Brain

CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. (8/16/10) – English and math teachers who took professional development courses online improved their instructional practices and boosted their subject knowledge scores, producing modest performance gains for their students, report Boston College researchers in one of the first large-scale randomized experiments to study the impact of online professional development for educators.

Boys Town, NE—August 16, 2010— A new article published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry concludes that early intervention among young adolescents with delinquency problems may help prevent the development of long-term crime, alcohol use disorders (AUDs), and risky sex behaviors, especially among disadvantaged youth.

EAST LANSING, Mich. – Although girls tend to hang out in smaller, more intimate groups than boys, this difference vanishes by the time children reach the eighth grade, according to a new study by a Michigan State University psychologist.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Children at risk for diabetes before they reach puberty also appear to be at risk for weak bones, Medical College of Georgia researchers report.

Together with colleagues from an international research group, autism researcher Christopher Gillberg of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has found in a new study that autism can be partially explained by abnormalities in certain genes. The group's results could, in the long run, pave the way for more appropriate treatments for autism.

A diagnostic test of eight short questions designed by Jaclene Zauszniewski from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University can be used to detect depressive thinking patterns that lead to clinical depression in women who care for an adult family member with a serious mental illness.

Psychological stress in middle age could lead to the development of dementia later in life, especially Alzheimer's disease, reveals research from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Based on data from a study which followed women for 35 years, this is the first research in Sweden to indicate a link between stress and dementia.

LA JOLLA, CA-People with Williams syndrome-known for their indiscriminate friendliness and ease with strangers-process spoken language differently from people with autism spectrum disorders-characterized by social withdrawal and isolation-found researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Growing up without siblings doesn't seem to be a disadvantage for teenagers when it comes to social skills, new research suggests.

A study of more than 13,000 middle and high school students across the country found that "only children" were selected as friends by their schoolmates just as often as were peers who grew up with brothers and sisters.

A regulatory protein best known for its role in a rare genetic brain disorder also may play a critical role in cocaine addiction, according to a recent study in rats, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health. The study was published today in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

DURHAM, N.C. -- When a certain protein is mutated or missing, symptoms of the neurodevelopmental disorder Rett syndrome arise, causing a gradual loss of brain function during early development.

This fact led Duke University Medical Center researchers to test a theory that the protein might also contribute to nerve-cell connection (synapse) changes in a fully formed adult mouse brain when exposed to psychostimulant use.

Effective reading requires recognizing words and also understanding what they mean. Between 7-10 percent of children have specific reading-comprehension difficulties. These children can read text aloud accurately but do not understand what they have just read. A new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, identifies a training program which may help children overcome reading-comprehension difficulties.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The same molecular mechanism that increases life span through calorie restriction may help boost memory and brainpower, researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory report in the July 11 issue of Nature.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Abnormal brain images combined with examination of the composition of the fluid that surrounds the spine may offer the earliest signs identifying healthy older adults at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, well before cognitive problems emerge, a study by researchers at UC Davis has found.

Los Angeles, CA (July 8, 2010) Revised standards for psychology services in jails, prisons, correctional facilities, and agencies appear in the July special issue of the journal Criminal Justice and Behavior (published by SAGE).