Brain

Alink and colleagues based this conclusion on the characteristics of responses in the primary visual cortex. It is known that the primary visual cortex is critical for vision and that responses in this brain area create a map of what we are currently looking at. Alink and colleagues, however, for the first time show that images induce smaller responses in this area when they are predictable. The implication of this finding is that the brain does not just sit and wait for visual signals to arrive.

Reading this story requires you to willfully pay attention to the sentences and to tune out nearby conversations, the radio and other distractions. But if a fire alarm sounded, your attention would be involuntarily snatched away from the story to the blaring sound.

New research from Vanderbilt University reveals for the first time how our brains coordinate these two types of attention and why we may be temporarily blinded by surprises.

The research was published March 7, 2010, in Nature Neuroscience.

As shifts change in a hospital, outgoing physicians must "hand off" important information to their replacements in a brief meeting. But a new study of this hand-off process finds that the most important information is not fully conveyed in a majority of cases, even as physicians rate their communication as successful.

Atlanta – March 11, 2010 – press release – UCB today announced that theantiepileptic drug (AED) Vimpat® (lacosamide) (C-V) demonstrated significantly fewerpartial-onset seizures versus placebo in adults living with epilepsy, according to a PhaseIII clinical study published online in Epilepsia.

Total knee replacement (TKR) successfully relieves pain and improves function in patients with advanced knee arthritis, according to a study presented today at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS). The surgery also significantly improves dynamic balance among elderly patients.

In one of the first such studies involving human patients with schizophrenia, researchers at UC Davis have provided evidence that deficits in a brain chemical may be responsible for some of the debilitating cognitive deficits — poor attention, memory and problem-solving abilities — that accompany the delusions and hallucinations that are the hallmarks of the disorder.

Hearing scientist Daniel Polley, Ph.D., an investigator at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary's Eaton-Peabody Laboratories of Auditory Physiology, has gained new insight into why a relatively short-term hearing deprivation during childhood may lead to persistent hearing deficits, long after hearing is restored to normal. The research, featured on the cover on the March 11 issue of the journal Neuron, reveals that, much like the visual cortex, development of the auditory cortex is quite vulnerable if it does not receive appropriate stimulation at just the right time.

Irvine, Calif., March 10, 2010 — A clinical research trial of a new treatment to restore brain cells damaged by stroke has passed an important safety stage, according to the UC Irvine neurologist who led the effort.

Dr. Steven C. Cramer said patients showed no ill effects after the sequential administration of growth factors encouraging the creation of neurons in stroke-damaged areas of the brain. All new drug treatments must pass this safety stage before doctors can study their effectiveness in subsequent studies.

While physicians strive to set realistic expectations for patients undergoing knee and hip joint replacements, a new study reveals that doctor and patient expectations are sometimes not aligned. The study, reported by Hospital for Special Surgery researchers at the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons held March 9-13 in New Orleans (poster P140), suggests that steps need to be taken to bridge the expectation gap.

Throwing arm injuries are on the rise in Little League and other youth baseball programs. After these injuries occur, many players are out for the season; others require surgery and must refrain from play for an even longer duration; still others sustain injuries so severe that they cause permanent damage and are unable to continue playing baseball.

Three new studies presented today at the at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) address this critical issue, each offering new solutions to help prevent these injuries.

Los Angeles, CA (March 10, 2010) Managing the young generation of workers – sometimes called GenY, GenMe, or Millennials – is a hot topic, covered in the popular press and discussed in numerous books and seminars. However, most of these discussions are based on perceptions and anecdote rather than hard data, partially because no one had established that GenY differed in work values from previous generations.

Research into the long calls of male Orangutans in Borneo has given scientists new insight into how these solitary apes communicate through dense jungle. An acoustic analysis of the calls, published today in Ethology, reveals that the calls not only serve to attract females, but also contain information on the identity and the context of the caller.

Common wisdom tells us that for a successful relationship partners shouldn't go to bed angry. But new research from a psychologist at Harvard University suggests that brain activity—specifically in the region called the lateral prefrontal cortex—is a far better indicator of how someone will feel in the days following a fight with his or her partner.

Men who engaged in domestic violence consistently overestimated how common such behavior is, and the more they overestimated it the more they engaged in abusing their partner in the previous 90 days, according to new research conducted at the University of Washington.

Those men overestimated by two to three times the actual rates of seven behaviors ranging from throwing something at a partner to rape,, according Clayton Neighbors, lead author of a paper to be published in a spring issue of the journal Violence Against Women.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – According to the Journal of Sexual Medicine, people who engage in regular sexual activity gain several health benefits, such as longer lives, healthier hearts, lower blood pressure, and lower risk of breast cancer. However, approximately 33 percent of women may not receive these benefits due to low sexual desire. Also, the marriages of women with low sexual desire may also be at risk, given a recent statistic that 25 percent of divorce is due to sexual dissatisfaction.