Brain

In academic circles at least, women tend to cooperate with same-sex individuals of higher or lower rank less often than men do. So say researchers who report evidence on March 3 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology. The findings are based on a study of the publication records of professors working at 50 North American universities.

"People are often upset to hear evidence of sex differences in behavior," says Joyce Benenson of Harvard University. "But the more we know, the more easily we can promote a fair society."

It's long been a popular stereotype: Men are hugely competitive, meaning cooperative effort is the exception rather than the norm, while women have a tendency to nurture relationships with others, making them much more likely to cooperate with one another.

A new Harvard study, however, is turning that cliché on its head.

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. (March 3, 2014) – Children's food allergies are gradually increasing, but they may be as much as doubling among black children. According to a study published today in the March issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific publication of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), self-reported food allergy nearly doubled in black children over 23 years.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – Odors have a way of connecting us with moments buried deep in our past. Maybe it is a whiff of your grandmother's perfume that transports you back decades. With that single breath, you are suddenly in her living room, listening as the adults banter about politics. The experiences that we accumulate throughout life build expectations that are associated with different scents. These expectations are known to influence how the brain uses and stores sensory information.

Robert Avery, DO, MSCE, of Children's National Health System and colleagues are establishing innovative approaches with technology and medication to improve the vision of young children who have visual pathway glioma, a type of brain tumor.

DARIEN, IL – A new study of Gulf War veterans found an association between poor sleep quality and reduced gray matter volume in the brain's frontal lobe, which helps control important processes such as working memory and executive function.

Johns Hopkins researchers report that people with chronic insomnia show more plasticity and activity than good sleepers in the part of the brain that controls movement.

"Insomnia is not a nighttime disorder," says study leader Rachel E. Salas, M.D., an assistant professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "It's a 24-hour brain condition, like a light switch that is always on. Our research adds information about differences in the brain associated with it."

Three dimensional imaging of two different mouse models of Apert Syndrome shows that cranial deformation begins before birth and continues, worsening with time, according to a team of researchers who studied mice to better understand and treat the disorder in humans.

West Orange, NJ. February 28, 2014. Kessler Foundation researchers have found that higher educational attainment (a proxy of intellectual enrichment) attenuates the negative impact of traumatic brain injury (TBI) on cognitive status. The brief report, Sumowski J, Chiaravalloti N, Krch D, Paxton J, DeLuca J. Education attenuates the negative impact of traumatic brain injury (TBI) on cognitive status, was published in the December issue of Archives of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Vol. 94, Issue 12:2562-64.

A new University of Virginia psychology study has found that a sample of mostly white American children – as young as 7, and particularly by age 10 – report that black children feel less pain than white children.

The study, which builds on previous research on bias among adults involving pain perception, is published in the Feb. 28 issue of the British Journal of Developmental Psychology.

(Boston) – A study led by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) provides novel insight into the impact that genes may have on Huntington's disease (HD). The study, published online in PLOS Genetics, identified specific small segments of RNA (called micro RNA or miRNA) encoded in DNA in the human genome that are highly expressed in HD. Micro RNAs are important because they regulate the expression of genes.

One-third of people who survive a stroke before age 50 are unable to live independently or need assistance with daily activities 10 years after their stroke, according to research in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.

About 10 percent of strokes occur in 18- and 50-year-olds.

Researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)/Harvard Medical School, Drs. Beste Kinikoglu and Yawei Kong, led by Dr. Eric C. Liao, cultured and characterized for the first time multipotent neural crest cells isolated from zebrafish embryos. This important study is reported in the February 2014 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine. Neural crest is a unique cell population induced at the lateral border of the neural plate during embryogenesis and vertebrate development depends on these multipotent migratory cells.

In 2007, in an article published in Nature Neuroscience, scientists at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) headed by Joan Guinovart, an authority on glycogen metabolism, reported that in Lafora Disease (LD), a rare and fatal neurodegenerative condition that affects adolescents, neurons die as a result of the accumulation of glycogen—chains of glucose. They went on to propose that this accumulation is the root cause of this disease.

New research by UC Santa Barbara's Kenneth S. Kosik, Harriman Professor of Neuroscience, reveals some very unique evolutionary innovations in the primate brain.

In a study published online today in the journal Neuron, Kosik and colleagues describe the role of microRNAs — so named because they contain only 22 nucleotides — in a portion of the brain called the outer subventricular zone (OSVZ). These microRNAs belong to a special category of noncoding genes, which prevent the formation of proteins.