Labs of Cognitive Neuroscience at Boston Children's Hospital, analyzed brain MRI scans from Romanian children in the ongoing Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), which has transferred some children reared in orphanages into quality foster care homes.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new study finds that mice have a distinct neural subsystem that links the nose to the brain and is associated with instinctually important smells such as those emitted by predators. That insight, published online this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, prompts the question whether mice and other mammals have specially hardwired neural circuitry to trigger instinctive behavior in response to certain smells.

CHAPEL HILL, NC – The use of the synthetic stimulants collectively known as "bath salts" have gained popularity among recreational drug users over the last five years, largely because they were readily available and unrestricted via the Internet and at convenience stores, and were virtually unregulated.

Toronto, Canada –Neuroscientists have found strong evidence that vivid memory and directly experiencing the real moment can trigger similar brain activation patterns.

(Edmonton) A team of University of Alberta researchers has identified a new class of compounds that inhibit the spread of prions, misfolded proteins in the brain that trigger lethal neurodegenerative diseases in humans and animals.

U of A chemistry researcher Frederick West and his team have developed compounds that clear prions from infected cells derived from the brain.