Brain

Universities around the country are struggling with shrinking budgets, even as they need to cater to the needs of an increasing number of students. New research from North Carolina State University shows that one way to cut down on costs, and simultaneously improve the learning experience, is to have students use the technology they already bring into the classroom.

PROVIDENCE, RI – A new questionnaire and outcomes measurement scale developed by the department of psychiatry at Rhode Island Hospital has proven to be a reliable and valid measure of anxiety. The scale can easily be incorporated into routine clinical practice when treating psychiatric disorders. The study appears online ahead of print in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Physicians would be better prepared for the accelerating rate of scientific discovery — and more in step with the latest in patient-care — if they added an important tool to their medical bags: a plan for how to keep pace with emerging health-care advances.

That is the finding of a national study published online today in the journal Academic Pediatrics which examines whether pediatric residents know how to develop plans to ensure they'll keep abreast of current medical practice.

A new mental health outreach programme set up after the 2005 London bombings has successfully identified and treated hundreds of survivors.

After the 7/7 bombings in 2005 a group of clinical psychologists targeted nearly a thousand survivors of the attacks by painstakingly compiling hospital treatment records, police witness files and referrals from GPs.

A new study suggests a trend toward developing hyperactivity among typically developing elementary-school-aged siblings of autistic preschoolers and supports the notion that mothers of young, autistic children experience more depression and stress than mothers with typically developing children.

Many important clinical and basic scientific advances have been made in the past five years in the field of neuro-oncology, according to an editorial and several articles in the March issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Los Angeles, CA (March 8, 2010) When a romantic relationship ends, an individual's self-concept is vulnerable to change, according to research in the February issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (published by SAGE).

Self-concept is defined as a person's sense of "me." Romantic partners develop shared friends, activities and even overlapping self-concepts.

DURHAM, NC — Nicotine takes much longer than previously thought to reach peak levels in the brains of cigarette smokers, according to new research conducted at Duke University Medical Center.

Traditionally, scientists thought nicotine inhaled in a puff of cigarette smoke took a mere seven seconds to be taken up by the brain, and that each puff produced a spike of nicotine. Using PET imaging, Duke investigators illustrate, for the first time, that cigarette smokers actually experience a steady rise of brain nicotine levels during the course of smoking a whole cigarette.

Biologists at New York University and the University of Würzburg have identified, in greater detail, how the retina's cellular hardware is used in color preference. The findings, published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), enhance our understanding of how eyes and the brain process color.

There is a link between repeated anaesthesia in children and memory impairment, though physical activity can help to form new cells that improve memory, reveals new research from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

The study has been published in the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism.

The research, led by Andrew Whitelaw, Professor of Neonatal Medicine at the University of Bristol, and Ian Pople, paediatric neurosurgeon at North Bristol NHS Trust, has shown that, after a haemorrhage, the fluid inside the ventricles contains substances potentially toxic to the immature brain.

In 1998, Professor Whitelaw and Ian Pople pioneered a technique by which the inside of the brain was "washed out" to remove the toxic substances.

Doctors treat millions of children with Ritalin every year to improve their ability to focus on tasks, but scientists now report that Ritalin also directly enhances the speed of learning.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., March 5, 2010 – Are we over estimating remembering and underestimating learning?

Current research by Nate Kornell, an assistant professor of psychology at Williams College, and Robert A. Bjork of the University of California, Los Angeles address this question and was recently published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.

Children taught skills to monitor and control their anger and other emotions improved their classroom behavior and had significantly fewer school disciplinary referrals and suspensions, according to a study by University of Rochester Medical Center researchers.

The population of the UK is ageing. Sixteen per cent of the UK population is 65 or older, and for the first time, there are more people over the age of 65 than there are under the age of 18. This raises a lot of questions on issues such as pension provision, health care and wellbeing. Ensuring that elderly people have access to medical and social support; the use of new technologies to make it easier for them to live independent lives; and helping the elderly to stay active within society.