Brain

HOUSTON – Whether you're a songbird or a human, there's a lot we can learn from our elders when learning vocalization. A University of Houston researcher was part of a team that uncovered the genome of the zebra finch, which may one day help people who suffer from speech impairments, learning disabilities and problems with forming social connections.

DURHAM, N.C. — The genome of the Australian zebra finch – being published April 1 in Nature – sets a framework that could provide insights into how humans learn language and new ways of studying speech disorders.

Researchers who collaborated on the finch genome found a much higher proportion of the bird's DNA is actively engaged by the act of singing songs.

PROVIDENCE, RI – Teens with a history of crack or cocaine use are significantly more likely to engage in unprotected sex than youth who have never used these drugs, putting themselves at increased risk for HIV, according to a study in the April issue of the Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse.

While dominant hyenas have a steady, confident-sounding giggle, subordinate ones produce a more variable call, allowing the animals to keep track of their social hierarchy, according to a new University of California, Berkeley, study.

In the first analysis of the giggle call of the spotted, or "laughing," hyena, UC Berkeley researchers show that these calls convey not only information about social status, but also about the age – the pitch goes down as the hyena gets older – and identity of each individual animal.

When faced with a choice that could yield either short-term satisfaction or longer-term benefits, people with complete information about the options generally go for the quick reward, according to new research from University of Texas at Austin psychologists.

The findings, available online in the journal Judgment and Decision Making, could help better explain the decisions people make on everything from eating right and exercising to spending more on environmentally friendly products.

Using new one-of-a-kind "mouse models" that promise to have a significant impact on future Parkinson's disease research, Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers are among the first to discover how mutations in a gene called LRRK2 may cause inherited (or "familial") Parkinson's disease, the most common form of the disease.

DALLAS – March 31, 2010 – UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have found new clues that might help explain why some people are more susceptible to stress than others.

In a study of mice, the researchers determined that weeks after experiencing a stressful event, animals that were more susceptible to stress exhibited enhanced neurogenesis – the birth of new nerve cells in the brain. Specifically, the cells that these animals produced after a stressful event survived longer than new brain cells produced by mice that were more resilient.

Bile secretions in the small intestine send signals to disease-causing gut bacteria allowing them to change their behaviour to maximise their chances of surviving, says Dr Steve Hamner, presenting his work at the Society for General Microbiology's spring meeting in Edinburgh today. The findings could allow us to better protect food from contamination by these harmful bacteria, as well as understand how they manage to cause disease.

HOBOKEN, N.J. ―The Center for Secure and Resilient Maritime Commerce (CSR) at Stevens Institute of Technology has released its first annual report.

Stevens was named by the US Department of Homeland Security in 2008 as one of five national Centers of Excellence and was selected to lead a national research effort to address Port Security. Stevens was one of 11 universities to partner with the DHS and serve as an important team members for conducting multi-disciplinary research and creating innovative learning environments for critical homeland security missions.

Mount Sinai researchers have learned that meta-cognitive therapy (MCT), a method of skills teaching by use of cognitive-behavioral principles, yielded significantly greater improvements in symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults than those that participate in supportive therapy. The study, titled "Meta-Cognitive Therapy," is now published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Washington, DC – A drug already in clinical trials to treat a variety of tumors shows a remarkable ability to shut down growth of glioblastoma in both laboratory cells and in animals, say researchers from Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). In their experiments, the agent put a brake on growth of laboratory cancer cell lines, and no mice with glioblastoma in their brain died as a result of their tumor while on therapy.

Scientists seeking new ways to fight maladies ranging from arthritis and osteoporosis to broken bones that won't heal have cleared a formidable hurdle, pinpointing and controlling a key molecular player to keep stem cells in a sort of extended infancy. It's a step that makes treatment with the cells in the future more likely for patients.

"Watch out, it'll hurt for a second." Not only children but also many adults get uneasy when they hear those words from their doctor. And, as soon as the needle touches their skin the piercing pain can be felt very clearly. "After such an experience it is enough to simply imagine a needle at the next vaccination appointment to activate our pain memory", knows Prof. Dr. Thomas Weiss from the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.

It has been thought that the loss of physical and psychological function after traumatic brain injury is closely related to injuries in brain structures. However, in the current edition of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2010; 107[12]: 199-205), Rainer Scheid and D. Yves von Cramon conclude that this is not the case.

For many people, remembering to take a daily medication can be the difference between life and death. Yet, people forget all the time. Now a landmark study from North Carolina State University has found that changes in daily behavior have a significant effect on whether we remember to take our medication – and that these changes influence older and younger adults differently. That's good news, because it means there's something we can do about it.