Brain

Recording people belting out an old Motown tune and then asking them to listen to their own singing without the accompanying music seems like an unusually cruel form of punishment. But for a team of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco and University of California, Berkeley, this exact Karaoke experiment has revealed what part of the brain is essential for embarrassment.

Nutrition research is pointing to ways that nutrients or diets may lessen the effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI), raising the possibility that the U.S. Department of Defense might be able to use nutritional approaches to help personnel who receive a TBI.

(Garrison, NY) Giving patients data about the risks and benefits of a medical intervention is not always helpful and may even lead them to irrational decisions, according to an article in the Hastings Center Report. That finding calls into question whether it is essential to disclose quantitative data to patients to help them make informed decisions.

SAN DIEGO, Calif., April 14, 2011 – New survey data released today at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) 20th Annual Meeting and Clinical Congress reveal that more than half (55%) of people with type 2 diabetes across the country report they have experienced hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar. What's more, many experienced it during typical daily activities such as working (42%), exercising (26%) and driving (19%), according to the survey, designed by the American College of Endocrinology (ACE) and supported by Merck.

CHICAGO --- Battling an illness, lack of sleep and strange surroundings can make any hospital patient feel out of sorts.

For seniors, hospitalizations actually may cause temporary memory loss and difficulty in understanding discharge instructions, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study.

A team of cognitive scientists has good news for parents who are worried that they are setting a bad example for their children when they say "um" and "uh." A study conducted at the University of Rochester's Baby Lab shows that toddlers actually use their parents' stumbles and hesitations (technically referred to as disfluencies) to help them learn language more efficiently.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered in mice a molecular wrecking ball that powers the demolition phase of a cycle that occurs at synapses — those specialized connections between nerve cells in the brain — and whose activity appears critical for both limiting and enhancing learning and memory.

BOSTON (April 14, 2011, noon ET) — The circadian system that controls normal sleep patterns is regulated by a group of glial brain cells called astrocytes, according to a study published online on April 14th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. Neuroscientists from Tufts University School of Medicine found that disruption of astrocyte function in fruit flies (Drosophila) led to altered daily rhythms, an indication that these star-shaped glial cells contribute to the control of circadian behavior.

This contradicts the common understanding that word-order develops in accordance with a set of universal rules, applicable to all languages. Researchers have concluded that languages do not primarily follow innate rules of language processing in the brain. Rather, sentence structure is determined by the historical context in which a language develops.

Philadelphia, PA, 14 April 2011 - The judgments we make about the intimacy of other couples' relationships appear to be influenced by the brain chemical serotonin, reports a new study published in Biological Psychiatry.

Healthy adult volunteers, whose levels of serotonin activity had been lowered, rated couples in photos as being less intimate and less romantic than volunteers with normal serotonin activity.

Washington, D.C., 14 April, 2011 – During the winter of 2008�, a three-week armed conflict in the south of Israel and the Gaza Strip named "Operation Cast Lead" resulted in hundreds of rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli civilian populations. During this time children and their families spent hours and days in shelters amid threats to their survival.

ROCHESTER, Minn. - A Mayo Clinic case study finds Botox may offer new hope to patients suffering disabling low cerebrospinal fluid headaches. The successful treatment also offers new insight into Botox and headache treatment generally. The case study was presented March 13th, 2011 at the American Academy of Neurology meeting in Hawaii.

A serendipitous discovery by academics at The University of Nottingham has shown that a simple illusion can significantly reduce — and in some cases even temporarily eradicate — arthritic pain in the hand.

By tricking the brain into believing that the painful part of the hand is being stretched or shrunk, the researchers were able to halve the pain felt by 85 per cent of sufferers they tested.

Montreal, April 13, 2011 – The use of cognitive-behavioural therapy to treat tics in Tourette syndrome may be as effective as and even superior to medication in certain cases. According to a new study published in a special edition of the International Journal of Cognitive Therapy by researchers from the Fernand-Seguin Research Centre of the Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital affiliated with Université de Montréal, it was observed that therapy has an effect not only on tics, behaviour and thoughts, but also on brain activity.

Cincinnati, OH, April 14, 2011 -- The number of couples struggling with infertility is on the rise, and these couples often use assisted reproductive technologies, like in vitro fertilization (IVF), to get pregnant. Although IVF can be successful, it can also increase the risk of multiple pregnancies (i.e., twins or triplets), which are often caused by transferring more than one embryo. Twins and triplets are likely to be born prematurely, and, as a result, many have medical complications.