Brain

The past two decades have witnessed an epidemic spread of obesity-related diseases in Western countries. Elucidating the biological mechanism that links overnutrition to obesity could prove crucial in reducing obesity levels. In the July 26 issue of PLoS Biology, Dr. Dongsheng Cai and his research team at Albert Einstein College of Medicine describe a pathway that directs the brain to sense the body's glucose dynamics, and they find that a defect of this glucose sensing process contributes to the development of obesity and related disease.

Washington, DC — Removing a protein from cells located in the brain's reward center blocks the anxiety-reducing and rewarding effects of nicotine, according to a new animal study in the July 27 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings may help researchers better understand how nicotine affects the brain.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- All over the world, patients with chronic pain struggle to express how they feel to the doctors and health-care providers who are trying to understand and treat them. Now, a University at Buffalo psychiatrist is attempting to help patients suffering from chronic pain and their doctors by drawing on ontology, the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of being or existence.

A random-assignment controlled study published today in Mind & Brain, The Journal of Psychiatry (Vol 2, No 1) found improved brain functioning and decreased symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, in students practicing the Transcendental Meditation® (TM) technique.

The addition of a simple stent can help prevent potentially lethal blood vessel bulges in the brain from recurring after they are repaired in a minimally invasive "coiling" procedure, according to new research by Johns Hopkins physicians. A report on the research, published in the July Journal of Neurointerventional Surgery, could make coiling a more viable option for the 30,000 people diagnosed with brain aneurysms each year in the United States, the investigators say.

Most people worry from time to time. A new research study, led by a Case Western Reserve University faculty member in psychology, also shows that worrying can be so intrusive and obsessive that it interferes in the person's life and endangers the health of social relationships.

These people suffer from what's called generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), says Case Western Reserve psychologist Amy Przeworski.

Toronto, July, 26, 2011 – Preliminary results from the first four brains donated to the Canadian Sports Concussion Project at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre, TorontoWesternHospital, reveal that two of the four former Canadian Football League (CFL) players suffered from a brain disease known as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), while two did not show signs of CTE.

TORONTO, ON – Children in a school that uses corporal punishment performed significantly worse in tasks involving "executive functioning" – psychological processes such as planning, abstract thinking, and delaying gratification – than those in a school relying on milder disciplinary measures such as time-outs, according to a new study involving two private schools in a West African country.

OAK BROOK, Ill. – A new study has found that patients with mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) exhibit abnormal functional connectivity in the thalamus, a centrally located relay station for transmitting information throughout the brain. The results of the study appear online in the journal Radiology.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Imagine you're dining at a restaurant in a city you're visiting for the first –– and, most likely the last –– time. Chances are slim to none that you'll ever see your server again, so if you wanted to shave a few dollars off your tab by not leaving a tip, you could do so. And yet, if you're like most people, you will leave the tip anyway, and not give it another thought.

STANFORD, Calif. — A naturally occurring substance shrank the size of stroke-induced lesions in the brains of experimental mice — even when administered as much as 12 hours after the event, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have shown. The substance, alpha-B-crystallin, acts as a brake on the immune system, lowering levels of inflammatory molecules whose actions are responsible for substantial brain damage above and beyond that caused by the initial oxygen deprivation of a stroke.

STANFORD, Calif. — With the novel use of a technique that uses light to control brain cells, Stanford University researchers have shown that fragmented sleep causes memory impairment in mice.

Until recently scientists have been unable to tease out the effects on the brain of different yet intertwined features of sleep. But these investigators were able to overcome that problem and come to their findings by using the novel method, known as optogenetics, to manipulate brain cells to affect just one aspect of sleep.

The old adage "Looks can be deceiving" certainly rings true when it comes to people. But it is also accurate when describing special light-sensing cells in the eye, according to a Johns Hopkins University biologist.

Bethesda, Md. (July 25, 2011)—It's no secret that exercise has numerous beneficial effects on the body. However, a bevy of recent research suggests that these positive effects also extend to the brain, influencing cognition. In a new review article highlighting the results of more than a hundred recent human and animal studies on this topic, Michelle W. Voss, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her colleagues show that both aerobic exercise and strength training play a vital role in maintaining brain and cognitive health throughout life.

It is well known that there is an intimate relationship between emotional state and food intake — we choose chocolate over an apple when overworked and stressed and comfort food makes us feel better. A team of researchers, led by Lukas Van Oudenhove, at the University of Leuven, Belgium, has now imaged changes in the brain when healthy nonobese individuals experience sadness. The team found that administration of a fat solution to the stomach attenuated the behavioral and nerve cell responses to sad emotion.