Brain

PHILADELPHIA - An implantable brain device that literally melts away at a pre-determined rate minimizes injury to tissue normally associated with standard electrode implantation, according to research led by a team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The researchers describe online in Nature Materials a new class of technology that provides greater resolution for measuring electrical activity in space and time that matches or exceeds existing methods.

MADISON, Wis. -- Much like electricity traveling down wires, nerve impulses in our brain travel along nerve fibers. And just as wires need insulation to function well, nerve fibers, too, rely on a kind of insulation called myelin, a fatty substance that protects them and increases the speed at which nerve impulses travel.

Scientists have built a computer model that shows how bees use vision to detect the movement of the world around them and avoid crashing. This research, published in PLOS Computational Biology, is an important step in understanding how the bee brain processes the visual world and will aid the development of robotics.

The ongoing Zika virus (ZIKV) epidemic with its link to birth defects and serious immune disease has created an urgent need for a small animal model that can improve our understanding of how the virus causes disease symptoms in humans and speed up the development of vaccines and treatment. A study published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases describes one of the first mouse models for ZIKV disease. Following infection via the skin (resembling a mosquito bite), the mice develop disease and accumulate virus in many organs, including the brain.

A miniature camera using optical character-recognition technology, mounted onto the eyeglasses of people who are considered legally blind, dramatically improves their ability to read an email, newspaper article, menu or page in a book, a study by researchers with UC Davis Health System has found.

Using the device the study participants were significantly better able to perform activities of daily living. The device recognizes text and reads it to the user using an earpiece that transmits sound, and can also be programmed to recognize faces and commercial products.

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have used a completely new preclinical technique and analysis of tissue from patients to show exactly what happens when certain patients with Parkinson's disease are restored as a result of nerve cell transplants. They have also identified what makes many of the transplant patients develop serious side effects in the form of involuntary movements.

Researchers from Germany and the USA have identified an important mechanism with which memory switches from recall to memorization mode. The study may shed new light on the cellular causes of dementia. The work was directed by the University of Bonn and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE). It is being published in the renowned journal Neuron.

Researchers from the University of Liverpool have published a paper regarding their work on how beliefs about food addiction can affect eating behaviour.

Obesity is often attributed to an addiction to food and many people believe themselves to be "food addicts." However, until now no studies have looked at whether believing oneself to be a food addict influences how much we eat.

Helen Ruddock and colleagues from the University's Institute of Psychology, Health and Society examined the impact of changing participants' personal food addiction beliefs on eating behaviour.

BINGHAMTON, NY - Mothers with a history of depression are not physiologically "in sync" with their kids, according to a new study from Binghamton University. While researchers have known for a while that depression is associated with interpersonal problems with others, this is the first study to examine whether this is also evident physiologically.

Giving young children a two-minute warning that "screen time" is about to end makes transitions away from tablets, phones, televisions and other technological devices more painful, a new University of Washington study has found.

Researchers expected that this ubiquitous parenting tool -- which aims to make it easier for children to disengage from an activity they're absorbed in -- would help smooth transitions away from screen time.

Some things did make that switch easier, like having routines, disengaging at a natural stopping point or simply having a battery die.

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a disease that causes progressive degeneration in the nerve cells that control muscles, thereby causing muscle weakness and eventually death. SMA affects approximately 200,000 people in the U.S., often children. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri are studying a subtype of SMA, spinal muscular atrophy with respiratory distress type 1 (SMARD1), and have developed a gene replacement therapy that can be used to treat and control the disease in the future.

HANOVER, N.H. - Context plays a big role in our memories, both good and bad. Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" on the car radio, for example, may remind you of your first love -- or your first speeding ticket. But a Dartmouth- and Princeton-led brain scanning study shows that people can intentionally forget past experiences by changing how they think about the context of those memories.

Scientists at the University of Sheffield have created a computer model of how bees avoid hitting walls - which could be a breakthrough in the development of autonomous robots.

Researchers from the Department of Computer Science built their computer model to look at how bees use vision to detect the movement of the world around them and avoid crashes.

For years, scientists and doctors have known that ketamine can treat depression very rapidly, often working within hours, compared to weeks or months for widely used antidepressants. But the drug, which is approved as an anesthetic, has major side effects - it is linked to hallucinations and dissociation - a sense of being outside your own body - and for these reasons is abused as a club drug. Not surprisingly, this limits its use in the treatment of depression.

ITHACA, N.Y. - The survival of the fittest might just be the survival of the steadfast instead. Having a positive attitude could be evolutionarily advantageous, according to Cornell researchers who simulated generations of evolution in a computational model.

The findings offer scientific support to the ancient philosophical insights from China, Greece and India, which encourage cultivating long-term contentment or life satisfaction rather than grasping at the fleeting joy of instant gratification, the researchers said.