Brain

The most comprehensive analysis yet of the genetic imbalances at the heart of childhood brain tumors known as high-grade gliomas (HGGs) identified a cancer gene that is unusually active in some tumors and is now the focus of a St. Jude Children's Research Hospital clinical trial.

The high-fat ketogenic diet can dramatically reduce or completely eliminate debilitating seizures in most children with infantile spasms, whose seizures persist despite medication, according to a Johns Hopkins Children's Center study published online April 30 in the journal Epilepsia.

PHILADELPHIA – In the most comprehensive study to date, neurologists have clearly identified significant differences in the ways that Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects patients with and without the apolipoprotein E ε4 gene (APOE ε4), a known genetic risk factor for the neurodegenerative disease, using a combination of cognitive and neuroanatomic measures. The study found that this gene influences the way the disease manifests, even at its mildest clinical stages.

Study highlights include:

Fish become feisty but fearful when facing themselves in a mirror, according to two Stanford biologists.

DALLAS – May 17, 2010 – More than one-third of teenagers with treatment-resistant depression – many of whom had been depressed for more than two years – became symptom-free six months after switching their medication or combining a medicine switch with cognitive behavioral therapy during a multicenter study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers.

Montreal, May 17, 2010 – The world's biggest investigation on possible links between cell phone use and brain tumours is inconclusive, according to a Canadian scientist who collaborated on the Interphone International Study Group. Jack Siemiatycki, a professor at the University of Montreal and an epidemiologist at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Center, says restricted access to participants compromised the validity of results of the study to be published in the May 18 International Journal of Epidemiology.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, May 17, 2010 – Although caffeine is the most widely consumed psychoactive drug worldwide, its potential beneficial effect for maintenance of proper brain functioning has only recently begun to be adequately appreciated. Substantial evidence from epidemiological studies and fundamental research in animal models suggests that caffeine may be protective against the cognitive decline seen in dementia and Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Today's computers rely on powerful graphics processing units (GPUs) to create the spectacular graphics in video games. In fact, these GPUs are now more powerful than the traditional central processing units (CPUs) – or brains of the computer. As a result, computer developers are trying to tap into the power of these GPUs. Now a research team from North Carolina State University has developed software that could make it easier for traditional software programs to take advantage of the powerful GPUs, essentially increasing complex computing brainpower

Scientists have discovered a mechanism that helps to explain resilience to stress, vulnerability to depression and how antidepressants work. The new findings, in the reward circuit of mouse and human brains, have spurred a high tech dragnet for compounds that boost the action of a key gene regulator there, called deltaFosB.

STANFORD, Calif. — Like a motorist who knows that the "check engine" light indicates something important is happening but it could be almost anything, neuroscientists have relied heavily on an incompletely understood technology called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to show them what the brain is doing when people respond to different stimuli.

Montreal, May 14, 2010 – At 30 years old, male testosterone levels drop by one to two percent annually. By age 40, men's quality of sleep begins to diminish. Could there be a link between decreased testosterone and reduced sleep? Absolutely according to Zoran Sekerovic, a graduate student from the University of Montreal Department of Psychology, who presented his findings at the annual conference of the Association francophone pour le savoir (ACFAS).

With their French colleagues, researchers at the University of Helsinki have found a mechanism in the memory centre of newborn that adjusts the maturation of the brain for the information processing required later in life. The study was published this week in an American science magazine The Journal of Neuroscience.

The brain cells in the brain of a newborn are still quite loosely interconnected. In the middle of chaos, they are looking for contact with each other and are only later able to operate as interactive neural networks.

Children whose minds are stimulated in several early childhood settings—home, preschool, and school—have higher achievement in elementary school. What matters is not whether children's learning is supported at home, or stimulated in preschool or in elementary school, but that all three of these occur.

That's the conclusion of a new study published in the May/June 2010 issue of Child Development.

Children with epilepsy often face multiple challenges — not only seizures but learning, cognitive and school difficulties, side effects from medication, and, not surprisingly, social stigma from their peers.

It's no wonder parents say their children with epilepsy have a substantially worse quality of life than their other, healthy children. But ask a child with epilepsy about his or her life, and the answer? Not so bad.

LA JOLLA, CA, May 10, 2010 –Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have found a specific chemical compound secreted by many predators that makes mice behave fearfully. The research helps scientists better understand animal behavior, and may eventually lead to new insights into how sensory information is processed in human brains.

The research was published in the prestigious journal Cell on May 14, 2010.