Brain

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The JC polyomavirus doesn't strike very often, but it's a mean bug that preys on people with weakened immune systems, including people with AIDS, and almost always kills them. Now an international team of scientists at Brown University, the University of Tübingen in Germany, and Imperial College in London has found a potential Achilles Heel and painted a target on it: The virus must bind to a very specific sugar molecule dangling from the side of the brain cells it attacks.

WASHINGTON — Motherhood may actually cause the brain to grow, not turn it into mush, as some have claimed. Exploratory research published by the American Psychological Association found that the brains of new mothers bulked up in areas linked to motivation and behavior, and that mothers who gushed the most about their babies showed the greatest growth in key parts of the mid-brain.

Montreal, October 20, 2010 – Daily sleeping and eating patterns are critical to human well-being and health. Now, a new study from Concordia University has demonstrated how the brain chemical dopamine regulates these cycles by altering the activity of the "clock-protein" PER2. Published in the Journal of Neuroscience, these findings may have implications for individuals with Parkinson's Disease with disrupted 24-hour rhythms of activity and sleep.

Over the last few decades, the dramatic rise in pediatric obesity rates has emerged as a public health threat requiring urgent attention. The responsibility of identifying and treating eating and weight-related problems early in children and adolescents falls to health care providers and other professionals who work with the child, according to Professor Denise Wilfley and colleagues from the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in the US. Furthermore, the key to successful treatment is a team effort involving providers and parents.

Chronic depression is an adaptive, reparative neurobiological process gone wrong, say two University of California, San Diego School of Medicine researchers, positing in a new theory that the debilitating mental state originates from more ancient mechanisms used by the body to deal with physical injury, such as pain, tissue repair and convalescent behavior.

The eating disorder anorexia nervosa causes potentially serious eye damage, suggests a small study published online in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.

In developed countries, anorexia nervosa affects up to 3% of affluent women. Although the condition also increasingly affects men, around 10 women will be affected for every one man.

Anorexia nervosa is the third most common chronic disease among teenage women, up to one in 10 of whom will die from it.

DALLAS – Oct. 20, 2010 – New findings by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers suggest a novel role for the brain in mediating beneficial actions of the hormone leptin in type 1 diabetes.

DENVER (October 19, 2010) - Long derided as mere entertainment, new research now shows that organizations using video games to train employees end up with smarter, more motivated workers who learn more and forget less.

A University of Colorado Denver Business School study found those trained on video games do their jobs better, have higher skills and retain information longer than workers learning in less interactive, more passive environments.

AUSTIN, Texas — Because of impairments in their insulin sensitivity, obese individuals demonstrate different brain responses than their normal-weight peers while completing a challenging cognitive task, according to new research by psychologists at The University of Texas at Austin.

The results provide further evidence that a healthy lifestyle at midlife could lead to a higher quality of life later on, especially as new drugs and treatments allow people to live longer.

There has been an abundance of research on the effects of alcohol on the brain, but many questions regarding how alcohol impairs the built-in control systems are still unknown. A new study released in the January 2011 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, which is currently available at Early View, explores that subject in detail and found that certain brain regions involved in error processing are affected more by alcohol than others.

• Exposure to alcohol as a fetus has been shown to cause difficulties in memory and information processing in children
• New findings indicate that visual perception, control of attention and demand processing may be involved in fetal alcohol-related learning problems
• This information could potentially be used to help children affected with such difficulties

• Adolescence and puberty is a period of significant development in the brain
• New findings indicate that excessive alcohol use selectively damages the frontal lobe, which is responsible for the development of social skills and judgment
• This indicates that severe alcohol abuse may damage brain function, and the normal course of neural development in adolescents

• The gene CYP2E1, which is located on the terminal region of chromosome 10, plays a major role in the metabolic processing of alcohol
• New findings show that this gene is linked with a low sensitivity to alcohol and increased risk for alcoholism
• CYP2E1 could therefore be used as a predictor for those who are at risk for alcoholism