Brain

Four young men who have been paralyzed for years achieved groundbreaking progress — moving their legs — as a result of epidural electrical stimulation of the spinal cord, an international team of life scientists reports today in the medical journal Brain.

The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Louisville, UCLA and the Pavlov Institute of Physiology, was funded in part by the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

New research from University of Liverpool scientists has cast doubt on the theory that neurological behaviour is a product of culture in people of Chinese origin.

Scientists tested three groups – students from mainland China, British people with Chinese parents and white British people – to see how quickly their eyes reacted to dots appearing in the periphery of their vision.

A new study by researchers at Rush University Medical Center reviews research that suggests that the risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease among older African Americans may be two to three times greater than in the non-Hispanic white population and that they differ from the non-Hispanic white population in risk factors and disease manifestation. The study results will be published in the April 7 issue of Health Affairs.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 7, 2014) -- A multidisciplinary group of scientists from the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky have identified an interesting connection between the health of the brain tissue that supports cognitive functioning and the presence of dementia in adults with Down syndrome.

New research reveals that brain damage affecting the insula – an area with a key role in emotions – disrupts errors of thinking linked to gambling addiction. The research, led by Dr Luke Clark from the University of Cambridge, was published today, 07 April, in the journal PNAS.

The disturbing imagery or violent storylines of videos games like World of Warcraft or Grand Theft Auto are often accused of fostering feelings of aggression in players. But a new study shows hostile behavior is linked to gamers' experiences of failure and frustration during play—not to a game's violent content.

Researchers from the University of Toronto's Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology (LMP) have defined potential treatment targets for a previously incurable form of pediatric brain cancer called Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG).

In groundbreaking research published in Nature Genetics, Dr. Cynthia Hawkins, a professor at LMP and Neuropathologist and Scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children, along with PhD candidates Pawel Buczkowicz and Patricia Rakopoulos, identified three subgroups of DIPG, each having distinct molecular features.

Boston – April 7, 2014 - Whether at the office, dorm, PTA meeting, or any other social setting, we all know intuitively who the popular people are – who is most liked – even if we can't always put our finger on why. That information is often critical to professional or social success as you navigate your social networks. Yet until now, scientists have not understood how our brains recognize these popular people. In new work, researchers say that we track people's popularity largely through the brain region involved in anticipating rewards.

Amsterdam, NL, April 7, 2014 – Two studies published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease indicate that some of the pathologic changes associated with Alzheimer's disease in older individuals are not apparent in young people who carry the apolipoprotein (APOE) genetic risk factor for developing the disease. In the first study, no differences were found in hippocampal volume or asymmetry between cognitively normal adolescent carriers and non-carriers of the ApoE ɛ4 or ɛ2 allelles.

Green tea is said to have many putative positive effects on health. Now, researchers at the University of Basel are reporting first evidence that green tea extract enhances the cognitive functions, in particular the working memory. The Swiss findings suggest promising clinical implications for the treatment of cognitive impairments in psychiatric disorders such as dementia. The academic journal Psychopharmacology has published their results.

NEW YORK (April 7, 2014)—A study by researchers at Columbia University reports that schoolchildren from three school districts in Maine exposed to arsenic in drinking water experienced declines in child intelligence. While earlier studies conducted by the researchers in South Asia, and Bangladesh in particular, showed that exposure to arsenic in drinking water is negatively associated with child intelligence, this is the first study to examine intelligence against individual water arsenic exposures in the U.S. Findings are reported online in the journal, Environmental Health.

When we watch a movie, our brains react to it immediately in a way similar to brains of other people. Researchers at Aalto University in Finland have succeeded in developing a method fast enough to observe immediate changes in the function of the brain even when watching a movie.

By employing movies it was possible to investigate the function of the human brain in experimental conditions that are close to natural. Traditionally, in neuroscience research, simple stimuli, such as checkerboard patterns or single images, have been used.

As part of a German-French research project, a team led by Dr. Christa E. Müller from the University of Bonn and Dr. David Blum from the University of Lille was able to demonstrate for the first time that caffeine has a positive effect on tau deposits in Alzheimer's disease. The two-years project was supported with 30,000 Euro from the non-profit Alzheimer Forschung Initiative e.V. (AFI) and with 50,000 Euro from the French Partner organization LECMA. The initial results were published in the online edition of the journal "Neurobiology of Aging."

Researchers are blending technology with nature, as they present details on an iPad application to examine how young children are learning science skills in nature-themed outdoor play settings.

An international team of researchers from the University of Arizona, China and the United Kingdom has discovered the earliest known cardiovascular system, and the first to clearly show a sophisticated system complete with heart and blood vessels, in fossilized remains of an extinct marine creature that lived over half a billion years ago. The finding sheds new light on the evolution of body organization in the animal kingdom and shows that even the earliest creatures had internal organizational systems that strongly resemble those found in their modern descendants.