Brain

Dyscalculia is a severe and persistent disability in learning arithmetic that is often highly selective, in that it can affect children with normal intellectual ability.

Karin Landerl and her team at the University of Graz, Austria, investigated the development of numerical processing in elementary school children with dyscalculia and a control group with good arithmetic skills.

Smokers of menthol cigarettes crave cigarettes more frequently, find it more difficult to quit smoking, and are more likely to become addicted. The traditional explanation for the effect of menthol is that it masks the harsh taste of tobacco and thus entices people to smoke more.

Since the start of the recession, the rate of unemployment for people with mental health problems has risen more than twice as much than for people without mental health problems, according to new research from King's College London.

The authors warn that, across Europe, people with mental health problems have been disproportionately affected by the economic crisis, further increasing social exclusion amongst this vulnerable group.

PHILADELPHIA – The network of arteries supplying blood flow to the brain is more likely to be incomplete in people who suffer migraine, a new study by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania reports. Variations in arterial anatomy lead to asymmetries in cerebral blood flow that might contribute to the process triggering migraines.

(CHICAGO) – The results of a new study by neurological researchers at Rush University Medical Center show that a sudden decrease of testosterone, the male sex hormone, may cause Parkinson's like symptoms in male mice. The findings were recently published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

One of the major roadblocks for discovering drugs against Parkinson's disease is the unavailability of a reliable animal model for this disease.

SAN FRANCISCO, July 26, 2013 -- In the first study of its kind, SF State researchers have shown that younger children who use gestures outperform their peers in a problem-solving task.

The task itself is relatively simple -- sorting cards printed with colored shapes first by color, and then by shape. But the switch from color to shape can be tricky for children younger than 5, says Professor of Psychology Patricia Miller.

Hanover, N.H.—The ability to pay attention to relevant information while ignoring distractions is a core brain function. Without the ability to focus and filter out "noise," we could not effectively interact with our environment. Despite much study of attention in the brain, the cellular mechanisms responsible for the effects of attention have remained a mystery... until now.

PHILADELPHIA - A small percentage of people diagnosed with a mysterious neurological condition may only experience psychiatric changes - such as delusional thinking, hallucinations, and aggressive behavior - according to a new study by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition, people who had previously been diagnosed with this disease, called anti-NMDA receptor (anti-NMDAR) encephalitis, had relapses that only involved psychiatric behavior.

WASHINGTON — Emergency physicians correctly identified nearly 100 percent of patients with Bell's palsy, the symptoms of which are nearly identical to potentially life-threatening diseases such as stroke and brain tumors. The results of a study of 6 years of California patient records were published online yesterday in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("Potential Misdiagnoses of Bell's Palsy in the Emergency Department").

A class of drug, called ACE inhibitors, which are used to lower blood pressure, slow the rate of cognitive decline typical of dementia, suggests research published in the online journal BMJ Open.

Furthermore, these drugs may even boost brain power, the research indicates.

The researchers compared the rates of cognitive decline in 361 patients who had either been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, or a mix of both.

Eighty five of the patients were already taking ACE inhibitors; the rest were not.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – A team of scientists has obtained intriguing insights into two groups of autism candidate genes in the mammalian brain that new evidence suggests are functionally and spatially related. The newly published analysis identifies two networked groupings from 26 genes associated with autism that are overexpressed in the cerebellar cortex, in areas dominated by neurons called granule cells.

In a newly released study, education researchers report that personifying energy allowed students to grapple with difficult ideas about how energy works. Contrasted with more traditional lectures and graphs, this innovative instructional technique may be useful for teaching about other ideas in physical science, which commonly deals with things that change form over time.

Princeton University researchers have created "souped up" versions of the calcium-sensitive proteins that for the past decade or so have given scientists an unparalleled view and understanding of brain-cell communication.

Reported July 18 in the journal Nature Communications, the enhanced proteins developed at Princeton respond more quickly to changes in neuron activity, and can be customized to react to different, faster rates of neuron activity. Together, these characteristics would give scientists a more precise and comprehensive view of neuron activity.

Researchers at the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics and MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have implanted false memories into mice, potentially illuminating the mechanisms underlying the human phenomenon of "recalling" experiences that never occurred.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- The phenomenon of false memory has been well-documented: In many court cases, defendants have been found guilty based on testimony from witnesses and victims who were sure of their recollections, but DNA evidence later overturned the conviction.

In a step toward understanding how these faulty memories arise, MIT neuroscientists have shown that they can plant false memories in the brains of mice. They also found that many of the neurological traces of these memories are identical in nature to those of authentic memories.