Brain

Racial segregation in the schools is fueling the learning disparity between young black and white children, while out-of-school factors are more important to the growth of social class gaps, according to a study by Emory University sociologist Dennis Condron.

His findings were published in the October issue of the American Sociological Review.

The human brain has evolved over millions of years to become a vast network of billions of neurons and synaptic connections. Understanding it is one of humankind's greatest pursuits.

But to understand how the brain processes information, researchers must first understand the very basics of neurons — even down to how proteins inside the neurons act to change the neuron's voltage.

[PRESS RELEASE, 2 October 2009] A derivative of cholesterol is necessary for the formation of brain cells, according to a study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet. The results, which are published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, can help scientists to cultivate dopamine-producing cells outside the body.

Color is normally thought of as a fundamental attribute of an object: a red Corvette, a blue lake, a pink flamingo. Yet despite this popular notion, new research suggests that our perception of color is malleable, and relies heavily on biological processes of the eye and brain.

Children who eat sweets and chocolate every day are more likely to be violent as adults, according to new research.

A study of almost 17,500 participants in the 1970 British Cohort Study found that 10-year-olds who ate confectionary daily were significantly more likely to have been convicted for violence at age 34 years.

The study, published in the October issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, is the first to examine the long-term effects of childhood diet on adult violence.

Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. – As most good students realize, repeated studying produces good memory. Those who study a lot realize, further, that what they learn tends to be preserved longer in memory if they space out learning sessions between rest intervals. Neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have now discovered how this so-called "spacing effect" is controlled in the brain at the level of individual molecules.

Researchers have found that they can make people move in slow motion by boosting one type of brain wave. The findings offer some of the first proof that brain waves can have a direct influence on behavior, according to the researchers, who report their findings online on October 1 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.

It's often said that overly macho males suffer from "too much testosterone" but a new study in mice reveals says estrogen might share in that blame.

The report in the October 2nd issue of Cell, reveals how early estrogen exposure "masculinizes" the brain circuitry, predisposing boys to be boys as it were. That early event is specifically critical in producing male mice that will pick fights with other males and that dutifully mark their territories with urine.

Territorial behavior in male mice might be linked to more "girl-power" than ever suspected, according to new findings at UCSF. For the first time, researchers have identified networks of nerve cells in the brain that are associated with how male mice defend their territory and have shown that these cells are controlled by the female hormone estrogen.

Mass coral bleaching has devastated coral colonies around the world for almost three decades. Now scientists have found that bleaching can make corals more susceptible to disease and, in turn, coral disease can exacerbate the negative effects of bleaching. A paper in the October issue of the journal Ecology shows that when they occur together, this combination of afflictions causes greater harm to corals than either does on its own.

A new study from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital (The Neuro) of McGill University reveals that different patterns of training and learning lead to different types of memory formation. The significance of the study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, is that it identifies the molecular differences between spaced training (distributed over time) and massed training (at very short intervals), shedding light on brain function and guiding learning and training principles.

Neuroscience researchers at the University of Louisville will be the only team collaborating with an international group of scientists that last week announced they had enabled paralyzed rats to walk while supporting their own weight.

Dr. Susan Harkema, the University of Louisville's Owsley Brown Frazier Chair in Neurological Rehabilitation, rehabilitation director at the university's Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center (KSCIRC) and the director of research at Frazier Rehab Institute, is evaluating how to translate into humans the success accomplished in the animals.

Many patients urgently admitted to hospital with cerebral infarction state that they were under great stress over a prolonged period prior to suffering their stroke, is shown in a unique patient study conducted in cooperation between the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg and Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Sweden.

The study is published in the scientific journal BMC Medicine.

Good news for procrastinating students: a nasal spray developed by a team of German scientists promises to give late night cram sessions a major boost, if a good night's sleep follows. In a research report featured as the cover story of the October 2009 print issue of The FASEB Journal, (http://www.fasebj.org) these scientists show that a molecule from the body's immune system (interleukin-6) when administered through the nose helps the brain retain emotional and procedural memories during REM sleep.

Initial chemotherapy alone after surgery is just as successful as initial radiation therapy for patients from whom a very malignant brain tumor (anaplastic glioma) was removed. With this treatment, the patients survive on average > 30 months without a recurrence. A study conducted by the Neurooncology Working Group of the German Cancer Society led by researchers from Heidelberg and Zürich showed that patients in primary therapy benefit to the same extent from chemotherapy alone as from radiation alone.