Brain

INDIANAPOLIS – In small, early clinical trials, adults and children with autism and Fragile X syndrome have shown improved communication and social behavior when treated with acamprosate, according to Craig Erickson, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at the Indiana University School of Medicine and chief of the Riley Hospital for Children Christian Sarkine Autism Treatment Center at Indiana University Health.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The Georgia Health Sciences University Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior will have unprecedented representation at the International Congress on Schizophrenia Research for the second time.

Seven GHSU investigators, including medical students, fellows, junior faculty and senior leadership, will present their research at the biennial meeting April 2-6 in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Researchers directed by Dr. Laurent Mottron at the University of Montreal's Centre for Excellence in Pervasive Development Disorders (CETEDUM) have determined that people with autism concentrate more brain resources in the areas associated with visual detection and identification, and conversely, have less activity in the areas used to plan and control thoughts and actions. This might explain their outstanding capacities in visual tasks. The team published their findings in Human Brain Mapping on April 4, 2011.

MANHATTAN, KS—Do those who know more also know that they know more? And does a student's confidence level correlate to academic performance? These questions have long inspired researchers in the fields of decisionmaking and education to study confidence. New research from Kansas State University professor Candice Shoemaker looked at the psychological constructs of "confidence" and "self-efficacy" to evaluate the effectiveness of targeted learning objectives on student achievement.

(NEW YORK, NY, April 3, 2011) – In the largest study of its kind, researchers from a consortium that includes Columbia University Medical Center identified four new genes linked to late-onset Alzheimer's disease. Each of these genes adds to the risk of developing this most common form of the disease, and together they offer a portal into the causes of Alzheimer's.

A leading UK scientist's search for factors that increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's has uncovered five new genes to help pinpoint what's going wrong in the brain.

Professor Julie Williams from Cardiff University's MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics has identified an additional five new genes – bringing the total number of genes that increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's to ten.

NEW YORK (April 3, 2011) – Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have developed a new way to stimulate neuron production in the adult mouse brain, demonstrating that neurons acquired in the brain's hippocampus during adulthood improve certain cognitive functions.

Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers are part of a consortium that has identified four new genes that when present increase the risk of a person developing Alzheimer's disease later in life. The findings appear in the current issue of Nature Genetics. The consortium also contributed to the identification of a fifth gene reported by other groups of investigators from the United States and Europe.

Adult mice engineered to have more newborn neurons in their brain memory hub excelled at accurately discriminating between similar experiences – an ability that declines with normal aging and in some anxiety disorders. Boosting such neurogenesis in the adult hippocampus also produced antidepressant-like effects when combined with exercise, in the study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Antidepressant use has been linked to thicker arteries, possibly contributing to the risk of heart disease and stroke, in a study of twin veterans. The data is being presented Tuesday, April 5 at the American College of Cardiology meeting in New Orleans.

PHILADELPHIA – Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have determined that a well-known chemical process called acetylation has a previously unrecognized association with one of the biological processes associated with Alzheimer's disease and related disorders. The findings were published in the latest issue of Nature Communications.

PHOENIX, Ariz. — March 31, 2011 — Conducting genetic profiles using microRNA can help doctors predict which lung cancer patients are likely to also develop brain metastasis (BM), according to a study published today by Scottsdale Healthcare and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).

"I hope that unraveling the way Skywalker works will not only teach us more about the way neurons communicate with each other but will also lead to new diagnostics and therapies for neurological diseases such as Parkinson's," says Verstreken.

Communication between brain cells

Focusing on interdisciplinary research is now leading to breakthroughs in bio nanotechnology research. A new method for drug development has become a reality.

New research published today in The Journal of Physiology sheds light on areas of the brain thought to be the root cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) – the poorly understood condition also known as 'cot death'.

The research looks at specific areas of the brain and how they communicate to control breathing. It builds on previous studies that suspected abnormalities in the brain may be responsible for SIDS. It is hoped this research may vastly improve understanding of the condition.