Brain

• Aerobic exercise can slow cognitive decline, and decrease negative neural changes linked to aging and disease.
• A new study looks at the relationship between alcohol use, aerobic exercise frequency, and health of brain white matter.
• Findings indicate that aerobic exercise benefits the brain’s white matter integrity.

Aerobic exercise may help prevent and perhaps even reverse some of the brain damage associated with heavy alcohol consumption, according to a new University of Colorado Boulder study.

An innovative program that supports parents and teachers of public school pre-kindergarten students improves early academic achievement, according to a new study published in the April 15 online edition of Pediatrics. In a five-year study of 1,050 minority pre-kindergarten students from disadvantaged neighborhoods in New York City, NYU Langone researchers found that ParentCorps, a family-focused, school-based program, led to better achievement test scores and overall school performance.

Playing simple games using words and pictures can help people to learn a new language with greater ease, researchers from The University of Nottingham have shown.

Their study, published by the scientific journal PLOS ONE, revealed that using fun, informal ways of learning not only helped complete novices to acquire a new language but also made more traditional methods of language learning more effective.

Charlottesville, VA (April 16, 2013). In July 2010, the Society of Neurological Surgeons initiated nationwide boot camp courses designed to teach incoming postgraduate Year 1 (PGY1) trainees fundamental skills related to the field of neurosurgery. According to a new paper in the Journal of Neurosurgery, follow-up tests and surveys returned from course attendees 6 months after completion of the courses show that the first-year residents retained the knowledge and skills they had learned and found the courses relevant and beneficial to their residency experiences and to patient care.

Like birds which stop foraging too early on a berry-laden bush, a new study suggests older people struggle to recall items because they flit too often between 'patches' in their memories.

The study by the University of Warwick published in the journal Developmental Psychology seeks to model the mechanisms behind memory decline in old age.

Philadelphia, PA, April 16, 2013 – Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable deaths globally. Unfortunately smoking cessation is difficult, with more than 90% of attempts to quit resulting in relapse.

There are a growing number of available methods that can be tried in the effort to reduce smoking, including medications, behavioral therapies, hypnosis, and even acupuncture. All attempt to alter brain function or behavior in some way.

People given large servings of food eat more than those given smaller servings, even after they have been taught about the impact of portion size on consumption, research from the University of New South Wales shows.

Learning how to engage in mindful - rather than mindless – eating also did not decrease food intake by a significant amount in those given large servings.

The study, published in the Journal of Health Psychology, highlights the need to find new ways to reduce the effect of portion size on overeating.

University of British Columbia researchers have found a new potential use for the over-the-counter pain drug Tylenol. Typically known to relieve physical pain, the study suggests the drug may also reduce the psychological effects of fear and anxiety over the human condition, or existential dread.

Published in the Association for Psychological Science journal Psychological Science, the study advances our understanding of how the human brain processes different kinds of pain.

Thinking about death can cause us to feel a sort of existential angst that isn't attributable to a specific source. Now, new research suggests that acetaminophen, an over-the-counter pain medication, may help to reduce this existential pain.

The research is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

According to lead researcher Daniel Randles and colleagues at the University of British Columbia, the new findings suggest that Tylenol may have more profound psychological effects than previously thought:

For the first time, researchers have linked autism in a mouse model of the disease with abnormalities in specific regions of the animals' chromosomes.

The regions contain genes associated with aberrant brain development and activity.

"These discoveries in mice may eventually pave the way towards understanding autism in human patients and devising new treatments," said co-senior author, Elliott H. Sherr, MD, PhD, a pediatric neurologist at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital and professor of neurology at UC San Francisco (UCSF).

AURORA, Colo. (April 15, 2013) – Researchers at the Linda Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome and the University of Colorado School of Medicine have found that a single mechanism may underlie the damaging effect of cholesterol on the brain and on blood vessels.

High levels of blood cholesterol increase the risk of both Alzheimer's disease and heart disease, but it has been unclear exactly how cholesterol damages the brain to promote Alzheimer's disease and blood vessels to promote atherosclerosis.

April 15, 2013 – San Francisco - A brain-training task that increases the number of items an individual can remember over a short period of time may boost performance in other problem-solving tasks by enhancing communication between different brain areas. The new study being presented this week in San Francisco is one of a growing number of experiments on how working-memory training can measurably improve a range of skills – from multiplying in your head to reading a complex paragraph.

Making decisions involves a gradual accumulation of facts that support one choice or another. A person choosing a college might weigh factors such as course selection, institutional reputation and the quality of future job prospects.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The first large-scale study of U.S. science faculty with education specialties (SFES) concludes that their training and funding vary considerably depending on their college or university.

In a study published in the April 15 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers including SF State biology professor Kimberly Tanner conclude that researchers at master's degree-granting institutions are almost twice as likely to have formal training in science education than their colleagues at other institutions.