Brain

"This discovery places this type of CMT in the ever-growing list of neurodegenerative diseases caused by transport problems and strengthens the possibility of using general enhancers of this process as therapy for different types of diseases," said Vincent Timmerman, PhD, of the University of Antwerp in Belgium, who was unaffiliated with the study.

With a concern that the automatic reporting of estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR; the flow rate of filtered fluid through the kidney, which is used to define the stage and severity of chronic kidney disease) may result in unnecessary referrals by physicians, new research indicates that automated laboratory reporting was associated with a significant increase in first-time visits to a kidney specialist, particularly among those at increased risk of late detection of kidney disease (such as older or female patients), according to a study in the March 24/31 issue of JAMA.

Leicester, UK—March 23, 2010—The UN has said that population aging is "transforming the world." Now that a large portion of the world population is joining the ranks of the "baby boomers," the phenomenon is permeating many areas of life, including the economic, medical, moral, political, and social. In the U.S., as of 2008 (the last time data was collected), the number of persons 65 or older came to 38.9 million. The Administration on Aging predicts that by 2030, there will be about 72.1 million older persons, more than twice their number in 2000.

Montreal, March 23, 2010 – Obtaining therapy via teleconference is just as effective as face-to-face sessions, according to a new research by Stéphane Guay, a psychiatry professor at the Université de Montréal.

"Previous studies have shown that phobia therapy via teleconferencing was just as efficient as face to face contact," says Dr. Guay, who is also director of the Trauma Studies Centre at the Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital's Fernand-Seguin Research Centre. "We wanted to see if the process could also be used for post-traumatic stress treatment."

Breathing diesel exhaust during pregnancy is associated with sluggishness in offspring. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's open access journal Particle and Fibre Toxicology studied the effects of pollution exposure in mice, finding that the offspring of mothers who breathed diesel fumes while pregnant were less likely to show spontaneous movement.

Clinicians may be able to better predict the effects of strokes and other brain injuries by adapting a scanning approach originally developed for study of brain organization, neurologists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found.

The technique, known as resting-state functional connectivity (FC), reveals the health of brain networks that let multiple parts of the brain collaborate. Previous studies have shown that damage to these networks helps explain why damage to one brain region can cause problems in abilities controlled by another brain region.

It will be harder to lie about your age or your poker hand after new research by the University of Melbourne, Australia has revealed that our eye position betrays the numbers we are thinking about.

In the study, participants were asked to state a series of random numbers. By measuring their vertical and horizontal eye position, researchers were able to predict with reliable confidence the next chosen number - before it was spoken.

Imagine if your fear of spiders, heights or flying could be cured with a simple injection. Research published in BioMed Central's open access journal, Behavioral and Brain Functions suggests that one day this could be a reality.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Memory and thinking skills may decline rapidly for people who have mild cognitive impairment, which is the stage before Alzheimer's disease when people have mild memory problems but no dementia symptoms, and even more rapidly when dementia begins, which is when Alzheimer's disease is usually diagnosed. The research is published in the March 23, 2010, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

PHILADELPHIA – Psychologists led by the University of Pennsylvania have used implantable electrodes and a first-person driving game to identify the cells of the brain that indicate travel in a clockwise or counterclockwise motion, called "path cells." The study will be published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Television's Six Million Dollar Man foresaw a future when man and machine would become one. New research at Tel Aviv University is making this futuristic "vision" of bionics a reality.

Prof. Yael Hanein of Tel Aviv University's School of Electrical Engineering has foundational research that may give sight to blind eyes, merging retinal nerves with electrodes to stimulate cell growth. Successful so far in animal models, this research may one day lay the groundwork for retinal implants in people.

Exeter, UK—March 22, 2010— There has been a major increase in the incidence of autism over the last twenty years. While people have differing opinions as to why this is (environment, vaccines, mother's age, better diagnostic practice, more awareness etc.) there are still many children who have autistic traits that are never diagnosed clinically. Therefore, they do not receive the support they need through educational or health services.

Microglia are the cells responsible for immune surveillance in the brain, and they initiate protective inflammatory reactions in response to tissue damage and infection. An international team under the leadership of LMU neuroscientist Professor Jochen Herms has now shown that these cells may actually make a significant contribution to the loss of neurons associated with Alzheimer's disease. About 1.2 million people are thought to suffer from this form of progressive dementia in Germany, and this figure is expected to double as the average age of the population continues to increase.

A study by researchers at the University of Warwick and Cardiff University has found that money only makes people happier if it improves their social rank. The researchers found that simply being highly paid wasn't enough – to be happy, people must perceive themselves as being more highly paid than their friends and work colleagues.

The researchers were seeking to explain why people in rich nations have not become any happier on average over the last 40 years even though economic growth has led to substantial increases in average incomes.

MADISON, WI, March 22nd, 2010-Riparian areas, ecosystems caught between the land and the stream, are subject to spatial and temporal variability. Effectively managing and protecting riparian areas as well as other ecosystems require understanding these concepts. Fortunately, scientists are investigating new approaches in experiential learning, or learning from direct experiences.