Brain

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Low vitamin D levels are associated with an increased risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS), but the first randomized, controlled trial using high-dose vitamin D in MS did not find any added benefit over and above ongoing low-dose vitamin D supplementation, according to a study published in the October 25, 2011, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Rats exposed to an antidepressant just before and after birth showed substantial brain abnormalities and behaviors, in a study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

PULLMAN, Wash. - Washington State University researchers have taken a promising step toward creating an animal model for decoding the specific brain circuits involved in depression. By electrically stimulating a brain region central to an animal's primary emotions, graduate student Jason Wright and his advisor Jaak Panksepp saw rats exhibit a variety of behaviors associated with a depressed, negative mood, or affect.

Fetal and neonatal immune thrombocytopenia (FNIT; aka FNAIT) is a condition in which fetuses and newborns have reduced numbers of blood cells known as platelets. Platelets have a key role in blood clotting; if the reduction in platelet number in a fetus or newborn is dramatic, it can lead to bleeding within the skull, which can result in brain damage or even death.

A team of researchers led by Heyu Ni, at the University of Toronto, Toronto, has now identified in mice a non-classical form of FNIT that does not cause uncontrolled bleeding within the skull of the fetus/newborn.

Jerusalem -- Instinctive mothering behavior towards care of newborns has long been recognized as a phenomenon in humans and animals, but now research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has shown that motherhood is associated with the acquisition of a host of new behaviors that are driven, at least in part, by alterations in brain function.

A team of researchers from the Petsko-Ringe and Pochapsky laboratories at Brandeis have produced and determined the structure of alpha-synuclein, a key protein associated with Parkinson's disease. Their findings, recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), provide information that may someday be used to produce a new kind of treatment for the incurable degenerative brain disorder.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- October 23, 2011 -- A new study conducted in an eye clinic in India found that correction of amblyopia, also called "lazy eye," can be achieved in many older children, if they stick to a regimen that includes playing video games along with standard amblyopia treatment. Today at the 115th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, Dr. Somen Ghosh will report on the approaches that allowed about a third of his study participants, who were between 10 and 18 years old, to make significant vision gains.

LA JOLLA, CA, October 20, 2011 – A team led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute has identified a new metabolic pathway for controlling brain inflammation, suggesting strategies for treating it.

The new report in Science Express focuses on the type of inflammation normally treatable with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as aspirin or ibuprofen. The study shows this type of inflammation is controlled by different enzymes in different parts of the body.

"What makes a great violinist, physicist, or crossword puzzle solver? Are experts born or made? The question has intrigued psychologists since psychology was born -- and the rest of us, too, who may secretly fantasize playing duets with Yo Yo Ma or winning a Nobel Prize in science. It's no wonder Malcolm Gladwell stayed atop the bestseller lists by popularizing the "10,000-hour rule" of Florida State University psychologist K. Anders Ericsson.

Two previously unassociated proteins known to be overly active in a variety of cancers bind together to ignite and sustain malignant brain tumors, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports this week in the journal Cancer Cell.

This research is the first to connect FoxM1 to a molecular signaling cascade that regulates normal neural stem cells, said senior author, Suyun Huang, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in MD Anderson's Department of Neurosurgery.

Athens, Ga. – A commonly prescribed blood pressure-lowering medication appears to kick start recovery in the unaffected brain hemisphere after a stroke by boosting blood vessel growth, a new University of Georgia study has found.

The discovery, based on a study using rats and published recently in the online journal PLoS ONE, occurred only because the team, led by Susan Fagan, professor of clinical and administrative pharmacy at the UGA College of Pharmacy, struck a new path in stroke research by examining the healthy side of brain after the stroke occurred.

The benefits of virtual worlds can be used to help autistic children develop social skills beyond their anticipated levels, suggest early findings from new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Researchers on the Echoes Project have developed an interactive environment which uses multi-touch screen technology where virtual characters on the screener act to children's actions in real time.

Celebrated writers such as Charles Dickens and George Eliot described characters' faces vividly without going into detail about their features, according to a research group led at the University of Strathclyde.

Experts in literature, psychology, neurology and music suggested that vividness can be created not only by describing individual features, such as the eyes, nose or chin, but by the strength of readers' feelings about how a person is depicted.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an established technique which over the years has made it possible for researchers and healthcare professionals to study biological phenomena in the body without using ionising radiation, for example X-rays.