Brain

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Even two years later, Sarah Clark grimaces sheepishly and insists she mishandled the concussion her oldest son sustained in ninth-grade football.

"I was woefully unprepared," says Clark, a researcher at University of Michigan and a self-proclaimed football mom at Skyline High School in Ann Arbor. "I did not do a good job at all. I made him do his math homework that night. I sent him to school the next day."

The experience of killing in war was strongly associated with thoughts of suicide, in a study of Vietnam-era veterans led by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC) and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

The scientists found that veterans with more experiences involving killing were twice as likely to have reported suicidal thoughts as veterans who had fewer or no experiences.

Researchers at the Perinatology Research Branch of the National Institutes of Health, located at the Wayne State University School of Medicine and the Detroit Medical Center, have demonstrated that a nanotechnology-based drug treatment in newborn rabbits with cerebral palsy (CP) enabled dramatic improvement of movement disorders and the inflammatory process of the brain that causes many cases of CP. The findings strongly suggest that there may be an opportunity immediately after birth for drug treatment that could minimize CP.

Scientists funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) have shown for the first time that transplanting light-sensitive photoreceptors into the eyes of visually impaired mice can restore their vision.

The research, published in Nature, suggests that transplanting photoreceptors – light-sensitive nerve cells that line the back of the eye – could form the basis of a new treatment to restore sight in people with degenerative eye diseases.

The longstanding mystery of how selective hearing works – how people can tune in to a single speaker while tuning out their crowded, noisy environs – is solved this week in the journal Nature by two scientists from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

An artificial connection between the brain and muscles can restore complex hand movements in monkeys following paralysis, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The willingness of people to punish others who lie, cheat, steal or violate other social norms even when they weren't harmed and don't stand to benefit personally, is a distinctly human behavior. There is scant evidence that other animals, even other primates, behave in this "I punish you because you harmed him" fashion.

Boston – In a breakthrough for the way brain cancer is diagnosed and monitored, a team of researchers, lead by Anna M. Krichevsky, PhD, of the Center of Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) in Boston and Santosh Kesari, MD, PhD, director of Neuro-Oncology at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, have demonstrated that brain tumors can be reliably diagnosed and monitored without surgery. Previously, an accurate non-surgical test to detect brain tumors was unavailable and methods of monitoring a brain tumor's progression or response to treatment were not reliable.

LA JOLLA, CA – April 18, 2012 – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have shown that an injectable solution can protect mice from an otherwise lethal overdose of cocaine. The findings could lead to human clinical trials of a treatment designed to reverse the effects of cocaine in case of emergency. Cocaine is involved in more than 400,000 emergency-room visits and about 5,000 overdose deaths each year in the United States.

Identifying people by acquiring pictures of their eyes is becoming easier, according to a new report* from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST researchers evaluated the performance of iris recognition software from 11 different organizations and found that some techniques produced very rapid results—though this speed was often at the cost of accuracy.

Scientists are reporting development and successful testing in laboratory mice of a substance that shows promise for becoming the first antidote for cocaine toxicity in humans. According to a report in ACS' journal Molecular Pharmaceutics, the new so-called "passive vaccine" reversed the motor impairment, seizures and other dangerous symptoms of a cocaine overdose, which claims thousands of lives each year among users of the illicit drug.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Researchers at The Miriam Hospital say interventions targeting what college students often see as the pleasurable effects of alcohol – including loosened inhibitions and feeling more bold and outgoing – may be one way to stem the tide of dangerous and widespread binge drinking on college campuses.

MADISON – Practices like physical exercise, certain forms of psychological counseling and meditation can all change brains for the better, and these changes can be measured with the tools of modern neuroscience, according to a review article now online at Nature Neuroscience.

The study reflects a major transition in the focus of neuroscience from disease to well being, says first author Richard Davidson, professor of psychology at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

At a time when obesity has become epidemic in American society, Dartmouth scientists have found that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans may be able to predict weight gain. In a study published April 18, 2012, in The Journal of Neuroscience, the researchers demonstrated a connection between fMRI brain responses to appetite-driven cues and future behavior.

NEW ORLEANS – A levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel (LCIG) works better than standard oral levodopa-carbidopa in reducing "off" time in patients with advanced Parkinson's disease. That's according to results of the phase three randomized, double-blind clinical trial of LCIG, to be presented as part of the Emerging Science program (formerly known as Late-Breaking Science) at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans April 21 to April 28, 2012.