Brain

"Yeah, I'm on my way home." "That's funny." "Uh-huh." "What? No! I thought you were – " "Oh, ok." Listening to someone talk on a cell phone is very annoying. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds out why: Hearing just one side of a conversation is much more distracting than hearing both sides and reduces our attention in other tasks.

Berkeley — When it comes to conducting complex tasks, it turns out that the brain needs rhythm, according to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

Ever wonder why it's such an effort to forget about work while on vacation or to silence that annoying song that's playing over and over in your head?

Mathematicians at Case Western Reserve University may have part of the answer.

They've found that just as thinking burns energy, stopping a thought burns energy - like stopping a truck on a downhill slope.

New research led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators adds to evidence that the Six3 gene functions like a doorman in the developing brain and visual system, safeguarding the future retina by keeping the region where the eye is forming free of a signaling protein capable of disrupting the process.

Irvine, Calif., Sept. 20, 2010 — American and Italian researchers have found that a novel drug allows anandamide – a marijuana-like chemical in the body – to effectively control pain at the site of an injury.

Led by Daniele Piomelli, the Louise Turner Arnold Chair in Neurosciences and director of the Center for Drug Discovery at UC Irvine, the study suggests that such compounds could form the basis of pain medications that don't produce sedation, addiction or other central nervous system side effects common with existing painkillers, such as opiates.

WASHINGTON – Holocaust survivors show remarkable resilience in their day-to-day lives, but they still manifest the pain of their traumatic past in the form of various psychiatric symptoms, according to an analysis of 44 years of global psychological research.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The incidence of hockey-related injuries among children aged 9 to 14 leading to emergency department visits more than doubled between 1990 and 2006, according to a new nationwide study.

There were 2,935 hockey injuries treated in emergency departments in that age group in 1990, increasing to 7,713 in 2006 – an increase of 163 percent.

The injury incidence among teens aged 15 to 18 didn't increase as much as that of younger children, but still grew 85 percent during the same time period.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a serious public health problem in the United States. Recent data show that approximately 1.7 million people sustain a traumatic brain injury annually. While the majority of TBIs are concussions or other mild forms, traumatic brain injuries contribute to a substantial number of deaths and cases of permanent disability.

Deleting a certain gene in mice can make them smarter by unlocking a mysterious region of the brain considered to be relatively inflexible, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have found.

Mice with a disabled RGS14 gene are able to remember objects they'd explored and learn to navigate mazes better than regular mice, suggesting that RGS14's presence limits some forms of learning and memory.

The results were published online this week in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

We run our modern lives largely by the clock, from the alarms that startle us out of our slumbers and herald each new workday to the watches and clocks that remind us when it's time for meals, after-school pick-up and the like.

In addition to those ubiquitous timekeepers, though, we have internal "clocks" that are part of our biological machinery and which help set our circadian rhythms, regulating everything from our sleep-wake cycles to our appetites and hormone levels. Light coming into our brains via our eyes set those clocks, though no one is sure exactly how this happens.

An international team of Alzheimer's disease experts, led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has uncovered a gene variation that appears to predict the rate at which Alzheimer's disease will progress.

The investigators report their findings online in the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) Genetics.

Whereas previous studies have focused on factors that influence the risk for Alzheimer's, the new research points to a way to determine how rapidly Alzheimer's patients may develop full-blown dementia after their diagnosis.

The response time to antidepressants, such as Prozac, is around three weeks. How can we explain this? The adaptation mechanisms of the neurons to antidepressants has, until now, remained enigmatic.

La Jolla, CA, September 15, 2010 – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have designed a new molecular test that will allow researchers to look for potential drugs targeting a human metabolic enzyme believed to stimulate the appetite and play a role in diabetes.

Berkeley — Research on a drug commonly prescribed to Alzheimer's disease patients is helping neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, better understand perceptual learning in healthy adults.

AUSTIN, Texas — Many women with low sex drives reported greater sexual satisfaction after taking a placebo, according to new psychology research from The University of Texas at Austin and Baylor College of Medicine. The study was conducted by Cindy Meston, a clinical psychology professor at The University of Texas at Austin, and Andrea Bradford and they found that opening a new line of communication about sex can have a positive effect in many women with low libidos.