Brain

July 1, 2011 – (Bronx, NY) – A longstanding medical mystery – why so many people with HIV experience memory loss and other cognitive problems despite potent antiretroviral therapy – may have been solved by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. Their findings are published in the June 29 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

STANFORD, Calif. — Young basketball players spend hours dribbling up and down the court aspiring to NBA stardom. Now, new Stanford University School of Medicine research suggests another tactic to achieving their hoop dreams: sleep.

In a study appearing in the July issue of SLEEP, Cheri Mah, a researcher in the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Laboratory, has shown that basketball players at the elite college level were able to improve their on-the-court performance by increasing their amount of total sleep time.

Heart rate and cardiac output were measured, giving much more accurate readings than previous methods which were either indirect or highly invasive.

New research has suggested that tranexamic acid has the potential to prevent people dying from head injuries.

The CRASH-2 Intracranial Bleeding Study highlighting the potential of the cheap, off-patent drug to help people suffering from brain trauma is published online by the BMJ today.

How easy is it to falsify memory? New research at the Weizmann Institute shows that a bit of social pressure may be all that is needed. The study, which appears Friday in Science, reveals a unique pattern of brain activity when false memories are formed – one that hints at a surprising connection between our social selves and memory.

A Johns Hopkins team has discovered in young adult mice that a lone brain stem cell is capable not only of replacing itself and giving rise to specialized neurons and glia – important types of brain cells – but also of taking a wholly unexpected path: generating two new brain stem cells.

A report on their study appears June 24 in Cell.

Young babies' brains are already specially attuned to the sounds of human voices and emotions, according to a report published online on June 30 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

Tel Aviv — Playing the stock market can be a risky game. And when the market behaves unpredictably, public fear can lead to erratic investment responses and market chaos.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Whenever it hears an unfamiliar song from a bird of the same species, a zebra finch stops chirping, hopping and grooming. It listens attentively for minutes at a time, occasionally cocking its head but otherwise immobile. Once it becomes familiar with the song, it goes back to its busy routine. (See video.)

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Suppose someone showed you a novel gadget and told you, "Here's how it works," while demonstrating a single function, such as pushing a button. What would you do when they handed it to you?

You'd probably push the button. But what if the gadget had other functions? Would it occur to you to search for them, if your teacher hadn't alluded to their existence?

Bethesda, MD—If you think nicotine receptors are only important to smokers trying to kick the tobacco habit, think again. New research published in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) suggests that these receptors also play an important role in social interaction and the ability to choose between competing motivations.

High frequency non-ionizing radiation, emitted by mobile phones, is redundantly matter of discussions. The effects of high frequency electromagnetic fields (HEFs) derived from mobile phones have been discussed since the 1950's. Neuroscientists from Bochum were now able to elucidate this question. For the first time, they provide proof that extremely high-powered electromagnetic fields (EMFs) indeed influence learning processes on the synaptic level within the brain, independent from other factors like stress. "For this effect, very high values are necessary.

Milan, Italy, 30 June 2011 – Differences in male and female behaviour are often subject to study. Women are known to be more verbally fluent, have better manual dexterity and are better at noticing things (like a new haircut). Men on the other hand often take less time parking their cars and have less trouble than women in navigating in a new city. The latter capacities, in which men tend to excel, are known as visuo-spatial abilities. A new study has demonstrated that men have a similar advantage in their hearing.

Northwestern University researchers have provided new biological evidence suggesting that the brain works differently when memorizing the face of a person from one's own race than when memorizing a face from another race.

Their study -- which used EEG recordings to measure brain activity -- sheds light on a well-documented phenomenon known as the "other-race effect." One of the most replicated psychology findings, the other-race effect finds that people are less likely to remember a face from a racial group different from their own.

The higher the number of drink fuelled memory blackouts a student experiences, the greater is his/her risk of sustaining a future injury while under the influence, reveals research published online in Injury Prevention.

Memory blackouts refer to the inability to recall events; they do not refer to loss of consciousness as a result of drinking too much. Research indicates that alcohol alters nerve cell communication in the hippocampal region of the brain, which affects memory formation.