Brain

For many people, Fido and Fluffy are more than just pets, they're true and equal members of the family. And it's not hard to see why. Our pets greet us at the door after a long day of work, settle in our laps while we're watching TV, or 'sing' along when we hum a tune. They provide companionship and even a sense of comfort. We like to believe that our pets are good for us, that they enrich our lives and make us happier, and messages in media and advertising reinforce these beliefs. But is there really a universal 'pet effect' on human mental and physical health?

PORTLAND, Ore. — A signaling system in the brain previously shown to regulate sleep is also responsible for inducing lethargy during illness, according to research conducted at Oregon Health & Science University Doernbecher Children's Hospital.

BC Children's Hospital and University of British Columbia (UBC) researchers have found that two existing screening tests are accurate in diagnosing development delays in children and could be incorporated in a busy family practice setting with relative ease.

Parents can complete the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) or the Parents' Evaluation of Developmental Status (PEDS) at home or in the family physician's office, with the physician scoring the tests and providing results in a matter of minutes.

Scientists have known for years that when vampire bats tear through an animal's skin with their razor-sharp teeth, their noses guide them to the best spots – where a precise bite will strike a vein and spill forth nourishing blood. But nobody knew exactly how bats knew where to bite.

For Immediate Release – August 3, 2011 – (Toronto) – Twenty-five percent of people who were hospitalized for depression were readmitted or visited an emergency room again for depression within 30 days of discharge, according to a new study by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). The results are published in this month's edition of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.

In the months after the April 16, 2007, shootings at Virginia Tech, two professors administered a survey to assess posttraumatic stress among students. The findings have been published in the July 18, 2011 issue of the Journal of Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, published by the American Psychological Association.

People spend 3 billion hours a week playing videogames but little is known scientifically about why they are actually fun in the first place.

The vast majority of research into videogames has concentrated on the possible harmful effects of playing videogames, ignoring the simple question of why people actually want to play them.

But new research led by scientists at the University of Essex sheds some light on the appeal of videogames and why millions of people around the world find playing them so much fun.

A report in the August issue of the Cell Press journal Cell Metabolism might help to explain why it's so frustratingly difficult to stick to a diet. When we don't eat, hunger-inducing neurons in the brain start eating bits of themselves. That act of self-cannibalism turns up a hunger signal to prompt eating.

"A pathway that is really important for every cell to turn over components in a kind of housekeeping process is also required to regulate appetite," said Rajat Singh of Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

New Orleans, LA – A study conducted by Hamilton Farris, PhD, Research AssistantProfessor of Neuroscience and Otorhinolaryngology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, reveals new information about the way tungara frogs in the tropical rain forest hear, sort, and process sounds which is very similar to the way humans do. The knowledge could be applicable to communication disorders associated with hearing loss and attention deficits or difficulties. Dr.

AUGUSTA, Ga. –Prolonged estrogen deprivation in aging rats dramatically reduces the number of brain receptors for the hormone as well as its ability to prevent strokes, researchers report.

However the damage is forestalled if estrogen replacement begins shortly after hormone levels drop, according to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

When parents fight, infants are likely to lose sleep, researchers report.

"We know that marital problems have an impact on child functioning, and we know that sleep is a big problem for parents," said Jenae M. Neiderhiser, professor of psychology, Penn State.

New parents often report sleep as being the most problematic of their child's behavior. Neiderhiser and colleagues found that poor sleep patterns in children from ages 9 to 18 months are likely influenced by conflict in their parents' marriage, the researchers report in the current issue of Child Development.

CLEMSON, S.C. — Two Clemson University researchers seek to make diners mindful of mindless eating.

Psychology professor Eric Muth and electrical and computer engineering professor Adam Hoover have created the Bite Counter, a measurement device that will make it easier for people to monitor how much they eat. Worn like a watch, the Bite Counter device tracks a pattern of wrist-roll motion to identify when the wearer has taken a bite of food. Think of it as a pedometer for eating.

New research into how the bilingual brain processes two very different languages has revealed that bilinguals' native language directly influences their comprehension of their second language.

The innovative study by researchers in The University of Nottingham's School of Psychology set out to explore whether Chinese-English bilinguals translate English words automatically into Chinese without being aware of this process.

AURORA, Colo. (Aug. 1, 2011) – A University of Colorado School of Medicine scientist is completing a major clinical trial on a drug that could boost cognitive function in those with Down syndrome, significantly improving their quality of life and representing a potential milestone in research on this genetic condition.