Brain

MADISON — If you've ever been sleep-deprived, you know the feeling that your brain is full of wool.

Now, a study published in the April 3 edition of the journal Science has molecular and structural evidence of that woolly feeling — proteins that build up in the brains of sleep-deprived fruit flies and drop to lower levels in the brains of the well-rested. The proteins are located in the synapses, those specialized parts of neurons that allow brain cells to communicate with other neurons.

St. Louis, March 30, 2009 —A new theory about sleep's benefits for the brain gets a boost from fruit flies in this week's Science. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found evidence that sleep, already recognized as a promoter of long-term memories, also helps clear room in the brain for new learning.

NEW YORK (April 2, 2009) -- Getting your teenager to drink a chocolate milkshake isn't something most parents need to worry about. But this is just the approach used in one treatment for anorexia nervosa. Known as Behavioral Family Therapy, or the Maudsley Approach, parents are called up on to supervise the eating habits of their anorexic child, feeding them high-calorie meals like milkshakes and macaroni and cheese until they regain a healthy weight.

A new study has identified a potential strategy for removing the abnormal protein that causes Huntington's disease (HD) from brain cells, which could slow the progression of the devastating neurological disorder. In the April 3 issue of Cell, a team of researchers from the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MGH-MIND) describes how an alteration to the mutated form of the huntingtin protein appears to accelerate its breakdown and removal through normal cellular processes.

April 1, 2009 — (BRONX, NY) — Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have proposed a sweeping new theory of autism that suggests that the brains of people with autism are structurally normal but dysregulated, meaning symptoms of the disorder might be reversible.

A ghostly property of matter, called quantum tunneling, may aid the quest for accurate, low-cost genomic sequencing, according to a new paper in Nature Nanotechnology Letters by Stuart Lindsay and his collaborators at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University. Tunneling implies that a particle, say an electron, can cross a barrier, when, according to classical physics, it does not have enough energy to do so.

Bone loss in long-duration spaceflight has been identified for decades as a significant problem affecting astronauts. More recently, scientists have found that the absence of gravity is causing astronauts on the International Space Station to lose up to 10 times more bone mass in key regions of the body each month than most post-menopausal women do in the same period of time back here on Earth.

Specialized motor proteins that transport cargo within cells could be turned into nanoscale machines for drug delivery, according to bioengineers. Chemical alteration of the proteins' function could also help inhibit the growth of cancerous tumors.

Each cell in the body contains motor proteins that ferry cargo such as chromosomes, mitochondria or bundles of proteins, either from the center of the cell to its outskirts or from the periphery toward the nucleus. Most motor proteins contain two motor domains, or heads, that are attached to a shared cargo-binding domain, or tail.

NEW YORK (March 20, 2009) -- Patients suffering from a blood disorder that prevents proper clotting have the option of a new medication that may dramatically improve their health. There are estimated to be between 50,000 and 100,000 individuals in the U.S. diagnosed with chronic immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), an autoimmune disease that dramatically reduces the number of platelets in their blood -- causing bruises, nosebleeds and, rarely, life-threatening brain hemorrhages.

This obscure clinical manifestation of severe vomiting sickness due to chronic abuse of marijuana, recognized by Dr. Sontineni and his colleagues at the Creighton University of Omaha, NE, was published on March 14, 2009 World Journal of Gastroenterology.

Recent research into the neurobiology of cannabis has led to the identification of different receptor types including two specific types that mediate neuropsychiatric and immunologic effects.

Dr. Michael Walter is one good gumshoe. The University of Alberta medical geneticist has cracked the case of WDR36, a gene linked to glaucoma.

Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness in which cells in the optic nerve die, preventing the brain from understanding what patients see. Scientists have long suspected a link between WDR36 and glaucoma, but have been unable to figure out what the gene does and why some people with variations of the gene get glaucoma while others don't.

SALT LAKE CITY – Twenty years after first being assessed in a long-term autism study, 41 Utahns with the disorder had a higher social outcome than those in similar studies, University of Utah psychiatry researchers have reported in the Journal of Autism Research online.

Evolutionary theorist Alastair Clarke has today published details of eight patterns he claims to be the basis of all the humour that has ever been imagined or expressed, regardless of civilization, culture or personal taste.

A new study indicates that some aspects of peoples' cognitive skills – such as the ability to make rapid comparisons, remember unrelated information and detect relationships – peak at about the age of 22, and then begin a slow decline starting around age 27.

"This research suggests that some aspects of age-related cognitive decline begin in healthy, educated adults when they are in their 20s and 30s," said Timothy Salthouse, a University of Virginia professor of psychology and the study's lead investigator.

People who suffer an ischemic stroke and also have an abnormality in the heart's electrical cycle are at a higher risk of death within 90 days than people who do not have abnormal electrical activity at the time of emergency treatment, according to new research.

The study also provides a threshold at which the threat of death is highest: QTc intervals greater than 440 milliseconds in women and 438 milliseconds in men have the worst prognosis. The findings are published online March 20, 2009, in the Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases.