Brain

PITTSBURGH, Aug. 4, 2013 – Not only does practice make perfect, it also makes for more efficient generation of neuronal activity in the primary motor cortex, the area of the brain that plans and executes movement, according to researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Cambridge-- As anyone who has traveled with young children knows, maintaining focus on distant goals can be a challenge. A new study from MIT suggests how the brain achieves this task, and indicates that the neurotransmitter dopamine may signal the value of long-term rewards. The findings may also explain why patients with Parkinson's disease — in which dopamine signaling is impaired — often have difficulty in sustaining motivation to finish tasks.

The work is described this week in the journal Nature.

Chemically modified inhibitors of the COX-2 enzyme relieve anxiety behaviors in mice by activating natural "endocannabinoids" without gastrointestinal side effects, Vanderbilt University scientists will report next week.

Endocannabinoids are natural signaling molecules that activate cannabinoid receptors in the brain, the same receptors turned on by the active ingredient in marijuana.

In a loud, crowded restaurant, having the ability to focus on the people and conversation at your own table is critical. Nerve cells in the brain face similar challenges in separating wanted messages from background chatter. A key element in this process appears to be oxytocin, typically known as the “love hormone” for its role in promoting social and parental bonding.

HONOLULU – Vulnerability to alcohol and drug abuse may begin in the womb and be linked to how much fatty and sugary foods a mother eats during pregnancy, according to findings from animal lab experiments presented at APA's 121st Annual Convention.

The accumulation of amyloid-β (Aβ) in the brains of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients is known to be associated with memory loss and neuronal degeneration, but the mechanism of amyloid-β pathogenesis is not fully understood.

In the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Yong-Keun Jung at Seoul National University demonstrate that amyloid-β binds to a cellular protein known as FCγRIIb. Greater levels of FCγRIIb were detected in the brains of AD patients. Binding of Aβ to FCγRIIb activated cell stress and death pathways.

A person playing a first-person shooter video game like Halo or Unreal Tournament must make decisions quickly. That fast-paced decision-making, it turns out, boosts the player's visual skills but comes at a cost, according to new research: reducing the person's ability to inhibit impulsive behavior. This reduction in what is called "proactive executive control" appears to be yet another way that violent video games can increase aggressive behavior.

JUPITER, FL – Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have described findings that could enable the development of more effective drugs for addiction with fewer side effects.

The study, published in the August 2, 2013 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, showed in a combination of cell and animal studies that one active compound maintains a strong bias towards a single biological pathway, providing insight into what future drugs could look like.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology and the University of Lausanne have discovered that the sleeping patterns of baby birds are similar to that of baby mammals. What is more, the sleep of baby birds appears to change in the same way as it does in humans. Studying barn owls in the wild, the researchers discovered that this change in sleep is strongly correlated with the expression of a gene involved in producing dark, melanic feather spots, a trait known to covary with behavioral and physiological traits in adult owls.

By exploiting the full computational power of the Japanese supercomputer, K Computer, researchers from the RIKEN HPCI Program for Computational Life Sciences, the Okinawa Institute of Technology (OIST) in Japan and Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany have carried out the largest general neuronal network simulation to date.

A boost in the speed of brain scans is unveiling new insights into how brain regions work with each other in cooperative groups called networks.

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Institute of Technology and Advanced Biomedical Imaging at the University of Chieti, Italy, used the quicker scans to track brain activity in volunteers at rest and while they watched a movie.

COLLEGE PARK, Md - A discovery by a University of Maryland-led research team offers hope for treating "lazy eye" and other serious visual problems that are usually permanent unless they are corrected in early childhood.

Amblyopia afflicts about three percent of the population, and is a widespread cause of vision loss in children. It occurs when both eyes are structurally normal, but mismatched – either misaligned, or differently focused, or unequally receptive to visual stimuli because of an obstruction such as a cataract in one eye.

To make decisions, we need to estimate the value of sensory stimuli and motor actions, their "goodness" and "badness." We can imagine that good and bad are two ends of a single continuum, or dimension, of value. This would be analogous to the single dimension of light intensity, which ranges from dark on one end to bright light on the other, with many shades of gray in between.

SAN FRANCISCO, August 1, 2013 -- Why do shopping addicts keep spending even in the face of harmful financial, emotional and social consequences? A new study suggests poor credit management and a belief that new purchases will create a happier life fuel compulsive buying.

Approximately 10 percent of adults in Western countries are believed to have a compulsive spending disorder that leads them to lose control over their buying behavior, and the trend is on the rise. These shopaholics are addicted to buying things, regardless of whether they want or need them.

If you have trouble going to sleep at night and waking up for work or school in the morning, a week of camping in the great outdoors might be just what you need. That's according to evidence reported on August 1 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, showing that humans' internal biological clocks will tightly synchronize to a natural, midsummer light-dark cycle, if only they are given the chance.