Brain

University of Manchester scientists, working with colleagues in Edinburgh and Australia, have provided the first direct biological evidence for a genetic contribution to people’s intelligence.

Previous studies on twins and adopted people suggested that there is a substantial genetic contribution to thinking skills, but this new study – published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry – is the first to find a genetic contribution by testing people’s DNA for genetic variations.

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Montreal, August 9, 2011 — Constant bitterness can make a person ill, according to Concordia University researchers who have examined the relationship between failure, bitterness and quality of life.

"Persistent bitterness may result in global feelings of anger and hostility that, when strong enough, could affect a person's physical health," says Carsten Wrosch, a professor in the Concordia University Department of Psychology and a member of the Centre for Research in Human Development.

Knowing the right way to handle stress in the classroom and on the sports field can make the difference between success and failure for the millions of students going back to school this fall, new University of Chicago research shows.

Knowing the right way to handle stress in the classroom and on the sports field can make the difference between success and failure for the millions of students going back to school this fall, new University of Chicago research shows.

One decade after receiving implants that stimulate areas of their brains, patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) appear to sustain improvement in motor function, although part of the initial benefit wore off mainly because of progressive loss of benefit in other functions, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Older patients with lower rates of left ventricular ejection fraction (a measure of how well the left ventricle of the heart pumps with each contraction) appear more likely than younger patients to have significantly reduced verbal memory function, according to a report in the August issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center have shown chimpanzees have a significant bias for prosocial behavior. This, the study authors report, is in contrast to previous studies that positioned chimpanzees as reluctant altruists and led to the widely held belief that human altruism evolved in the last six million years only after humans split from apes. The current study findings are available in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

We accept that some people are born with a talent for music or art or athletics. But what about mathematics? Do some of us just arrive in the world with better math skills than others?

Social class is more than just how much money you have. It's also the clothes you wear, the music you like, the school you go to—and has a strong influence on how you interact with others, according to the authors of a new article in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. People from lower classes have fundamentally different ways of thinking about the world than people in upper classes—a fact that should figure into debates on public policy, according to the authors.

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- A Kansas State University professor is helping students improve their confidence and academic performance by creating a map of learning.

Candice Shoemaker, professor of horticulture, has spent more than four years looking at students and self-efficacy. Self-efficacy involves student confidence in understanding topics and is often linked with academic motivation, learning and achievement. Shoemaker's published research appeared in a recent issue of HortTechnology.

Calculating the surface area of Gran Canaria is no easy task for a 14-year-old. It's not simply a question of learning the right formula. Students have to develop a strategy that enables them to put mathematical theory into practice – working out the information that is important and applying the right geometric models and tools.

Realizing that the island has an almost circular shape and so its surface area can be approximated using the area of a circle is not as straightforward as it sounds.

SEATTLE, WA—The most common kind of chronically irregular heartbeat, known as atrial fibrillation, is associated with a greater risk of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. This discovery by scientists at Group Health Research Institute and their collaborators was published online in advance of print on August 1 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Columbia University Medical Center researchers have shown that new ("de novo" protein-altering mutations — genetic errors that are present in patients but not in their parents — play a role in more than 50 percent of "sporadic" (not hereditary) cases of schizophrenia, according to a study in Nature Genetics.

Animal's brains are only roughly aware of how high-up they are in space, meaning that in terms of altitude the brain's 'map' of space is surprisingly flat, according to new research.

In a study published online today in Nature Neuroscience, scientists studied cells in or near a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which forms the brain's map of space, to see whether they were activated when rats climbed upwards.

WASHINGTON — High schools in Virginia where students reported a high rate of bullying had significantly lower scores on standardized tests that students must pass to graduate, according to research presented at the 119th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association.