Brain

TEMPE, Ariz. – The birth control shot Depo Provera offers a convenient alternative for women who don't want to remember to take a daily pill. Ironically, research from Arizona State University has shown the shot actually may impair a person's memory.

DARIEN, IL – Poor sleep quality in both early and late pregnancy has been linked to an increased risk of delivering preterm.

A study published in the Nov. 1 issue of the journal Sleep shows a significant risk for preterm birth in women reporting sleep disruptions during their first and third trimesters. The connection remained even after medical risk factors and income levels were taken into account.

The research group headed by Professor Atsushi Nambu (The National Institute for Physiological Sciences) and Professor Masahiko Takada (Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University) has shown that the 'oscillatory' nature of electrical signals in subcortical nuclei, the basal ganglia, causes severe motor deficits in Parkinson's disease, by disturbing the information flow of motor commands.

Bisexual men have unique health needs compared to exclusively homosexual and heterosexual men, but the stigma they face makes learning of their needs -- and even reaching these men in their "hidden communities" -- difficult for public health professionals, say Indiana University researchers.

Choosing how much nitrogen (N) to put on corn fields isn't something farmers take lightly. Many factors go into the decision, including past experiences, the timing of application, yield goals, and results from soil tests.

A study using a procedure called the rubber hand illusion has found striking new evidence that people experiencing schizophrenia have a weakened sense of body ownership and has produced the first case of a spontaneous, out-of-body experience in the laboratory.

These findings suggest that movement therapy, which trains people to be focused and centered on their own bodies, including some forms of yoga and dance, could be helpful for many of the 2.2 million people in the United States who suffer from this mental disorder.

Researchers from the Department of Neurology at NYU Langone Medical Center identified for the first time that changes in the tissue located at the junction between the outer and inner layers of the brain, called "blurring", may be an important, non-invasive biomarker for earlier diagnosis and the development of new therapies for degenerative brain conditions, such as multiple sclerosis. The study was published in the Oct. 26th issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Brain cells alter their genetic make-up during a person's lifetime, scientists have found in a discovery that could shed light on neurological diseases.

Researchers from The Roslin Institute, at the University of Edinburgh, have identified genes – known as retrotransposons – responsible for thousands of tiny changes in the DNA of brain tissue.

Researchers, whose work is published in the journal Nature, found that the genes were particularly active in areas of the brain linked to cell renewal.

From the dotcom bust in the late nineties to the housing crash in the run-up to the 2008 crisis, financial bubbles have been a topic of major concern. Identifying bubbles is important in order to prevent collapses that can severely impact nations and economies.

Can the nerve signaling inhibitor tomosyn help retain long-term memory? A new study by two University of Illinois at Chicago biologists points to the link.

Findings by Janet Richmond and David Featherstone, both professors of biological sciences at UIC, are reported in the Oct. 31 online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"This is the first really comprehensive effort to look at the role of tomosyn in fly learning," said Richmond, who until now studied the protein in an even simpler organism, the lowly nematode, or roundworm.

In times of stress, we're often encouraged to pause for a moment and simply be in the 'now.' This kind of mindfulness, an essential part of Buddhist and Indian Yoga traditions, has entered the mainstream as people try to find ways to combat stress and improve their quality of life. And research suggests that mindfulness meditation can have benefits for health and performance, including improved immune function, reduced blood pressure, and enhanced cognitive function.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31—Like normal tissue, tumors thrive on nutrients carried to them by the blood stream. The rapid growth of new blood vessels is a hallmark of cancer, and studies have shown that preventing blood vessel growth can keep tumors from growing, too. To better understand the relationship between cancer and the vascular system, researchers would like to make detailed maps of the complete network of blood vessels in organs. Unfortunately, the current mapping process is time-consuming: using conventional methods, mapping a one-centimeter block of tissue can take months.

New York, October 31, 2011 -- A new report in Biological Psychiatry suggests that deficits in endocannabinoid function may contribute to anorexia nervosa and bulimia. Endocannabinoids are substances made by the brain that affect brain function and chemistry in ways that resemble the effects of cannabis derivatives, including marijuana and hashish. These commonly abused drugs are well known to increase appetite, i.e. to cause the "munchies". Thus, it makes sense that deficits in this brain system would be associated with reduced appetite.

New York, October 31, 2011 -- Targeted brain stimulation increases cigarette cravings, a new study in Biological Psychiatry has found, which may ultimately lead to new treatments that reverse these effects. Cues associated with cigarette smoking, such as watching someone else smoke, elicit craving and may provoke relapse when smokers are attempting to quit. There are many methods that smokers use in an attempt to reduce their craving for cigarettes, including efficacious pharmacologic treatments such as nicotine patches, and alternative approaches such as hypnosis and acupuncture.

The study, which was carried out by Eduardo Martinez Enrique and Fernando Díaz de María, of UC3M's Department of Signal Theory and Communications and Antonio Ortega, of USC-Los Angeles's Electrical Engineering Department, recently received the Best paper award at the International Conference on Image Processing 2011 (ICIP 2011), the most important international conference in the scientific field of image and video processing, whose most recent conference received 2,245 articles from 67 different countries.