Brain

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A strong sense of ethnic identity can help Latina girls feel positive about their body and appearance, a new study concludes, even as this group slips further into dissatisfaction with themselves when compared to a media-filled world of unrealistic images of thin white women.

Reston, Va. (December 2, 2013) – Imaging with the molecular imaging tracer 18F-FDOPA can help distinguish radiation-induced lesions from new tumor growth in patients who have been treated with radiation for brain metastases, according to new research published in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Using this amino acid tracer, researchers found that physicians could accurately differentiate the two types of lesions 83 percent of the time. Progression-free survival could also be predicted through evaluating the 18F-FDOPA imaging results.

Philadelphia, December 2, 2013 – Prescription opioid abuse has reached epidemic levels in the past 15 years. Scientists investigating why people favor one drug over another have found that oxycodone and hydrocodone are the drugs of choice for 75% of opioid-dependent individuals. Their results, published in the current issue of PAIN®, show that oxycodone was the most popular drug overall because of the quality of the high for those who sought such effects. Nonetheless, hydrocodone remains one of the most popular primary drugs, even though it has lower euphoric qualities.

Children who experience profound neglect have been found to be more prone to a behavior known as "indiscriminate friendliness," characterized by an inappropriate willingness to approach adults, including strangers.

UCLA researchers are now reporting some of the first evidence from human studies suggesting that this behavior is rooted in brain adaptations associated with early-life experiences. The findings appear in the Dec. 1 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Biological Psychiatry.

TORONTO, ON – A new algorithm designed at the University of Toronto has the power to profoundly change the way we find photos among the billions on social media sites such as Facebook and Flickr. This month, the United States Patent and Trademark Office will issue a patent on this technology.

Developed by Parham Aarabi, a professor in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and his former Master's student Ron Appel, the search tool uses tag locations to quantify relationships between individuals, even those not tagged in any given photo.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Dec. 2, 2013) — A new study led by University of Kentucky researchers suggests that a diet low in vitamin D causes damage to the brain.

This news release is available in French.

Philadelphia, PA, December 2, 2013 – There is growing concern that long-term untreated posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms may increase the risk of developing a number of medical problems, particularly compromised cardiovascular health.

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Cardiovascular disease is an umbrella term for diseases of the heart and blood vessels. There are multiple known risk factors, including age, family history, smoking, obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.

When the St. Louis Cardinals lost the World Series, just how much shame did the players feel? According to researchers at Penn State and Australia's Central Queensland University, a person's goals at the outset of a competence-based task, such as a sporting event, can influence how much shame or pride he or she feels upon completion of the task.

This news release is available in German.

Intact hearing is a prerequisite for learning to speak. This is why children who are born deaf are fitted with so-called cochlear implants as early as possible. Cochlear implants consist of a speech processor and a transmitter coil worn behind the ear, together with the actual implant, an encapsulated microprocessor placed under the skin to directly stimulate the auditory nerve via an electrode with up to 22 contacts.

Are you contemplating a skiing holiday? The all-out pleasure and enjoyment you experience on a pair of skis or a snowboard is positively priceless to enhance your overall happiness. This is true even if you only get to go out on the slopes once in a blue moon, says Hyun-Woo Lee and colleagues from Yonsei University in the Republic of Korea, in an article published in Springer's journal Applied Research in Quality of Life.

Trauma can scar people so indelibly that their children are affected. History provides examples of generations traumatized by war and starvation, whose children experience altered physiology.

Now researchers at Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University have found an instance of animals passing on more specific information about a traumatic experience to their offspring. That information comes not through social communication, but through inheritance.

Approximately one percent of all newborns in Switzerland are diagnosed with a congenital heart defect, roughly half of them require open heart surgery. Most children, including those with the most severe heart defects, survive because of the significant advancements in surgical techniques. Therefore, the current research focuses less on survival than on long-term consequences and quality of life of these children.

Is it true, as some scientists believe, that to understand words like "spike" (in the volleyball sense) the brain has to "mentally" retrace the sequence of motor commands that accomplish the action?

Brachial plexus root avulsion is the most serious type of peripheral nerve injury. Valproic acid has been shown to exert neuroprotective effects and promote neurite outgrowth in several peripheral nerve injury models. However, whether valproic acid can exert its beneficial effect on neurons after brachial plexus avulsion injury is currently unknown. A recent study by Prof.