Brain

Clarksburg, MD—The American Health Assistance Foundation (AHAF), a nonprofit organization funding innovative research through its Alzheimer's Disease Research (ADR) program, today announced that the number of scientists seeking ADR research grants through its annual application process increased by 33% this year. "It's a sign of difficult times for the scientific community," said AHAF Vice President of Scientific Affairs Guy Eakin, Ph.D. "Finding government funding is tough now, and more researchers are looking to private funding sources like AHAF than ever before.

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AURORA, Colo. -- Scientists studying how the sense of smell changes as people age, found that olfactory sensory neurons in those 60 and over showed an unexpected response to odor that made it more difficult to distinguish specific smells, putting them at greater risk from dangerous chemicals and poor nutrition.

EUGENE, Ore. -- Willing to risk your knowledge, skills and monetary reward in competition? If you are under age 50, you've probably not reached your competitive peak. If you are older, that peak is behind you. That people are willing to engage in risk at 50 surprised University of Oregon economists and psychologists who explored such behavior in their research.

Over time, epileptic seizures can lead to major health issues, including significant cognitive decline and even death, warns Orrin Devinsky, MD, professor, Departments of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center. In a review article in the Nov. 10, 2011 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Devinsky addresses the magnitude of sudden, unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) and offers guidance to patients, physicians and families of those with epilepsy about the risk factors, possible causes and interventional measures.

Research from the University of Sheffield comparing rats and mice with their distance relatives the marsupial, suggests that moveable whiskers were an important milestone in the evolution of mammals from reptiles.

The future of drug design lies in developing therapies that can target specific cellular processes without causing adverse reactions in other areas of the nervous system. Scientists at the Universities of Bristol and Liège in Belgium have discovered how to design drugs to target specific areas of the brain.

A team of scientists from the University of Southampton have developed a revolutionary ultrasonic attachment for taps, which massively enhances the ability of water to clean.

Money can make people act crazy, but there is a small group of people that act more rationally than most, and this behavior may be due to their high "cognitive control," according to a new study being published in the Nov. 9 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – People with Parkinson's disease may be more likely to have a movement disorder called leg motor restlessness, but not true restless legs syndrome as previous studies have suggested, according to a study published in the Nov. 9, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

NEW YORK (Nov. 9, 2011) -- To diagnose autism spectrum disorders, clinicians typically administer a variety of tests or scales and use information from observations and parent interviews to classify individuals into subcategories listed in standard psychiatric diagnostic manuals. This process of forming "best-estimate clinical diagnoses" has long been considered the gold standard, but a new study demonstrates that these diagnoses are widely variable across centers, suggesting that this may not be the best method for making diagnoses.

Providing support to a loved one offers benefits to the giver, not just the recipient, a new brain-imaging study by UCLA life scientists reveals.

Preschool children who hear parents use words describing the size and shape of objects and who then use those words in their day to day interactions do much better on tests of their spatial skills, a University of Chicago study shows.

The study is the first to demonstrate that learning to use a wide range of words related to shape and size may improve children's later spatial skills, which are important in mathematics, science and technology.

Brain tissue is a major consumer of energy in the body. If an animal species evolves a larger brain than its ancestors, the increased need for energy can be met by either obtaining additional sources of food or by a trade-off with other functions in the body. In humans, the brain is three times larger and thus requires a lot more energy than that of our closest relatives, the great apes. Until now, the generally accepted theory for this condition was that early humans were able to redirect energy to their brains thanks to a reduced digestive tract.

In a paper published in the Nov. 9 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and University of Washington describe in deeper detail the pathology of a devastating neurological disorder, but also reveal new cellular targets for possibly slowing its development.