Brain

For the first time, scientists have been able to predict how much pain people are feeling by looking at images of their brains, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

A simple in-home training program for caregivers can give children of AIDS patients a better shot at prosperity by improving their early-childhood development, according to a study led by a Michigan State University researcher.

Michael Boivin, MSU associate professor in the departments of Psychiatry, and of Neurology and Ophthalmology, conducted the research in Uganda, where about one million children have lost at least one parent to AIDS -- an unlucky club that adds another member every 14 seconds.

HOUSTON -- (April 10, 2013) – Some breast tumor circulating cells in the bloodstream are marked by a constellation of biomarkers that identify them as those destined to seed the brain with a deadly spread of cancer, said researchers led by those at Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears online in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Your brain knows it's time to cook when the stove is on, and the food and pots are out. When you rush away to calm a crying child, though, cooking is over and it's time to be a parent. Your brain processes and responds to these occurrences as distinct, unrelated events.

Humans could learn a thing or two from turtles, and scientists who have just sequenced the first turtle genome uncovered clues about how people can benefit from the shelled creatures' remarkable longevity and ability to survive for months without breathing.

Understanding the natural mechanisms turtles use to protect their heart and brain from oxygen deprivation may one day improve treatments for heart attack and stroke, the researchers said.

A significant breakthrough has been made by scientists at The University of Manchester towards developing an effective treatment for neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Researchers at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology have detailed how an enzyme in the brain interacts with an exciting drug-like lead compound for Huntington's Disease to inhibit its activity. Their findings demonstrate that it can be developed as an effective treatment for neurodegenerative diseases. The research is published in the journal Nature.

STANFORD, Calif. — Combining neuroscience and chemical engineering, researchers at Stanford University have developed a process that renders a mouse brain transparent. The postmortem brain remains whole — not sliced or sectioned in any way — with its three-dimensional complexity of fine wiring and molecular structures completely intact and able to be measured and probed at will with visible light and chemicals.

A new study from the University of Pennsylvania has shown that children as young as 2 understand basic grammar rules when they first learn to speak and are not simply imitating adults.

The study also applied the same statistical analysis on data from one of the most famous animal language-acquisition experiments — Project Nim — and showed that Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who was taught sign language over the course of many years, never grasped rules like those in a 2-year-old's grammar.

WASHINGTON – Effective leaders' brains may be physically "wired" to lead, offering the promise of more precise identification and training, according to studies of U.S. Army officers published by the American Psychological Association.

LA JOLLA, CA – April 10, 2013 – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have shed light on one of the major toxic mechanisms of Alzheimer's disease. The discoveries could lead to a much better understanding of the Alzheimer's process and how to prevent it.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- New research from social psychologists at Indiana University Bloomington suggests that feeling powerful might protect against the debilitating effects of negative stereotypes.

"If you can make women feel powerful, then maybe you can protect them from the consequences of stereotype threat," IU social psychologist Katie Van Loo said.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Deep inside your brain, a legion of stem cells lies ready to turn into new brain and nerve cells whenever and wherever you need them most. While they wait, they keep themselves in a state of perpetual readiness – poised to become any type of nerve cell you might need as your cells age or get damaged.

Now, new research from scientists at the University of Michigan Medical School reveals a key way they do this: through a type of internal "spring cleaning" that both clears out garbage within the cells, and keeps them in their stem-cell state.

New scientific evidence seems to confirm the famous Roman saying "Mens sana in corpore sano". Researchers from the University of Granada have demonstrated that people who normally practice sport have a better cognitive performance than those with bad physical health. More specifically, the results of this research indicate that the former have a better sustained attention span (they react more rapidly to an external stimulus introduced randomly while carrying out a monotonous task).

New research has questioned the reliability of neuroscience studies, saying that conclusions could be misleading due to small sample sizes.

A team led by academics from the University of Bristol reviewed 48 articles on neuroscience meta-analysis which were published in 2011 and concluded that most had an average power of around 20 per cent – a finding which means the chance of the average study discovering the effect being investigated is only one in five.