Brain

Social problems are key characteristics in psychiatric disorders and are insufficiently targeted by current treatment approaches. By applying brain imaging methods, researchers at the University of Zurich now show that a small amount of psilocybin changes the processing of social conflicts in the brain. As a result, participants experienced social exclusion and social pain as less stressful. This could help to improve therapy of social problems.

A Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) paper published in Current Alzheimer Research presents the first detailed study of the relationship between plasma levels of two amyloid beta peptides (Aβ1-40 and Aβ1-42), brain volumetrics (measures studying the size of brain, which shrinks with Alzheimer's disease) and cognitive performance in an investigation of the usefulness of plasma levels as a biomarker for Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Extensive exposure to slender and attractive models who have been digitally altered to appear flawless has negative effects on how many women feel about their bodies. Researchers at Chapman University tested if adding disclaimers or "subvertisements" to these images counteracts the negative effects of this media. Subvertisements are changes that body image activists make to advertisements to counter or "subvert" the message of the ads. The researchers exposed women to media images of bikini models, and added either disclaimers or subvertising messages to them.

Marketers and brand managers responsible for naming new products should be interested to learn that people associate certain sounds with nearness and others with distance, say researchers from the University of Toronto, whose new study adds to the body of knowledge about symbolic sound.

Tsukuba, Japan - Cell division of a mother cell to produce two identical daughter cells is known as mitosis. This underlies the early embryonic development of sea squirts, when it changes from being highly synchronized to displaying a distinct spatial pattern that accompanies neural tube formation. However, researchers did not understand what controlled this switch in mitotic timing.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- You may not win friends, but a new study finds that you can influence people simply by lowering the pitch of your voice in the first moments of a conversation.

The study, reported in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, found that people whose voices went down in pitch early on in an interaction were more likely to be seen as dominant and influential than those whose vocal pitch went up early in conversation. Those viewed as dominant also were more likely to convince others to go along with their ideas than those seen as less dominant.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Older adults might want to avoid a using class of drugs commonly used in over-the-counter products such as nighttime cold medicines due to their links to cognitive impairment, a research team led by scientists at Indiana University School of Medicine has recommended.

Using brain imaging techniques, the researchers found lower metabolism and reduced brain sizes among study participants taking the drugs known to have an anticholinergic effect, meaning they block acetylcholine, a nervous system neurotransmitter.

Memories formed in one part of the brain are replayed and transferred to a different area of the brain during rest, according to a new UCL study in rats.

The finding suggests that replay of previous experiences during rest is important for memory consolidation, a process whereby the brain stabilises and preserves memories for quick recall in the future. Understanding the physiological mechanism of this is essential for tackling amnesiac conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, where memory consolidation is affected.

New research suggests that humans became the large-brained, large-bodied animals we are today because of natural selection to increase brain size. The work, published in the journal Current Anthropology, contradicts previous models that treat brain size and body size as independent traits responding to separate evolutionary pressures. Instead, the study shows that brain size and body size are genetically linked and that selection to increase brain size will "pull along" body size.

BINGHAMTON, NY - Your responses to certain stimuli -- foods, celebrities, words -- might seem trivial, but they say a lot about you. In fact (with the proper clearance), these responses could gain you access into restricted areas of the Pentagon.

WASHINGTON -- When operating on cancer, surgeons want to remove tumors and not healthy tissue. This is especially important and challenging when dealing with brain tumors, which are often spread out and mixed in with the healthy tissue. Now, researchers have shown that a well-established optics technique can reveal exactly where brain tumors are, producing images in less than a minute -- unlike conventional methods that can take a whole day.

Researchers from the University of Liverpool have conducted a study examining the effect ecstasy has on different parts of the brain.

Dr Carl Roberts and Dr Andrew Jones, from the University's Institute of Psychology, Health and Society, and Dr Cathy Montgomery from Liverpool John Moores University conducted an analysis of seven independent studies that used molecular imaging to examine the neuropsychological effect of ecstasy on people that use the drug regularly.

PHILADELPHIA-- Immune cells engineered to seek out and attack a type of deadly brain cancer known as glioblastoma (GBM) were found to have an acceptable safety profile and successfully migrate to and infiltrate tumors, researchers from Penn Medicine and Harvard University reported at the AACR Annual Meeting 2016 (Abstract LB-083).

Montreal, April 18, 2016 - Smoking addiction in schizophrenia can be explained by significantly increased activation of the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a region involved in the brain reward system. These new data, the result of a study by researchers at the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal (CIUSSS EST, Montreal) and the University of Montreal confirms the tendency to smoke and low smoking cessation rates of people with schizophrenia.

Have you had the experience of being just on the verge of saying something when the phone rang? Did you then forget what it is you were going to say? A study of the brain's electrical activity offers a new explanation of how that happens.