Brain

WOODS HOLE, Mass.– A new study helps explain how parts of the brain maintain their delicate balance of zinc, an element required in minute but crucial doses, particularly during embryonic development.

Consuming highly processed carbohydrates can cause excess hunger and stimulate brain regions involved in reward and cravings, according to a Boston Children's Hospital research team led by David Ludwig, MD, PhD director, New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center. These findings suggest that limiting these "high-glycemic index" foods could help obese individuals avoid overeating.

The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition on June 26, 2013, investigates how food intake is regulated by dopamine-containing pleasure centers of the brain.

(Santa Barbara, California) –– Building on research published eight years ago in the journal Chemistry and Biology, Kenneth S. Kosik, Harriman Professor in Neuroscience and co-director of the Neuroscience Research Institute (NRI) at UC Santa Barbara, and his team have now applied their findings to two distinct, well-known mouse models, demonstrating a new potential target in the fight against Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases.

The day of the big barbecue arrives and it's time to fire up the grill. But rather than toss the hamburgers and hotdogs haphazardly onto the grate, you wait for the heat to reach an optimal temperature, and then neatly lay them out in their apportioned areas according to size and cooking times. Meanwhile, your friend is preparing the beverages. Cups are grabbed face down from the stack, turned over, and – using the other hand – filled with ice.

Little leaguers and professional baseball players alike have our extinct ancestors to thank for their success on the mound, shows a study by George Washington University researcher Neil Roach, which is featured on the cover of the June 27 edition of the journal Nature.

Of course, the ability to throw fast and accurately did not evolve so our ancestors could play ball. Instead, Dr. Roach's study proposes that this ability first evolved nearly 2 million years ago to aid in hunting. Humans are unique in their throwing ability, even when compared to our chimpanzee cousins.

New work at the University of California, Davis, shows for the first time how visual attention affects activity in specific brain cells. The paper, published June 26 in the journal Nature, shows that attention increases the efficiency of signaling into the brain's cerebral cortex and boosts the ratio of signal over noise.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A computer analysis of nearly 2 million text messages (tweets) on the online social network Twitter found that Christians use more positive words, fewer negative words and engage in less analytical thinking than atheists. Christians also were more likely than atheists to tweet about their social relationships, the researchers found.

The findings are reported in the journal Social Psychological & Personality Science.

NEW YORK-- A newly transferred associate from the Shanghai office nails his presentation to Mr. Smith from Chicago but stumbles in his pitch to Mr. Chen from San Francisco. A visiting professor from Taiwan lectures fluently about a slide of a Grecian urn, but falters and struggles to recall the word "translucent" when discussing a Ming vase. What is it about seeing a Chinese face or even a Chinese vase that can disrupt a Chinese immigrant's fluency in English?

June 26, 2013—One in five adolescents surveyed in Ontario, Canada said they have suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) that left them unconscious for five minutes or required them to be hospitalized overnight, a statistic researchers in Toronto say is much higher than previously thought.

Sports such as ice hockey and soccer accounted for more than half the injuries, said Dr. Gabreila Ilie, lead author of the study and a post-doctoral fellow at St. Michael's Hospital.

UC Berkeley researchers have found that a lack of sleep, which is common in anxiety disorders, may play a key role in ramping up the brain regions that contribute to excessive worrying.

Bullfinches learn from human teachers to sing melodies accurately, according to a new study by the late Nicolai Jürgen and researchers from the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany. Their analysis of human melody singing in bullfinches gives insights into the songbirds' brain processes. The work is published online in Springer's journal Animal Cognition.

For the first time, researchers have restored significant bladder function through nerve regeneration in rats with the most severe spinal cord injuries (SCI). The breakthrough paired a traditional nerve bridge graft with a novel combination of scar degrading and growth factor treatments to grow new nerve cells from the thoracic level to the lower spinal cord region. Details of the discovery appear in the June 26 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Cooperation is essential in any successful romantic relationship, but how men and women experience cooperation emotionally may be quite different, according to new research conducted at the University of Arizona.

Philadelphia, PA, June 26, 2013 – Investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describe pathologic findings from 40 case reports of fungal infection in patients who had been given contaminated epidural, paraspinal, or intra-articular (into joints) steroid injections and correlate these findings with clinical and laboratory data. The report, published in the September issue of The American Journal of Pathology, alerts clinicians and the general public to the catastrophic dangers of contaminated epidural injections.

Washington, DC — Using a novel technique to promote the regeneration of nerve cells across the site of severe spinal cord injury, researchers have restored bladder function in paralyzed adult rats, according to a study in the June 26 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings may guide future efforts to restore other functions lost after spinal cord injury. It also raises hope that similar strategies could one day be used to restore bladder function in people with severe spinal cord injuries.