Brain

In one respect, handling a computer mouse is just like looking in the rearview mirror: well established movements help the brain to concentrate on the essentials. But just a simple gaze shift to a new target bears the possibility of an almost infinite number of combinations of eye and head movement: how fast do we move eye and head? How much does the eye rotate, how much the head? Until now, it was unclear why the brain chooses a particular movement option from the set of all possible combinations. A team led by Dr.

People with birthmarks, scars and other facial disfigurements are more likely to receive poor ratings in job interviews, according to a new study by researchers at Rice University and the University of Houston.

Preschool children who hear their parents describe the size and shape of objects and then use those words themselves perform better on tests of their spatial skills, researchers at the University of Chicago have found.

The study is the first to show that learning to use a wide range of spatial words predicts children's later spatial thinking, which in turn is important in mathematics, science and technology. Children who heard and then produced 45 additional spatial terms saw, on average, a 23 percent increase in their scores on a non-verbal assessment of spatial thinking.

Toronto, Canada -- A 22-year-old woman known as "HC" with amnesia since birth as a result of developing only half the normal volume of the hippocampus in her brain, has demonstrated to scientists that the ability to hold a single face or word in short-term memory is impaired. But there's a catch – only if the information is unfamiliar.

In the fight for survival, plants are capable of complex social behaviours and may exhibit altruism towards family members, but aggressively compete with strangers.

Research work drawn up by specialists from the Department of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery at the University of Navarra Hospital has shown that, after surgical treatment for facial paralysis through using muscular transplant and nervous transposition (connection of facial muscle to a nerve different from the injured facial nerve), the brain of a woman – in comparison to that of a male - manages to adapt itself better, recovers the spontaneous smile and has a greater time period available for repairing the paralysis.

Research into the 2011 London riots found they were mostly committed by antisocial persons, less than 20% of whom were explicitly gang members. This is because gang membership is primarily for the most antisocial of such persons . New research has identified extreme antisocial personality as a key reason why some criminals join gangs. Even within criminals, some find it harder to get along with others, and the most antisocial, being socially excluded, seek out others as a way of fitting in and making friends with people like themselves. These persons form gangs.

A new study of teens undergoing substance abuse treatment finds helping others helps the adolescent helper by reducing cravings for alcohol and drugs, a major precipitator of relapse. These novel findings stem from the "Helping Others" study (http://helpingotherslivesober.org) led by Maria Pagano, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

A study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego Autism Center of Excellence shows that brain overgrowth in boys with autism involves an abnormal, excess number of neurons in areas of the brain associated with social, communication and cognitive development.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- A surgical procedure aimed at bypassing a blocked artery that supplies blood to the brain did not lower the subsequent stroke rate after 2 years in people who previously had a minor stroke, compared to those who did not have the surgery.

CHICAGO -- In a small, preliminary study that included 13 male children, those with autism had an average 67 percent more prefrontal brain neurons and larger than average brain weight, than children without autism, according to a study in the Nov. 9 issue of JAMA.

Children with autism have more brain cells and heavier brains compared to typically developing children, according to researchers partly funded by the National Institutes of Health. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Nov. 9, 2011, the small, preliminary study provides direct evidence for possible prenatal causes of autism.

KINGSTON, R.I. – November 7, 2011 – Two new studies by researchers at the University of Rhode Island are providing additional insights into the role that eating rate plays in the amount of food one consumes. The studies found that men eat significantly faster than women, heavier people eat faster than slimmer people, and refined grains are consumed faster than whole grains, among other findings.

What do Moby Dick, the Salem witch trials and alien abductions all have in common? They all circle back to sleep paralysis.

Less than 8 percent of the general population experiences sleep paralysis, but it is more frequent in two groups -- students and psychiatric patients -- according to a new study by psychologists at Penn State and the University of Pennsylvania.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Two psychologists at UC Santa Barbara have provided a new twist on the old adage that people are products of both nature and nurture, in introducing a framework for understanding how these influences interact. The researchers are studying how genotypes (nature) can express themselves differently as a function of culture (nurture). Their findings appear in the current issue of the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.