Brain

Older adults with generalized anxiety disorder who received cognitive behavior therapy had greater improvement on measures of worry, depression and mental health than patients who received usual care, according to a study in the April 8 issue of JAMA.

During the first week of class, the teens' eyes were downcast, their responses were mumbled and eye contact was almost nonexistent. By Week 12, though, these same kids were talkative, responsive and engaged.

That's the result of a special class designed at UCLA to help teens with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) learn to interact appropriately with their peers. ASD includes a range of pervasive developmental disorders characterized by problems with communication and socialization; it's estimated that one in 150 children born in the United States has some form of ASD.

A simple way of establishing which preterm infants are at risk of developing the eye disease ROP is to follow their weight gain. A new study from the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, suggests that following weekly weight development might replace the need for considerably more expensive ophthalmological examinations.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Rutgers geneticist Linda Brzustowicz and her colleagues have identified a specific DNA change that is likely to increase risk for developing schizophrenia in some people. It provides a potential mechanism that may be a point of entry for drug therapy, consistent with the growing trend of personalized medicine.

The research findings are reported in the April issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry (AJP). An accompanying editorial highlights the significance of this work.

Video killed the radio star, the old song goes –– but violent video games, a new Tel Aviv University study finds, can also improve the real-world vision of teens who play them.

"As a father and brain scientist, I was quite concerned when my kids were growing up and playing video games," says Dr. Uri Polat of Tel Aviv University's Goldschlager Eye Institute, who partnered with the University of Rochester to carry out the new study. "What we see now is that teens who play violent video games are also training their brains to see better."

LA JOLLA, CA—About 1.25 million neurons in the retina -- each of which views the world only through a small jagged window called a receptive field -- collectively form the seamless picture we rely on to navigate our environment. Receptive fields fit together like pieces of a puzzle, preventing "blind spots" and excessive overlap that could blur our perception of the world, according to researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Young adults with a genetic variant that raises their risk of developing Alzheimer's Disease show changes in their brain activity decades before any symptoms might arise, according to a new brain imaging study by scientists from the University of Oxford and Imperial College London. The results may support the idea that the brain's memory function may gradually wear itself out in those who go on to develop Alzheimer's.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have compiled the first-ever review of the neurobiology of wisdom – once the sole province of religion and philosophy. The study by Dilip V. Jeste, MD, and Thomas W. Meeks, MD, of UC San Diego's Department of Psychiatry and the Stein Institute for Research on Aging, will be published in the Archives of General Psychiatry on April 6.

Two non-pharmacological interventions—cognitive behavior therapy and supportive stress management—appear more effective than usual care for treating depression after coronary artery bypass surgery, according to a report in the April issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Most males who commit suicide or need hospital care for suicide attempts during their teen or early adult years appear to have high levels of psychiatric problems at age 8, according to a report in the April issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. However, later suicide attempts in females are not predicted by mental health issues at this age.

Exerting self-control is exhausting. In fact, using self-control in one situation impairs our ability to use self-control in subsequent, even unrelated, situations. What about thinking of other people exerting self-control? Earlier research has shown that imagining actions can cause the same reactions as if we were actually performing them (e.g., simulating eating a disgusting food results in a revolting face, even if no food has been eaten) and psychologists Joshua M. Ackerman and John A. Bargh from Yale University, along with Noah J. Goldstein and Jenessa R.

Patients with schizophrenia are able to correctly see through an illusion known as the 'hollow mask' illusion, probably because their brain disconnects 'what the eyes see' from what 'the brain thinks it is seeing', according to a joint UK and German study published in the journal NeuroImage. The findings shed light on why cannabis users may also be less deceived by the illusion whilst on the drug.

A team of scientists from The Ohio State University has examined the stress levels of parents whose young children either had no cavities or so many cavities that the children had receive anesthesia before undergoing dental treatment.

The investigators presented their findings today during the 87th General Session of the International Association for Dental Research.

AUSTIN, Texas-Banishing a fear-inducing memory might be a matter of the right timing, according to new research.

Marie Monfils, an assistant professor of psychology at The University of Texas at Austin, has taken advantage of a key time when memories are ripe for change to substantially modify memories of fear into benign memories and to keep them that way.

The finding is a significant advance in learning how memory can be manipulated in rodents. It also could indicate a potential treatment for humans suffering from anxiety-related disorders.

As we look at the world around us, images flicker into our brains like so many disparate pixels on a computer screen that change every time our eyes move, which is several times a second. Yet we don'tperceive the world as a constantly flashing computer display.

Why not?