Brain

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Developmental differences in babies born 4 to 6 weeks early may not show up until after they turn two, a new study suggests.

Researchers from C.S. Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan tracked children from infancy through kindergarten and compared developmental outcomes between late preterm infants (born between 34 and 36 weeks); those born early term (37 to 38 weeks) and term (39 to 41 weeks).

When malignant melanoma metastasizes to the brain, it is a death sentence for most patients. Metastatic melanoma is the deadliest of the skin cancers and the mechanisms that govern early metastatic growth and interactions of metastatic cells with the brain microenvironment remain shrouded in mystery.

People commit fraud because they are unhappy about being rejected, a new study in Frontiers in Psychology has found.

Many of us might not professional criminals, however when an insurance company rejects our claims, we are more likely to inflate the claims.

TORONTO (July 25, 2016) -- The first case of Alzheimer's disease diagnosed in an HIV-positive individual will be presented in a poster session at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference 2016 in Toronto July 27. The finding in a 71-year-old man triggers a realization about HIV survivors now reaching the age when Alzheimer's risk begins to escalate.

DALLAS - July 22, 2016 - The brain's reward centers in severely obese women continue to respond to food cues even after they've eaten and are no longer hungry, in contrast to their lean counterparts, according to a recent study by a multidisciplinary team at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

The study, published recently in the journal Obesity, compared attitudes and the brain activity of 15 severely obese women (those with a body mass index greater than 35) and 15 lean women (those with a BMI under 25).

Scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have reported a detailed description of how function-impairing mutations in polr1c and polr1d genes cause Treacher Collins syndrome (TCS), a rare congenital craniofacial development disorder that affects an estimated 1 in 50,000 live births.

Collectively the results of the study, published in the current issue of PLoS Genetics, reveal that a unifying cellular and biochemical mechanism underlies the etiology and pathogenesis of TCS and its possible prevention, irrespective of the causative gene mutation.

HOUSTON, July 21, 2016 - When asked how lack of sleep affects emotions, common responses are usually grumpy, foggy and short-tempered. While many jokes are made about how sleep deprivation turns the nicest of people into a Jekyll and Hyde, not getting enough shut-eye can lead to far more serious consequences than irritability, difficulty concentrating and impatience.

New Orleans, LA - A team led by Nicolas Bazan, MD, PhD, Boyd Professor and Director of LSU Health New Orleans' Neuroscience Center of Excellence, has developed neuroprotective compounds that may prevent the development of epilepsy. The findings will be published online in Scientific Reports, a Nature journal, on July 22, 2016.

NEW YORK, NY (July 22, 2016) -- What do we really know about the relationship between the experience of pain and risk of developing opioid use disorder? Results from a recent study - the first to directly address this question -- show that people with moderate or more severe pain had a 41 percent higher risk of developing prescription opioid use disorders than those without, independent of other demographic and clinical factors.

These results, from researchers at Columbia University Medical Center, were published today in American Journal of Psychiatry.

WASHINGTON -- Is empathy the result of gut intuition or careful reasoning? Research published by the American Psychological Association suggests that, contrary to popular belief, the latter may be more the case.

New research indicates that in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or indigestion, there is a distinct brain-to-gut pathway, where psychological symptoms begin first, and separately a distinct gut-to-brain pathway, where gut symptoms start first.

People who suffer from OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) are unable to stop performing certain motor tasks, such as washing their hands. They can literally spend hours stuck to the sink.

At the other end of the spectrum, people with ADHD (attention deficit-hyperactive disorder), are unable to pursue the same motor action for long: they sit, they get up, they walk around, always restless, constantly doing this or that for no apparent reason.

In humans and other mammals, the cerebral cortex is responsible for sensory, motor, and cognitive functions. Understanding the organization of the neuronal networks in the cortex should provide insights into the computations that they carry out. A study publishing on July 21st in open access journal PLOS Biology shows that the global architecture of the cortical networks in primates (with large brains) and rodents (with small brains) is organized by common principles.

Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics have found a gene responsible for an intellectual disability disorder and proven how it works. The research, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, details the role of a gene called BCL11A in a new intellectual disability syndrome.

Prof. Fiona Doetsch's research team at the Biozentrum, University of Basel, has discovered that the choroid plexus, a largely ignored structure in the brain that produces the cerebrospinal fluid, is an important regulator of adult neural stem cells. The study recently published in "Cell Stem Cell" also shows that signals secreted by the choroid plexus dynamically change during aging which affects aged stem cell behavior.