Brain

MAYWOOD, Ill. - If a paramedic suspects a patient is having a stroke, the paramedic is probably right, a Loyola University Medical Center study has found.

Researchers examined the records of 5,300 patients who were brought to Loyola's emergency room by emergency medical services (EMS). Paramedics were able to identify stroke patients with a 99.3 percent specificity. (In diagnosing disease, a high specificity rate indicates there's a high probability the patient actually has the disease.)

The new UK alcohol strategy includes a plan to ensure that General Practitioners (GPs) advise heavy drinkers to cut down (The Government's Alcohol Strategy, 23 March 2012, downloadable from http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/). There is good evidence that this can reduce how much people drink. The big question is, what should GPs say to their patients?

A chromosomal abnormality in children with a deadly form of brain cancer is linked with a poorer chance of survival, clinician scientists at The University of Nottingham have discovered.

The study led by experts at Nottingham's Children's Brain Tumour Research Centre as part of a European collaboration could potentially lead to a new diagnostic test to allow doctors to identify youngsters who are at the highest risk associated with an ependymoma tumour and may need aggressive life-saving treatments.

Researchers at UCLA and New York University have developed a method to detect sequence differences in individual DNA molecules by taking nanoscopic pictures of the molecules themselves.

The work is reported in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

Using the approach they call "Direct Molecular Recognition," the UCLA and NYU researchers used nanoparticles to turn the DNA molecules into a form of molecular braille that can be read in the scale of nanometers, or one billionth of a meter, using high-speed Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM).

A hallmark of human intelligence is the ability to efficiently adapt to uncertain, changing and open-ended environments. In such environments, efficient adaptive behavior often requires considering multiple alternative behavioral strategies, adjusting them, and possibly inventing new ones. These reasoning, learning and creative abilities involve the frontal lobes, which are especially well developed in humans compared to other primates. However, how the frontal function decides to create new strategies and how multiple strategies can be monitored concurrently remain largely unknown.

WASHINGTON -- Teaching students of all ages about the value of diversity and the serious mental health impacts of bias and stereotyping will help end widespread discrimination in the United States, according to a new American Psychological Association task force report.

Montreal -- With the click of a mouse or touch of a mobile phone screen — in pyjamas or jeans — gambling is now at our fingertips 24/7 with Internet play. With this increased access to gambling, are online gamblers more prone to risky behaviours than offline gamblers?

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- To curb employees' on-the-job substance use and intoxication, bosses need to do more than just be around their employees all day, according to a new study from the University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions (RIA).

"It's only when employees think their supervisor knows how to detect substance use -- and is willing to do something about it -- that employees' drinking and drug use on the job decreases," explains Michael Frone, PhD, senior research scientist at RIA and research associate professor of psychology.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – People enjoy watching tragedy movies like "Titanic" because they deliver what may seem to be an unlikely benefit: tragedies actually make people happier in the short-term.

Researchers found that watching a tragedy movie caused people to think about their own close relationships, which in turn boosted their life happiness. The result was that what seems like a negative experience – watching a sad story – made people happier by bringing attention to some positive aspects in their own lives.

A study of more than 18,000 children across England found that embedding mental health support in schools as part of the Targeted Mental Health in Schools (TaMHS) programme led to greater improvements in self-reported behavioural problems among primary pupils. The benefits were even more pronounced where schools also provided pupils with self-help leaflets explaining how children could help themselves if they were feeling stressed or troubled.

Individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) often undergo multiple courses of antidepressant treatment during their lives. This is because the disorder can recur despite treatment and because finding the right medication for a specific individual can take time.

While the relationship between prior treatment and the brain's response to subsequent treatment is unknown, a new study by UCLA researchers suggests that how the brain responds to antidepressant medication may be influenced by its remembering of past antidepressant exposure.

Repeated stress triggers the production and accumulation of insoluble tau protein aggregates inside the brain cells of mice, say researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine in a new study published in the March 26 Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Schizophrenia has long been known to be hereditary. However, as a melting pot of disorders with different genetic causes is concealed behind manifestations of schizophrenia, research has still not been able to identify the main gene responsible to this day.

CHICAGO – For nearly 30 years, Tom Rogers' left hand would shake when he tried to use it, making even simple tasks such as drinking a glass of water, writing a check, or making a sandwich challenging. The tremor eventually became so disruptive that he lost use of his dominant hand. Rogers sought care and learned that his tremor was a symptom of Parkinson's disease, yet felt he was suffering from something different.