Brain

Despite reductions in brain size, domestication has not reduced the ability of guinea pigs to navigate a water maze. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Frontiers in Zoology tested domesticated and wild animals ('cavies') and found that they both performed well at the test, with the domestic animals actually being slightly superior.

Risk-taking peaks in adolescence, according to scientists at UCL (University College London).

In research published today in the journal Cognitive Development, children, adolescents and adults aged 9-35 years chose between risky and safe options in a computer gambling game. Scientists found that the teenagers took the most risks compared with the other groups, with the most risky behaviour seen in 14-year olds.

Great apes – orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas – realize that they can be wrong when making choices, according to Dr. Josep Call from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Dr. Call's study was just published online in Springer's journal, Animal Cognition.

Dr. María Ángeles Mena, Researcher at Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Neurodegenerativas (CIBERNED) and Director of the Neuropharmacology Laboratory at Hospital Ramón y Cajal (Madrid, Spain), coordinated the study performed by predoctoral student Juan Perucho and others.

The study "Anesthesia with isoflurane increases long lasting behavioral changes and amyloid pathology of Alzheimer's disease in mice" confirms that anesthesia is safe for normal mice but potentially harmful for mice with genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Today's adolescents have been characterized as the most materialistic generation in history: a brand-oriented and consumer-involved group who derive self-worth from owning luxury handbags and the latest technology devices.

Many blame parents and peers for the increased level of teen materialism. In fact, research suggests that parents and peers act as role models of behavior and therefore, highly materialistic parents and peers are likely to encourage materialism in teenagers.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 24, 2010 — Some birds are not "bird brains" when it comes to nutrition. Scientists today reported for the first time that certain birds eat berries that are high in antioxidants during their annual migration, passing up berries that are lower in these healthful substances. The behavior may help improve the birds' fitness for a long, stressful journey, they reported here at the American Chemical Society (ACS) 239th National Meeting.

LOS ANGELES – They say there's only one chance to make a first impression, but what makes that memory last?

Research scientists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the California Institute of Technology suggest in an article in the March 24, 2010, journal Nature (online) that when memory-related neurons in the brain fire in sync with certain brain waves, the resulting image recognition and memories are stronger than if this synchronization does not occur.

New research finds that the brains of infants as young as 7 months old demonstrate a sensitivity to the human voice and to emotions communicated through the voice that is remarkably similar to what is observed in the brains of adults. The study, published by Cell Press in the March 25 issue of the journal Neuron, probes the origins of voice processing in the human brain and may provide important insight into neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism.

New research provides insight into the region of the brain that underlies our tendency to condemn failed attempts to harm and forgive harms that are accidental. The study, published by Cell Press in the March 25 issue of the journal Neuron, underscores the importance of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC) for making moral judgments about harmful intent.

A new study from MIT neuroscientists suggests that our ability to respond appropriately to intended harms — that is, with outrage toward the perpetrator — is seated in a brain region associated with regulating emotions.

Patients with damage to this brain area, known as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), are unable to conjure a normal emotional response to hypothetical situations in which a person tries, but fails, to kill another person. Therefore, they judge the situation based only on the outcome, and do not hold the attempted murderer morally responsible.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- An Ohio State University study of 100 teen bloggers from around the United States found that the vast majority use blogs to nurture relationships with their peers and build a sense of community -- rather than to admit misbehavior.

This preliminary study suggests that blogging could be used therapeutically to help troubled teens express themselves in positive ways, said Dawn Anderson-Butcher, associate professor of social work at Ohio State.

Montreal, March 24, 2010 – The ability to taste and smell can be lost or impaired after a head injury, according to a new study by scientists from the Université de Montréal, the Lucie Bruneau Rehabilitation Centre, as well as the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation of Greater Montreal. Published in the journal Brain Injury, the investigation established that mild to severe traumatic brain injury could cause olfactory loss.

Milan, Italy, 24 March 2010 - Despite the aches and pains that occur in old age, many older adults maintain a positive outlook, remembering the positive experiences from their past. A new study, reported in the April 2010 issue of Elsevier's Cortex (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/cortex), reveals that older adults' ability to remember the past through a positive lens is linked to the way in which the brain processes emotional content.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 23, 2010 — A study of the brains of people who stayed mentally sharp into their 80s and beyond challenges the notion that brain changes linked to mental decline and Alzheimer's disease are a normal, inevitable part of aging.

Who's in charge? Who's got food? The brain region responsible for learning and memory is bigger in social bee queens who may have to address these questions than in solitary queens, report scientists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute who study the tropical sweat bee species, Megalopta genalis in Panama. Their study is the first comparison of the brain sizes of social and non-social individuals of the same species.