Brain

For a 6-year-old, one of the most powerful educational tools may be direct instruction, according to new research on how children learn about prejudice. Scientists found that as children get closer to age 10, they begin to rely more on their own experiences rather than what people tell them – but for youngsters, instruction trumps experience.

Cerebral edemas are accumulations of fluid into the intra- or extracellular spaces of the brain and it can result from several factors such as stroke or head trauma, among others.

Cerebral edema is a serious problem in neurology. While in other organs swelling does not lead to an urgent situation, in the brain it leads to coma and death. Although there are therapeutic solutions such as surgery, more effective treatments are needed.

DURHAM, N.H. – A new book by a University of New Hampshire researcher and Vietnam-era disabled veteran sheds new light on the long-term psychological trauma experienced by the coalition force in recent wars in the Gulf and Balkans that, when left untreated, can have deadly consequences.

Microglia are the first line defence of the brain and are constantly looking for infections to fight off. Overactive microglia can cause uncontrolled inflammation within the brain, which can in turn lead to neuronal damage. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Journal of Neuroinflammation shows that, honokiol (HNK) is able to down-regulate the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines and inflammatory enzymes in activated microglia via Klf4, a protein known to regulate DNA.

Washington, D.C. -- Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have revealed how a mutation in a single gene is responsible for the inability of neurons to effectively pass along appetite suppressing signals from the body to the right place in the brain. What results is obesity caused by a voracious appetite.

Their study, published March 18th on Nature Medicine's website, suggests there might be a way to stimulate expression of that gene to treat obesity caused by uncontrolled eating.

A paper published online today in Nature describes the results of using bone marrow transplant (BMT) to replace faulty immune system cells in models of Rett Syndrome. The procedure arrested many severe symptoms of the childhood disorder, including abnormal breathing and movement, and significantly extended the lifespan of Rett mouse models. Exploring the function of microglia deficient in methyl-CpG binding protein 2 (Mecp2), the protein encoded by the "Rett gene," principal investigator Jonathan Kipnis, Ph.D.

MAYWOOD, Il. -- Loyola University Medical Center is one of the major enrollers in a landmark clinical trial that found that plugging a hole in the heart works no better than drugs in preventing strokes.

The study is published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Loyola enrolled 24 patients, one of the highest patient enrolments in the multicenter trial, and more than any other Chicago-area hospital. Principal investigators at the Loyola site are stroke specialist Dr. Michael Schneck and interventional cardiologist Dr. Fred Leya.

Distinct patterns of activity—which may indicate a predisposition to care for infants-- appear in the brains of adults who view an image of an infant face—even when the child is not theirs, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and in Germany, Italy, and Japan.

Seeing images of infant faces appeared to activate in the adult's brains circuits that reflect preparation for movement and speech as well as feelings of reward.

Copenhagen, 16 March 2012: Stroke survivors who like art have a significantly higher quality of life than those who do not, according to new research. Patients who appreciated music, painting and theatre recovered better from their stroke than patients who did not.

The research was presented at the 12th Annual Spring Meeting on Cardiovascular Nursing, 16-17 March, in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Infants with Batten disease, a rare but fatal neurological disorder, appear healthy at birth. But within a few short years, the illness takes a heavy toll, leaving children blind, speechless and paralyzed. Most die by age 5.

There are no effective treatments for the disease, which can also strike older children. And several therapeutic approaches, evaluated in mouse models and in young children, have produced disappointing results.

• A new study examines the ability of alcohol-dependent (AD) patients to learn and transfer acquired knowledge.
• AD patients have problems transferring or applying their acquired knowledge to new contexts.
• The authors speculate this transfer-phase deficit may be related to deficits in declarative learning, which may in turn, be related to dysfunction in the medial temporal lobe region of the brain.

• A new study examines neural activation among individuals with and without a history of alcohol-induced fragmentary blackouts.
• The two groups did not differ in performance on a contextual-memory task while sober, but did exhibit different brain-response patterns after alcohol intoxication.
• This suggests a neurobiological mechanism associated with alcohol-induced fragmentary blackouts.

MADISON – Odds are, you're not going to make it all the way through this article without thinking about something else.

In fact, studies have found that our minds are wandering half the time, drifting off to thoughts unrelated to what we're doing – did I remember to turn off the light? What should I have for dinner?

A new study investigating the mental processes underlying a wandering mind reports a role for working memory, a sort of a mental workspace that allows you to juggle multiple thoughts simultaneously.

Sexually deprived male fruit flies exhibit a pattern of behavior that seems ripped from the pages of a sad-sack Raymond Carver story: when female fruit flies reject their sexual advances, the males are driven to excessive alcohol consumption, drinking far more than comparable, sexually satisfied male flies.

Now a group of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has discovered that a tiny molecule in the fly’s brain called neuropeptide F governs this behavior—as the levels of the molecule change in their brains, the flies’ behavior changes as well.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – After being deprived of sex, male fruit flies, known as Drosophila melanogaster, may turn to alcohol to fulfill a physiological demand for a reward, according to a study recently published in the journal Science. Troy Zars, an associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri and neurobiology expert, said that understanding why rejected male flies find solace in ethanol could help treat human addictions.