Brain

A new, free app will allow smartphone users to measure their cellphone use. Computer scientists and psychologists from the University of Bonn have developed an application for this purpose. Whoever installs it can see, e.g., how much time s/he spends on the phone or which apps s/he uses most frequently. The relevant key data is sent to a server anonymously for the scientists to analyze. They are already using a similar technology for the early detection of depression.

BOSTON (Jan. 27, 2014) -- Deprivation of vision during critical periods of childhood development has long been thought to result in irreversible vision loss. Now, researchers from the Schepens Eye Research Institute/Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have challenged that theory by studying a unique population of pediatric patients who were blind during these critical periods before removal of bilateral cataracts.

For our brain, animate and inanimate objects belong to different categories and any information about them is stored and processed by different networks. A study by Raffaella Rumiati from SISSA, Andrea Carnaghi from the University of Trieste, and others shows that there is also another category that is functionally distinct from the others, namely, the category of "social" groups. The study has just been published in the scientific journal Cognitive Neuroscience.

An increasing number of children suffer from the consequences of maternal drug exposure during pregnancy, and Cannabis is one of the most frequently used substances. This motivated the study, published in the EMBO Journal, cunducted in mice and human brain tissue, to decipher the molecular basis of how the major psychoactive component from Cannabis called delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC affects brain development of the unborn foetus.

When you learn how to play the piano, first you have to learn notes, scales and chords and only then will you be able to play a piece of music. The same principle applies to speech and to reading, where instead of scales you have to learn the alphabet and the rules of grammar.

But how do separate small elements come together to become a unique and meaningful sequence?

Infants born prematurely are at elevated risk for cognitive, motor, and behavioral deficits — the severity of which was, until recently, almost impossible to accurately predict in the neonatal period with conventional brain imaging technology. But physicians may now be able to identify the premature infants most at risk for deficits as well as the type of deficit, enabling them to quickly initiate early neuroprotective therapies, by using highly reliable 3-D MRI imaging techniques developed by clinician scientists at The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

PITTSBURGH—Priming, an unconscious phenomenon that causes the context of information to change the way we think or behave, has frustrated scientists as they have unsuccessfully attempted to understand how it works. For example, researchers have found that hearing aging-related words causes people to walk more slowly, or holding a hot cup of coffee while talking to another person heightens feelings of interpersonal warmth. But, recent failures to replicate demonstrations of unconscious priming have resulted in a heated debate within the field of psychology.

Athens, Ga. – The same kinds of impulsive behavior that lead some people to abuse alcohol and other drugs may also be an important contributor to an unhealthy relationship with food, according to new research from the University of Georgia.

In a paper published recently in the journal Appetite, researchers found that people with impulsive personalities were more likely to report higher levels of food addiction—a compulsive pattern of eating that is similar to drug addiction—and this in turn was associated with obesity.

Although infants use their memories to learn new information, few adults can remember events in their lives that happened prior to the age of three. Psychologists at Emory University have now documented that age seven is when these earliest memories tend to fade into oblivion, a phenomenon known as "childhood amnesia."

Increased inflammation following an infection impairs the brain's ability to form spatial memories – according to new research. The impairment results from a decrease in glucose metabolism in the brain's memory centre, disrupting the neural circuits involved in learning and memory.

New research findings indicate that an early onset of dietary treatment may slow down the progression of Alzheimer's disease. The study was conducted on mice, and the results will be published in the February issue of Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry. Researchers from the University of Eastern Finland played a key role in the study, which was carried out as part of the LiPiDiDiet project funded by the European Union.

AMHERST, Mass. – Chemical analyses by neuroscientist Jerrold Meyer and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are helping to establish hair cortisol concentration (HCC) as an important new biomarker for stress in wild animals facing global climate change.

Researchers in the biomedical engineering department at Case Western Reserve University have found that epileptic activity can spread through a part of the brain in a new way, suggesting a possible novel target for seizure-blocking medicines.

Evidence from a series of experiments and computer modeling strongly suggests individual cells in a part of the brain, known as the hippocampus, use a small electrical field to stimulate and synchronize neighboring cells, spreading the activity layer by layer.

Most religions teach their followers to "Love thy neighbor" — including those of different races, nationalities or beliefs. But is religiousness really related to love of neighbors?

A Baylor University study provided partial support for that idea. When factoring out the level of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), researchers found a positive association between being religious and having loving attitudes toward other racial and ethnic groups but not toward those who violated their values.

Washington, DC (January 21, 2014) – Just how are adults learning to use technology? Chances are if you are a parent, your child is teaching you. A recent paper published in the Journal of Communication found that between 30%-40% of parents were taught how to use the computer and Internet from their children.