Brain

DURHAM, N.C. -- Brain imaging using radioactive dye can detect early evidence of Alzheimer's disease that may predict future cognitive decline among adults with mild or no cognitive impairment, according to a 36-month follow-up study led by Duke Medicine.

The national, multicenter study confirms earlier findings suggesting that identifying silent beta-amyloid plaque build-up in the brain could help guide care and treatment decisions for patients at risk for Alzheimer's. The findings appeared online March 11, 2014, in Molecular Psychiatry, a Nature Publishing Group journal.

New research from Karolinska Institutet and Umeå University demonstrates for the first time that there is a close relationship between body perception and the ability to remember. For us to be able to store new memories from our lives, we need to feel that we are in our own body. According to researchers, the results could be of major importance in understanding the memory problems that psychiatric patients often exhibit.

Even the mildest form of a traumatic brain injury, better known as a concussion, can deal permanent, irreparable damage. Now, an interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania is using mathematical modeling to better understand the mechanisms at play in this kind of injury, with an eye toward protecting the brain from its long-term consequences.

Men who at the age of 18 years have poorer cardiovascular fitness and/or a lower IQ more often suffer from dementia before the age of 60. This is shown in a recent study encompassing more than one million Swedish men.

In several extensive studies, researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy of Gothenburg University have previously analyzed Swedish men's conscription results and were able to show a correlation between cardiovascular fitness as a teenager and health problems in later life.

Increased risk for early-onset dementia

This news release is available in French.

It may now be possible to identify the first-stage Parkinson's patients who will go on to develop dementia, according to a study conducted at the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal by Dr. Oury Monchi, PhD, and his postdoctoral student, Dr. Alexandru Hanganu, MD, PhD, both of whom are affiliated with Université de Montréal. These findings were published in the journal Brain.

Philadelphia, Pa. (March 10, 2014) – Recent years have seen exciting progress in key areas of research on autism spectrum disorders (ASD): from possible genetic causes, to effective treatments for common symptoms and clinical problems, to promoting success for young people with ASD entering college. Updates on these and other advances in ASD research are presented in the March special issue of Harvard Review of Psychiatry.

Transient brain ischemia has been shown to induce hyperphosphorylation of the microtu-bule-associated protein tau. To further determine the mechanisms underlying these processes, Dr, Bo Song and co-workers from School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University in China found for the first time that the interaction of tau with glycogen synthase kinase (GSK)-3β and protein phosphatase 2A is altered during transient brain ischemia.

Focal cerebral ischemia-reperfusion may lead to neuronal loss in the hippocampus, which is regarded as one of the basic pathological mechanisms underlying cognitive impairment. The neuronal apoptosis plays an important role in cerebral infarction, determining the number of loss of neurons and infarct volume. Growing evidence has suggested that Chinese herbs can inhibit hippocampal apoptosis caused by ischemia-reperfusion. Prof.

This news release is available in French.

What if the use of a product influenced your perception of it, making you even more susceptible to its positive aspects and altering your understanding of its drawbacks? This is precisely what happens with cigarettes in chronic smokers, according to a recent study by the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal and Université de Montréal.

People who lose an arm or a leg often experience phantom sensations, as if the missing limb were still there. Seventy per cent of amputees experience pain in the amputated limb despite that it no longer exists.

Phantom limb pain can be a serious chronic and deteriorating condition that reduces the quality of the person´s life considerably. The exact cause of phantom limb pain and other phantom sensations is yet unknown.

Different treatment methods

Jerusalem, March 9, 2014 -- What if you could "hear" colors? Or shapes? These features are normally perceived visually, but using sensory substitution devices (SSDs) they can now be conveyed to the brain noninvasively through other senses.

Men who at the age of 18 years have poorer cardiovascular fitness and/or a lower IQ more often suffer from dementia before the age of 60. This is shown in a recent study encompassing more than one million Swedish men.

In several extensive studies, researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy of Gothenburg University have previously analyzed Swedish men's conscription results and were able to show a correlation between cardiovascular fitness as a teenager and health problems in later life.

Increased risk for early-onset dementia

Tax fraud is a very serious problem for society, especially in Spain, where tax evasion represents almost one-fourth of its Gross Domestic Product. On the one hand, evasion is a problem because it produces a loss in public resources, something which is especially difficult in a time of economic crisis with cutbacks in public funding; on the other hand, tax fraud damages the effectiveness of justice within the tax system, since not everyone is able to evade taxes equally, thus leading to injustices between small and large companies and between the self-employed and employees.

WASHINGTON — Researchers have discovered and validated a blood test that can predict with greater than 90 percent accuracy if a healthy person will develop mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's disease within three years.

Described in Nature Medicine published online today, the study heralds the potential for developing treatment strategies for Alzheimer's at an earlier stage, when therapy would be more effective at slowing or preventing onset of symptoms. It is the first known published report of blood-based biomarkers for preclinical Alzheimer's.

Improving diagnosis and treatment for individuals with autism has been the focus of a growing body of research. New information from these studies led the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry to revise key parameters for evaluating and treating autism. Researchers led by Yale Child Study Center director Fred Volkmar, M.D., have published the new practice parameters in the Feb. issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.