Brain

It's a topic that has long captivated doctors, scientists and the public -- what exactly happens in your brain when you're oblivious on the operating table?

Some anesthesia drugs work in a straightforward manner by dampening down neurons in the brain. The mechanism of one anesthetic, however, has proved elusive: ketamine.

Certain doses of ketamine induce general anesthesia, though brain activity can still be robust, says Cynthia Chestek, Ph.D., co-senior author of a new study in NeuroImage.

A buildup of plaque and dysfunctional proteins in the brain are hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. While much Alzheimer's research has focused on accumulation of the protein amyloid beta, researchers have begun to pay closer attention to another protein, tau, long associated with this disease but not studied as thoroughly, in part, because scientists only recently have developed effective ways to image tau.

Fox squirrels flick their tails when they can't get a cherished nut in much the same way that humans kick a vending machine that fails to deliver the anticipated soda or candy bar, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley.

In what is thought to be among the first studies of frustration in free-ranging animals, the findings, published online in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, suggest that animal tail movements reveal their emotional states, particularly the exasperation they feel when stymied during problem-solving tasks.

New York, NY (April 29, 2016)--The latest report from a 30-year study of families at high- and low-risk for depression reveals that the offspring of depressed parents have a higher risk for depression, morbidity and mortality that persists into middle age. While major depression typically begins during adolescence in both high- and low-risk individuals, children with a family history are more likely to have recurrent episodes of depression and poor outcomes as they mature.

The findings were published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Each year, an estimated 1.7 million people in the United States sustain traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These injuries occur most frequently from falling, but can also result from military combat, car accidents, contact sports or domestic abuse. Recently, physicians and researchers have become increasingly concerned that even mild cases of repetitive brain trauma could have long-term, unanticipated consequences.

BUFFALO, N.Y. - While analyzing and untangling multiple environmental sounds is an important social tool for humans, for animals that analysis is a critical survival skill. Yet humans and animals use similar cues to make sense of their acoustic worlds, according to new research from the University at Buffalo.

The study, published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, fills an important gap in the literature on how animals group sounds into auditory objects.

PITTSBURGH--Getting a bunch of people to collectively research and write a coherent report without any one person seeing the big picture may seem akin to a group of toddlers producing Hamlet by randomly pecking at typewriters. But Carnegie Mellon University researchers have shown it actually works pretty well -- if a computer guides the process.

A sportscaster lunges forward. "Interception! Drew Brees threw the ball right into the opposing linebacker's hands! Like he didn't even see him!"

The quarterback likely actually did not see the defender standing right in front of him, said Dobromir Rahnev, a psychologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Rahnev leads a research team making new discoveries about how the brain organizes visual perception, including how it leaves things out even when they're plainly in sight.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Intuition is all one needs to understand that stress in early childhood can create lifelong psychological troubles, but scientists have only begun to explain how those emerge in the brain. They have observed, for example, that stress incurred early in life attenuates neural growth. Now a study in male mice exposed to stress shows that a particular region, the hippocampus, hits many developmental milestones early -- essentially maturing faster in response to stress.

(Chicago) - Eating a meal of seafood or other foods containing omega-3 fatty acids at least once a week may protect against age-related memory loss and thinking problems in older people, according to a team of researchers at Rush University Medical Center and Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Their research findings were published in the May 4 online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study was supported by the National Institute on Aging and the Judith Zwartz Foundation.

Some adults learn a second language better than others, and their secret may involve the rhythms of activity in their brains.

New findings by scientists at the University of Washington demonstrate that a five-minute measurement of resting-state brain activity predicted how quickly adults learned a second language.

The study, published in the June-July issue of the journal Brain and Language, is the first to use patterns of resting-state brain rhythms to predict subsequent language learning rate.

Proper nutrition during childhood can positively affect a child's social behaviors and development.

That's the main finding of a new study from two University of Pennsylvania researchers: Jianghong Liu, an associate professor in Penn's School of Nursing and Perelman School of Medicine, and Adrian Raine, the Richard Perry University Professor of Criminology, Psychiatry and Psychology. They published their results in the journal Maternal & Child Nutrition.

Bullying is a serious public health problem, with significant short- and long-term psychological consequences for both the targets and perpetrators of such behavior, and requires a commitment to developing preventive and interventional policies and practices that could make a tangible difference in the lives of many children, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A new study concludes that parental depression contributes to greater brain activity in areas linked to risk taking in adolescent children, likely leading to more risk-taking and rule-breaking behaviors. While previous research has found associations between clinically depressed parents and their teenagers' risk taking, the new study is the first to find corresponding changes in the adolescents' brains.

The study is reported in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

Early detection and prediction of influenza outbreaks is critical to minimizing their impact. Currently, flu-like illnesses are tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but with a time lag of one to two weeks. Now, a team led by researchers at Boston Children's Hospital shows that cloud-based data from electronic health records (EHRs) can be used to pick up cases in real time, at least one week ahead of CDC reporting.