Brain

Being exposed to arguments between parents is associated with the way babies' brains process emotional tone of voice, according to a new study to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The study, conducted by graduate student Alice Graham with her advisors Phil Fisher and Jennifer Pfeifer of the University of Oregon, found that infants respond to angry tone of voice, even when they're asleep.

Well designed and planned exercises are essential to ensure that the UK can respond effectively to emergencies of all kinds, according to research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). The emergencies may take the form of a terrorist attack, flooding, pandemic flu, rail or air disaster - or any major disruptive event requiring an emergency response.

RENO, Nev. – A new mechanism for guiding the growth of nerves that involves cell-death machinery has been found by scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno that may bring advances in neurological medicine and research. The team obtained the evidence in studies of fruit flies and reported their discovery in an article published in the prestigious science publication Cell Reports.

A new UBC study reveals that North American service workers are more likely to sabotage rude customers, while Chinese react by disengaging from customer service altogether.

"Our research shows that culture plays a significant role in how frontline workers deal with customer abuse," says UBC Sauder School of Business Professor Daniel Skarlicki, a co-author of the study.

At 7 months of age, children who are later diagnosed with autism take a split second longer to shift their gaze during a task measuring eye movements and visual attention than do typically developing infants of the same age, according to researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health.

A drug widely used to treat Parkinson's Disease can help to reverse age-related impairments in decision making in some older people, a study from researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging has shown.

The study, published today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, also describes changes in the patterns of brain activity of adults in their seventies that help to explain why they are worse at making decisions than younger people.

Abused or neglected teenage girls become teen mothers at nearly five times the national rate of teen motherhood.

A new Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study, published in the eFirst pages of the journal Pediatrics, shows that teen childbirth rates are more than 20 percent for abused and neglected teens. This compares to the national teen childbirth rate of approximately 4 percent.

The finding holds true even after taking into account such factors as race, family income and whether the family was a one- or two-parent household.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—March 24, 2013—Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have discovered that a certain type of DNA damage long thought to be particularly detrimental to brain cells can actually be part of a regular, non-harmful process. The team further found that disruptions to this process occur in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease—and identified two therapeutic strategies that reduce these disruptions.

LA JOLLA, Calif., March 24, 2013 – What is it about the extra chromosome inherited in Down syndrome—chromosome 21—that alters brain and body development? Researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) have new evidence that points to a protein called sorting nexin 27, or SNX27. SNX27 production is inhibited by a molecule encoded on chromosome 21. The study, published March 24 in Nature Medicine, shows that SNX27 is reduced in human Down syndrome brains.

A drug widely used to treat Parkinson's Disease can help to reverse age-related impairments in decision making in some older people, a study from researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging has shown.

The study, published today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, also describes changes in the patterns of brain activity of adults in their seventies that help to explain why they are worse at making decisions than younger people.

Environmental education programs that took middle school students outdoors to learn helped minority students close a gap in environmental literacy, according to research from North Carolina State University.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Research from the University of North Carolina has shown that children at risk of developing schizophrenia have brains that function differently than those not at risk.

Brain scans of children who have parents or siblings with the illness reveal a neural circuitry that is hyperactivated or stressed by tasks that peers with no family history of the illness seem to handle with ease.

Teaching bystander Cardiac Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) strategically to the general public offers the greatest potential to make the biggest overall impact on survival in out of hospital cardiac arrests in Europe, reported a main session on Resuscitation Science at the European Society of Cardiology's EuroHeart Care Congress, which took place in Glasgow, 22 to 23 March, 2013.

VIDEO ALERT: Audio and video resources, including excerptsfrom an interview with Melissa Murray,Ph.D., describing the study,are available on the Mayo Clinic News Network.