Brain

Summer vacation time is upon us. If you have been saving up for your dream vacation for years, you may want to make sure your dream spot is still the best place to go. A new study has found that when we fantasize about such trips before they are possible, we tend to overlook the negatives – thus influencing our decision-making down the line.

Philadelphia, PA, May 31, 2012 – Autism is a developmental disorder that affects social and communication skills. Irritability is a symptom of autism that can complicate adjustment at home and other settings, and can manifest itself in aggression, tantrums, and self-injurious behavior. These disruptive behaviors are frequently observed in children with autism, which may considerably affect their ability to function at home or in school.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — New research by a University of California, Riverside psychologist raises serious questions about eyewitness identification procedures that are being adopted by police departments across the United States. These new procedures are designed to reduce the kinds of false identification errors that can lead to wrongful convictions of innocent people.

While it has long been held that these changes reduce false identifications with little or no loss of correct identifications, UC Riverside psychology professor Steven E. Clark suggests that that is not the case.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Indiana University researchers found that the highly active middle-aged subjects in their study appear to avoid the arterial stiffening -- when arteries become less compliant as blood pumps through the body -- that typically comes with aging.

PHILADELPHIA (May 30, 2012) – New findings from the Monell Center reveal that humans can identify the age of other humans based on differences in body odor. Much of this ability is based on the capacity to identify odors of elderly individuals, and contrary to popular supposition, the so-called 'old-person smell' is rated as less intense and less unpleasant than body odors of middle-aged and young individuals.

A treatment to reduce the body temperatures of infants who experience oxygen deficiency at birth has benefits into early childhood, according to a follow-up study by a National Institutes of Health research network.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers, in collaboration with other research institutions and youth mental health experts, are publishing new guidelines for primary care providers and mental health specialists to manage the common but often complex problem of childhood aggression. The goals include improving diagnosis and care and avoiding inappropriate use of medication.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Married people may be happier in the long run than those who aren't married, according to new research by Michigan State University scientists.

Their study, online in the Journal of Research in Personality, finds that although matrimony does not make people happier than they were when they were single, it appears to protect against normal declines in happiness during adulthood.

Changes to just three genetic letters among billions led to evolution and development of the mammalian motor sensory network, and laid the groundwork for the defining characteristics of the human brain, Yale University researchers report.

This networks provides the direct synaptic connections between the multi-layered neocortex in the human brain responsible for emotions, perception, and cognition and the neural centers of the brain that make fine motor skills possible.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon State University have made some fundamental discoveries about how people taste, smell and detect flavor, and why they love some foods much more than others.

The findings could lead to the Holy Grail of nutrition – helping people learn to really LIKE vegetables.

As an evolutionary survival mechanism, humans are wired to prefer sweet-tasting foods and avoid bitter substances. In the distant past, that helped us avoid poison and find food that provided energy. Now, it just makes us fat.

Patients who are blind in one side of their visual field benefit from presentation of sounds on the affected side. After passively hearing sounds for an hour, their visual detection of light stimuli in the blind half of their visual field improved significantly. Neural pathways that simultaneously process information from different senses are responsible for this effect. "We have embarked on a whole new therapy approach" says PD Dr. Jörg Lewald from the RUB's Cognitive Psychology Unit. Together with colleagues from the Neurological University Clinic at Bergmannsheil (Prof. Dr.

Women who have been trafficked for sexual exploitation experience violence and poor physical and mental health but there is little evidence available about the health consequences experienced by trafficked children, men or people trafficked for other forms of exploitation according to a study by UK researchers published in this week's PLoS Medicine.

STANFORD, Calif. — A specific antioxidant supplement may be an effective therapy for some features of autism, according to a pilot trial from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital that involved 31 children with the disorder.

The antioxidant, called N-Acetylcysteine, or NAC, lowered irritability in children with autism as well as reducing the children's repetitive behaviors. The researchers emphasized that the findings must be confirmed in a larger trial before NAC can be recommended for children with autism.

Although the death toll is relatively low for people who suffer from traumatic brain injury (TBI), it can have severe, life-long consequences for brain function. TBI can impair a patient's mental abilities, impact memory and behavior, and lead to dramatic personality changes. And long-term medical treatment carries a high economic cost.

Researchers have called for a consistent and supportive approach to child abandonment in Europe to protect the welfare of the hundreds of youngsters given up by their parents every year.

Academics from the Centre for Forensic and Family Psychology at The University of Nottingham conducted a two-year project exploring child abandonment and its prevention across the 27 countries of the European Union.