Brain

New scientific evidence challenges a popular conception that behaviours such as repetitive hand-washing, characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), are carried out in response to disturbing obsessive fears.

Johns Hopkins scientists say that a newly discovered "survival protein" protects the brain against the effects of stroke in rodent brain tissue by interfering with a particular kind of cell death that's also implicated in complications from diabetes and heart attack.

WASHINGTON – Praying about health issues dramatically increased among American adults over the past three decades, rising 36 percent between 1999 and 2007, according to a study published by the American Psychological Association.

JUPITER, FL, May 23, 2011 – Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have for the first time accomplished a laboratory synthesis of a rare natural product isolated from the bark of a plant widely employed in traditional medicine. This advance may provide the scientific foundation to develop an effective alternative to commonly prescribed narcotic pain treatments.

Philadelphia, PA, May 23, 2011 – Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have examined the potential for human exposure to prion diseases, looking at hunting, venison consumption, and travel to areas in which prion diseases have been reported in animals. Three prion diseases in particular – bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or "Mad Cow Disease"), variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), and chronic wasting disease (CWD) – were specified in the investigation.

MADISON – Pity the lowly astrocyte, the most common cell in the human nervous system.

Long considered to be little more than putty in the brain and spinal cord, the star-shaped astrocyte has found new respect among neuroscientists who have begun to recognize its many functions in the brain, not to mention its role in a range of disorders of the central nervous system.

Washington, DC – Georgetown University Medical Center's Howard J. Federoff, MD, PhD, joins preeminent scientists from academia, government, and industry along with advocates, at the "One Mind for Research Forum," a three-day conference designed to dramatically advance the understanding and treatment of brain disorders. By uniting a broad coalition, conference organizers will endorse a bold new 10-year research agenda for the field of neuroscience.

SEATTLE – Although chemotherapy is used to kill cancer cells, it can also have a strong toxic effect on normal cells such as bone marrow and blood cells, often limiting the ability to use and manage the chemotherapy treatment. Researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center reported at today's annual meeting of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy in Seattle that one possible approach to reduce this toxic effect on bone marrow cells is to modify the cells with a gene that makes them resistant to chemotherapy.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– New research at UC Santa Barbara is contributing to the basic biological understanding of how retinas develop. The study is part of the campus's expanding vision research.

The new studies are published in recent online versions of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science (IOVS).

Together with the national science academies of the other G8 states, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina has prepared two statements for the G8 states in the run-up to the G8 Summit of Heads of State and Government. The recommendations contained in these statements were now presented to the participating governments for the negotiations in Deauville, France on 26 and 27 May.

Perhaps the most puzzling symptom of anorexia nervosa – a disorder that tends to occur in young women – is the refusal to eat, resulting in extreme weight loss. While most people have a great deal of difficulty in dieting and losing weight, particularly if a diet extends over many months or years, individuals with anorexia nervosa can literally diet themselves to death. In fact, this disorder has a very high death rate from starvation. A new study, now online in the journal International Journal of Eating Disorders, sheds light on why these symptoms occur in anorexia nervosa.

A team of scientists at the University of Louisville, UCLA and the California Institute of Technology has achieved a significant breakthrough in its initial work with a paralyzed male volunteer at Louisville's Frazier Rehab Institute — the result of 30 years of research to find potential clinical therapies for paralysis.

The study is published today in the British medical journal The Lancet.

A team of scientists has achieved a significant breakthrough in its initial work with a paralyzed male volunteer at Louisville's Frazier Rehab Institute, the result of 30 years of research to find potential clinical therapies for paralysis.

PASADENA, Calif.—A team of researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and the University of Louisville have used a stimulating electrode array to assist a paralyzed man to stand, step on a treadmill with assistance, and, over time, to regain voluntary movements of his limbs. The electrical signals provided by the array, the researchers have found, stimulate the spinal cord's own neural network so that it can use the sensory input derived from the legs to direct muscle and joint movements.

DURHAM, N.C.—Strobe-like eyewear designed to train the vision of athletes may have positive effects in some cases, according to tests run by a team of Duke University psychologists who specialize in visual perception.

The eyewear has lenses that alternate between clear and opaque states, producing a strobe experience. Nearly 500 people participated in more than 1,200 training sessions and had their visual abilities tested before and after they wore the eyewear. They completed visual-motor tasks, such as catching and throwing a ball, as well as computer-based tests.