Brain

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. (12-19-13) – Suicide is a major public health issue; it takes the lives of more than a million people each year. It is also widely believed to be immoral. Why do people so commonly believe it is wrong for people to take their own lives? According to a study by researchers at Boston College and Boston University, people – even non-religious people – make this moral judgment because they believe suicide taints the purity of a person's soul. Their findings are reported in Issue 130 of the journal Cognition.

Most people with dementia who live at home have multiple unmet health and welfare needs, any number of which could jeopardize their ability to remain home for as long as they desire, new Johns Hopkins research suggests.

People who use computers regularly are constantly mapping the movements of their hand and computer mouse to the cursor on the screen. Now, researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on December 19 have shown that all that pointing and clicking (the average computer user performs an impressive 7,400 mouse clicks per week) changes the way the brain generalizes movements.

Researchers at Penn State University have developed an innovative technology to regenerate functional neurons after brain injury, and also in model systems used for research on Alzheimer's disease. The scientists have used supporting cells of the central nervous system, glial cells, to regenerate healthy, functional neurons, which are critical for transmitting signals in the brain.

A new study showing that feeding mice a beneficial type of bacteria can ameliorate autism-like symptoms is "groundbreaking," according to University of Colorado Boulder Professor Rob Knight, who co-authored a commentary piece about the research appearing in the current issue of the journal Cell.

New imaging research from Western University (London, Canada) has demonstrated that a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approach called quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) can be an important tool for diagnosing and tracking the progression of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and other neurological diseases. QSM provides a quantitative way to measure myelin content and iron deposition in the brain -important factors in the physiology of MS.

As we grow older, our brains undergo a major reorganisation reducing the connections in the brain. Studying people up to the age of 40, scientists led by Dr Marcus Kaiser and Ms Sol Lim at Newcastle University found that while overall connections in the brain get streamlined, long-distance connections that are crucial for integrating information are preserved.

Physicians at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have been investigating if established anti-epilepsy drugs have anti-inflammatory or pro-inflammatory properties – an effect for which these pharmaceutical agents are not usually tested. One of the substances tested caused stronger inflammations, while another one inhibited them. As inflammatory reactions in the brain may be the underlying cause for epileptic disorders, it is vital to take the trigger for the disorder under consideration when selecting drugs for treatment, as the researchers concluded.

Patients affected by Parkinson's disease may experience, in addition to the more obvious motor symptoms (such as tremors and stiffness), difficulties recognizing emotions in the facial expressions and speech prosody (intonation) of other people. A number of investigations have shown that even deep brain stimulation, a treatment that has become widely used in recent years, may cause similar disorders.

MINNEAPOLIS – Deep brain stimulation may have a beneficial effect on driving ability for people with Parkinson's disease, according to a new study published in the December 18, 2013, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Deep brain stimulation uses a surgical implant similar to a pacemaker to send electrical impulses to the brain.

People with intermittent explosive disorder — a psychiatric illness characterized by impulsivity, hostility and recurrent aggressive outbursts — have elevated levels of two markers of systemic inflammation in their blood, according to a study involving nearly 200 subjects.

Heart disease may put older postmenopausal women at higher risk for decreased brain function such as dementia, according to new research in Journal of the American Heart Association.

DURHAM, N.C. -- One of the first areas of the brain to be attacked by Alzheimer's disease is more active when the brain isn't working very hard, and quiets down during the brain's peak performance.

The question that Duke University graduate student Sarah Heilbronner wanted to resolve was whether this brain region, called the posterior cingulate cortex, or PCC, actively dampens cognitive performance, say by allowing the mind to wander, or is instead monitoring performance and trying to improve it when needed.

Humans have specific brain mechanisms involved in face processing, which focuses attention to faces and recognizes the identity of faces remarkably quickly and accurately. So far the specialized skill for recognizing facial features holistically has been assumed to be a quality that only humans and possibly primates possess. Although it's well known, that faces and eye contact play an important role in the communication between dogs and humans, this was the first study, where facial recognition of dogs was investigated with eye movement tracking.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Children as young as 3 understand multi-digit numbers more than previously believed and may be ready for more direct math instruction when they enter school, according to research led by a Michigan State University education scholar.

The study, online in the journal Child Development and funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences, has implications for U.S. students who continue losing ground internationally in mathematics performance.