Brain

CHAPEL HILL – As science slowly, but continually, unravels the causes of disorders, it increasingly teases apart biological threads that, when spooled together, begin to take on the warp and weft of separate disorders.

Add to the developing fabrics a severe mood disorder, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, which affects 5 percent to 7 percent of all women of reproductive age in the United States but is often misdiagnosed as major depression or other mood disorder.

An estrogenic drug that influences neurotransmitter and neuronal systems in the brain is showing promise as an effective therapy for women who suffer from schizophrenia.

A study has found that Raloxifene – a synthetic estrogen currently used to treat osteoporosis – has beneficial effects on postmenopausal women with schizophrenia, with a test group experiencing a more rapid recovery from psychotic and other symptoms compared to control groups.

Bionic Vision Australia (BVA) today unveils their wide-view neurostimulator concept – a bionic eye that will be implanted into Australia's first recipient of the technology.

The prototype bionic eye, developed by BVA researchers at the University of New South Wales and unveiled today at the BVA consortium's official launch at the University of Melbourne, will deliver improved quality of life for patients suffering from degenerative vision loss caused by retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration.

Urologists at a leading Irish hospital have reported an alarming increase in the number of teenage boys and young men developing mumps orchitis, in a paper published in the April issue of the urology journal BJUI.

They are urging colleagues to offer the MMR vaccine to unvaccinated males in the 15-24 age group and educate them about the condition, which causes one or both testicles to swell and can lead to fertility problems.

Scientists are learning how our immune system senses and tracks down infection in the body by responding to chemical "scents" emitted by bacteria. Studying how immune cells manipulate their movement in response to external signals could shed light not only on how our immune system functions but also how cancer cells spread through the body and even how the brain wires itself.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — MIT neuroscientists have shown they can influence people's moral judgments by disrupting a specific brain region — a finding that helps reveal how the brain constructs morality.

To make moral judgments about other people, we often need to infer their intentions — an ability known as "theory of mind." For example, if a hunter shoots his friend while on a hunting trip, we need to know what the hunter was thinking: Was he secretly jealous, or did he mistake his friend for a duck?

An echo from the bat's first broadcast could masquerade as the echo from a subsequent broadcast. The bat overcomes this potentially confusing cascade of signals by making a template, or mental fingerprint, of each broadcast and corresponding echo, the team learned. That way, the bat needs only to slightly alter the frequency of its broadcast to create a broadcast/echo template that doesn't match the original. The team found that bats change the frequency of their broadcasts by no more than 6 kilohertz.

If children feel threatened by even very low levels of violence between their parents, they may be at increased risk for developing trauma symptoms, new research suggests.

A study by psychologists at Southern Methodist University in Dallas found that children who witness violence between their mother and her intimate partner report fewer trauma symptoms if they don't perceive the violence as threatening.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – New research shows that a high level of C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker for inflammation in the blood, is associated with brain changes that are linked to problems with executive thinking skills. The study is published in the March 30, 2010, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

For the study, scientists examined 447 stroke and dementia-free people with an average age of 63.

Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. – By blocking the cellular signaling activity of a protein, a team of neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has prevented memory loss in fruit flies caused by brain plaques similar to those thought to cause Alzheimer's disease in humans. The study also resolves a long-standing controversy about the role of this protein, PI3 kinase, which was previously thought to have a protective function against the disease.

Phenytoin is a well known antiepileptic agent widely used throughout the world. Recent clinical studies in patients with bipolar disorder have suggested that, as for other anticonvulsant drugs commonly used in the treatment of bipolar patients including valproate and carbamazepine, phenytoin may have mood-stabilizing effects in addition to its well-known anticonvulsant properties.

ARLINGTON, TX—March 29, 2010—When people, groups, or organizations are looking for a fresh perspective on a project, they often turn to a brainstorming exercise to get those juices flowing. An upcoming study from Applied Cognitive Psychology suggests that this may not be the best route to take to generate unique and varied ideas.

Stillwater, OK—March 29, 2010—We are not all blessed with the brains, beauty, luck, and capital that we associate with highly successful business people or entrepreneurs. Although most new business ventures fail, a few prosper and grow rapidly. A new article from the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal demystifies this game of success, and shows that exceptional performance is not necessarily the direct result of special talent, experience, or sheer luck.

Unique in its location and history, the island of Guam is a rich blend of cultures and customs. The largest island in Micronesia, Guam is home to the indigenous Chamorro people as well as people from other Micronesian islands, the US mainland, East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand. The US military presence on Guam has contributed to the number of refugees and asylum seekers that have passed through the island on their journey to a new life.