Brain

Rany Shamloul's recent review of the medical literature on cannabis use and sexual health has revealed that cannabis use may negatively impact male sexual performance.

"Cannabis is the most widely-used illicit drug globally," says Dr. Shamloul, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology. "It is also often used by young, sexually active people who are unaware of the hazardous effects it may be having on their sexual health and performance."

A huge leap forward in understanding Huntington's disease may give patients hope for a cure.

Laboratory tests on skin cells and post-mortem brain tissue of Huntington's disease patients determined that an overactive protein triggers a chain reaction that causes brain nerve cells to die. Toning down the activity of that protein, known as DRP1, prevented the chain reaction and kept those cells alive, according to the research team led by University of Central Florida Professor Ella Bossy-Wetzel.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The so-called reward center of the brain may need a new name, say scientists who have shown it responds to good and bad experiences. The finding, published in PLoS One, may help explain the "thrill" of thrill-seeking behavior or maybe just the thrill of surviving it, according to scientists at Georgia Health Sciences University and East China Normal University.

Jerusalem, February 22, 2011 -- The portion of the brain responsible for visual reading doesn't require vision at all, according to a new study by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and France.

Brain imaging studies of blind people as they read words in Braille show activity in precisely the same part of the brain that lights up when sighted readers read. The findings challenge the textbook notion that the brain is divided up into regions that are specialized for processing information coming in via one sense or another, the researchers say.

Washington, D.C., 22 February 2011 – Adolescence can herald the onset of major depression and the associated short- and long-term consequences including developmental and social impairment. Research that focuses on access to treatment for adolescents with depression can shine a bright light on the persistent disparities based on race and ethnicity. Unfortunately such research reinforces the fact that equitable mental health care across all individuals and communities has yet to be achieved.

Boston, Mass. – A computational physicist and a cognitive neuroscientist at Children's Hospital Boston have come up with the beginnings of a noninvasive test to evaluate an infant's autism risk. It combines the standard electroencephalogram (EEG), which records electrical activity in the brain, with machine-learning algorithms. In a pilot study, their system had 80 percent accuracy in distinguishing between 9-month-old infants known to be at high risk for autism from controls of the same age.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Many people want to keep driving after having a stroke, and many can do so safely. Simple tests in the office can help doctors determine who is more likely to be a safe driver after a stroke, according to research published in the February 22, 2011, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The research analyzed all of the available studies on driving after a stroke. In all of the studies, participants' driving skills were tested in an on-road evaluation.

Several factors may be associated with hearing impairment in middle-aged adults, including cardiovascular disease risks, being male and having a noisy job, according to a report published online first in the Archives of Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. The paper will be appear in the May print issue of the journal.

Bone-anchored hearing aids appear helpful in improving hearing and quality of life in children with hearing loss in one or both ears, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

The current focus on medical errors isn't quite as new as it seems. A Johns Hopkins review of groundbreaking neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing's notes, made at the turn of the last century, has turned up copious documentation of his own surgical mishaps as well as his suggestions for preventing those mistakes in the future.

Authors of the article, published in the Feb. Archives of Surgery, suggest that such open documentation may have played an important role in spurring groundbreaking medical treatment advances in Cushing's era — and could have the same effect today.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – New research shows people who have used amphetamines such as benzedrine and dexedrine appear to be at an increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 63rd Annual Meeting in Honolulu April 9 to April 16, 2011.

Leave your body and shake hands with yourself, gain an extra limb or change into a robot for a while. Swedish neuroscientist Henrik Ehrsson has demonstrated that the brain's image of the body is negotiable. Applications stretch from touch-sensitive prostheses to robotics and virtual worlds.

Ask a child if their hands belong to them and they will answer, "Of course!" But how does the brain actually identify its own body? And why do we experience our centre of awareness as located inside a physical body?

As the average life span becomes longer, dementia becomes more common. Swedish scientist Laura Fratiglioni has shown that everyone can minimize his or her risk of being affected. Factors from blood pressure and weight to the degree of physical and mental activity can influence cognitive functioning as one gets older.

Research presented this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science highlights the importance of callous-unemotional traits (CU) in identifying children at risk of antisocial behavior and other adjustment problems.

When a major disaster strikes in remote parts of the world, knowing if the area is populated, and how densely, is crucial for the effective organisation of humanitarian operations. The Global Human Settlements Layer (GHSL), developed by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), will soon provide this detailed information for the first time on a global scale. The breakthrough is new advanced algorithms, developed by the JRC, that allow automatic analysis of medium resolution data provided by European satellites.