Brain

If a friend or relative won $100 and then offered you a few dollars, would you accept this windfall? The logical answer would seem to be, sure, why not? "But human decision making does not always appear rational," said Read Montague, professor of physics at Virginia Tech and director of the Human Neuroimaging Laboratory at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute.

It turns out to be difficult to find out exactly how much a child who cannot yet speak suffers after a surgical operation. Researchers at the University Hospital of La Paz, in Madrid, have validated the 'Llanto' scale, the first, and only, tool in Spanish which measures infant pain rapidly and simply.

A new study from the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry finds that mothers who feed their babies breast milk exclusively, as opposed to formula, are more likely to bond emotionally with their child during the first few months after delivery. The breastfeeding mothers surveyed for the study showed greater responses to their infant's cry in brain regions related to caregiving behavior and empathy than mothers who relied upon formula as the baby's main food source.

WASHINGTON — Those childhood music lessons could pay off decades later - even for those who no longer play an instrument – by keeping the mind sharper as people age, according to a preliminary study published by the American Psychological Association.

A needle-in-the-haystack search through nearly 390,000 chemical compounds had led scientists to a substance that can sneak through the protective barrier surrounding the brain with effects promising for new drugs for Parkinson's and Huntington's disease. They report on the substance, which blocks formation of cholesterol in the brain, in the journal, ACS Chemical Biology.

No differences in cheating were found between self-described believers in God and non-believers. However, students who specifically perceived God as punitive, angry and vengeful showed significantly lower levels of cheating.

The second study was designed to remove other potential variables such as personality and general religious affiliation. The 39 undergraduate participants were surveyed several days before the cheating task about their views of God in a series of randomly asked questions that touched on a number of different topics. The subjects later took the same math test.

A major culture shift is needed to address the problems of long term sickness absence in the police service, says an expert on bmj.com today.

Dr Derek Summerfield reviewed 300 cases of officers retiring on mental health grounds during his time as consultant occupational psychiatrist to the Metropolitan Police Service from 2001 to 2004.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Researchers at Brown University have found that specific genetic variations can predict how persistently people will believe advice they are given, even when it is contradicted by experience.

After the acute treatment window closes, the only effective treatment for stroke is physical/occupational therapy. Now scientists from Children's Hospital Boston report a two-pronged molecular therapy that leads to significant recovery of skilled motor function in a rat model of stroke. Their findings are reported April 20 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

April 19, 2011 – (BRONX, NY) – The brain's hypothalamus plays a key role in obesity and one of its major complications – type 2 diabetes. Nerve cells in the hypothalamus detect nutrients and hormones circulating in the blood and then coordinate a complex series of behavioral and physiological responses to maintain a balance between calories eaten and calories burned. Obesity and diabetes can result when this regulatory mechanism goes awry.

Jamie Tyler, assistant professor in the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, has been invited to speak at a Royal Society of London high level workshop on May 11-12 on the security implications of advances in neuroscience.

Montreal April 19, 2011 – Lapses in memory occur more frequently with age, yet the reasons for this increasing forgetfulness have not always been clear. According to new research from Concordia University, older individuals have reduced learning and memory because their minds tend to be cluttered with irrelevant information when performing tasks. Published in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, these findings offer new insights into why ageing is associated with a decline in memory and may lead to practical solutions.

Jamie Tyler, assistant professor in the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, has been invited to speak at a Royal Society of London high level workshop on May 11-12 on the security implications of advances in neuroscience.

PHILADELPHIA—Minimizing neurological side effects in patients with high-grade glioma from chemoradiation may result in improved patient survival, a new study from radiation oncologists at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson suggests. These findings were reported in the April issue of the British Journal of Cancer.

Right-handedness is a distinctively human characteristic, with right-handers outnumbering lefties nine-to-one. But how far back does right-handedness reach in the human story?

Researchers have tried to determine the answer by looking at ancient tools, prehistoric art and human bones, but the results have not been definitive.