Brain

CHICAGO --- Many older patients, who take an average of seven medicines a day, are so confused by the vague instructions on prescription bottles that they don't realize they can combine their medications to take them more efficiently. A new Northwestern Medicine study shows patients thought they had to take seven medicines at least seven and up to 14 separate times a day.

PHILADELPHIA – Recently, a research team from the Department of Emergency Medicine at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University discovered an alarming amount of lead contamination in ceramic cooking and eating utensils sold in Philadelphia's Chinatown. The team, led be Gerald O'Malley, D.O., director of Clinical Research; and Thomas Gilmore, M.D., resident, purchased and tested a sampling of Chinese ceramics. Using a LeadCheck®, one area on each item was rubbed with a lead-detecting solution.

Cambridge, MASS- When your brain encounters sensory stimuli, such as the scent of your morning coffee or the sound of a honking car, that input gets shuttled to the appropriate brain region for analysis. The coffee aroma goes to the olfactory cortex, while sounds are processed in the auditory cortex.

STANFORD, Calif. — A pediatric brain tumor that causes gruesome suffering is finally yielding its secrets. For the first time, scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have cultured human cells from this cancer, Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, and used those cells to create an animal model of the disease. Their discoveries will facilitate research on new treatments for DIPG, a tumor of school-aged children that is now almost universally fatal.

University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers have identified two genes associated with binge drinking that may open doors to new, more effective treatments for excessive alcohol drinking. The scientists found that manipulating two receptors in the brain, GABA receptors and toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), "caused profound reduction" of binge drinking for two weeks in rodents that had been bred and trained to drink excessively. The study was published online the week of Feb. 28 in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

What should you do when you really, REALLY have to "go"? Make important life decisions, maybe. Controlling your bladder makes you better at controlling yourself when making decisions about your future, too, according to a study to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Excessive weight gain isn't healthy at any stage of life, but during pregnancy it can do lasting harm to the mother and baby alike. Now researchers at Brown University and The Miriam Hospital are encouraged by a new study describing an intervention that helped pregnant women control their weight.

FAIRFAX, Va., February 28, 2011—Death can be terrifying. Recognizing that death is inescapable and unpredictable makes us incredibly vulnerable, and can invoke feelings of anxiety, hatred and fear. But new research by George Mason University psychology professor Todd Kashdan shows that being a mindful person not only makes you generally more tolerant and less defensive, but it can also actually neutralize fears of dying and death.

New York University researchers have isolated neural activity that reflects basic mechanisms used by the brain to combine elementary pieces of language in order to construct complex ideas.

The study, which appears in the Journal of Neuroscience, was conducted by Douglas Bemis, a graduate student in NYU's Department of Psychology, and Liina Pylkkänen, an associate professor in NYU's Department of Psychology and Department of Linguistics.

A new University of Colorado Boulder study indicates an ancient form of complementary medicine may be effective in helping to treat people with mild traumatic brain injury, a finding that may have implications for some U.S. war veterans returning home.

A small difference in DNA sequence predicts the degree of disability after a stroke, according to a paper published online on February 28 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (www.jem.org). Stroke, the consequence of disturbed blood flow to the brain, can impair speech, movement and vision, but it is currently difficult for clinicians to predict the severity of these side effects or the long-term prognosis.

One in eight Americans will fall prey to Alzheimer's disease at some point in their life, current statistics say. Because Alzheimer's is associated with vascular damage in the brain, many of them will succumb through a painful and potentially fatal stroke.

Nearly two-thirds of the hospital in-patients who took part in a survey had experienced pain in the last 24 hours and 42% of those rated their pain as more than seven out of ten, where ten was the worst pain imaginable, according to the March issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing.

Although eight out of ten patients had been asked about their pain levels by staff, less than half of those had been asked to rate their pain on a simple numeric scale.

Ulysses Balis, M.D., clicks a mouse to identify a helicopter in a satellite photo of Baghdad, Iraq. With another click, an algorithm that he and his team designed picks out three more choppers without highlighting any of the buildings, streets, trees or cars.

Balis isn't playing war games. The director of the Division of Pathology Informatics at the University of Michigan Medical School is demonstrating the extreme flexibility of a software-tool aimed at making the detection of abnormalities in cell and tissue samples faster, more accurate and more consistent.

UPTON, NY - A brain imaging study at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory reveals a subtle difference between ordinary obese subjects and those who compulsively overeat, or binge: In binge eaters but not ordinary obese subjects, the mere sight or smell of favorite foods triggers a spike in dopamine - a brain chemical linked to reward and motivation. The findings - published online on February 24, 2011, in the journal Obesity - suggest that this dopamine spike may play a role in triggering compulsive overeating.