Brain

GAINESVILLE, FL – A potential new sixth grade curriculum augmentation has been introduced to teach youth about an important topic: how to recognize structural defects in trees. "This highly important topic is rarely presented in middle or even high school," said author Laura Sanagorski. Sanagorski and coauthor George Fitzpatrick reported on their introduction to the new subject matter--which they tested in sixth grade science classes at three Florida middle schools--in HortTechnology.

Cajal-Retzius cells are reelin-secreting neurons in the marginal zone of the neocortex and hippocampus. However, the relationship between Cajal-Retzius cells and Alzheimer's disease is unknown. Dr. Jinbo Deng and team from Henan University in China revealed that the number of Cajal-Retzius cells markedly reduced with age in both wild type and in mice over-expressing the Swedish double mutant form of amyloid precursor protein 695 (transgenic (Tg) 2576 mice).

Huntington's disease is an autosomal-dominant inherited neurodegenerative disease with a distinct phenotype, but the pathogenesis is unclear. Although patients with a family history have more typical clinical symptoms, signs, and pathological changes, as well as an unambiguous clinical diagnosis, other diseases with dance-like movements, e.g., dentatorubral-pallidoluy-sian atrophy, spinocerebellar ataxia type 17, Huntington's disease-like-2, and neuroferritinopathy, are difficult to identify and distinguish from Huntington's disease.

Animal hoarding is a psychiatric disorder that consists of accumulating large numbers of animals at home, usually cats and dogs, without providing them with a minimal standard of care. Researchers from IMIM (Hospital del Mar Research Institute) publish the first European study to provide data on this disorder, in the Journal Animal Welfare. The disorder is still largely unknown and has a negative effect on the health of both the people who suffer from it and the animals involved.

NEW YORK – Menopausal women have long reported experiencing hot flashes, mood swings, night sweats and memory lapses, too.

STANFORD, Calif. — Something — or some things — in the blood of young mice has the ability to restore mental capabilities in old mice, a new study by Stanford University School of Medicine investigators has found.

If the same goes for humans, it could spell a new paradigm for recharging our aging brains, and it might mean new therapeutic approaches for treating dementias such as Alzheimer's disease.

Levodopa is the preferred treatment for Parkinson's disease in the clinic. However, long-term use of levodopa may lead to various motor complications, among which levodopa-induced dyskinesia is the most common, severely affecting patients' quality of life. Dr. Jiancheng He and co-workers from Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in China established a model of Parkinson's disease dyskinesia in rats, and treated these animals with Compound Formula Rehmannia.

Patients with implanted artificial cochlea often complain that they cannot recognize speech well in natural environments, especially if background of noise is present. Researchers think that a poor ability to localize sound in a complex auditory environment is responsible for the weak speech perception observed under these conditions. Pentobarbital anesthesia prolongs the recovery time of responses to lagging stimulus.

Many previous chronobiological studies have reported on detection of circadian fluctuation in performing simple motor tasks, fine skilled movement, and anaerobic exercise. However, to the best of our knowledge, literature concerning variation of sensory function according to the circadian cycle is lacking.

Diffuse lesions involving the posterior quadrant (PQ) of the cerebral hemisphere (temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes) induce intractable epilepsy. These patients are potential candidates for surgical treatment. Maintenance of isolated nerve tissue activity after surgery plays a crucial role in the neuroprotective effects of neurosurgery treatment. Shaoya Yin and colleagues from Tianjin Huanhu Hospital in China selected two patients with temporal-parietal-occipital (PTO) intractable epilepsy to receive posterior quadrant disconnection.

VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA – The brains of children who were born just a few weeks early differ from those born on time, and these differences may affect learning and behavior, according to a study to be presented Monday, May 5, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Cambridge, MA, May 4 - Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers have shown that a protein they previously demonstrated can make the failing hearts in aging mice appear more like those of young health mice, similarly improves brain and skeletal muscle function in aging mice.

Skilled motor movements of the sort tennis players employ while serving a tennis ball or pianists use in playing a concerto, require precise interactions between the motor cortex and the rest of the brain. Neuroscientists had long assumed that the motor cortex functioned something like a piano keyboard.

Although there are recommendations for pregnant women to increase their intake of the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) to improve fetal brain development, a randomized trial finds that prenatal DHA supplementation did not result in improved cognitive, problem-solving or language abilities for children at four years of age, according to the study in the May 7 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on child health. This issue is being released early to coincide with the Pediatric Academic Societies Annual Meeting.

VANCOUVER, BC --A recent study by pediatricians from the Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York examined infants 0-3 years old that used touch-screen devices to determine if their use was of any educational benefit to infants and toddlers. The study showed that children who played non-educational games using touch-screen devices had lower verbal scores upon testing.