Brain

MONTREAL and SAN DIEGO, NOVEMBER 10, 2013 – As little as 20 minutes of moderate exercise three times per week during pregnancy enhances the newborn child's brain development, according to researchers at the University of Montreal and its affiliated CHU Sainte-Justine children's hospital. This head-start could have an impact on the child's entire life. "Our research indicates that exercise during pregnancy enhances the newborn child's brain development," explained Professor Dave Ellemberg, who led the study.

SAN DIEGO — Scientists are gaining a new level of understanding of multiple sclerosis (MS) that may lead to new treatments and approaches to controlling the chronic disease, according to new research released today at Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world's largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — As any indignant teacher would scold, students must be awake to learn. But what science is showing with increasing sophistication is how the brain uses sleep for learning as well. At the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego Nov. 10, 2013, Brown University researchers will discuss new research describing the neural mechanism by which the sleeping brain locks in learning of a visual task.

Researchers led by bioengineers at the University of California, San Diego have generated the most complete genome sequences from single E. coli cells and individual neurons from the human brain. The breakthrough comes from a new single-cell genome sequencing technique that confines genome amplification to fluid-filled wells with a volume of just 12 nanoliters.

The study is published in the journal Nature Biotechnology on November 10, 2013.

SAN DIEGO — New studies released today underscore the potential impact of healthy lifestyle choices in treating depression, the effects of aging, and learning. The research focused on the effects of mind/body awareness, exercise, and diet, and was presented at Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world's largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.

Lumosity, the online cognitive training and neuroscience research company, is presenting today at the annual 2013 Society for Neuroscience meeting data on its set of online neuropsychological battery of assessments, the Brain Performance Test (BPT). The poster presentation titled, "Measuring Training-Related Changes in Cognitive Performance with a Repeatable Online Assessment Battery," examined the reliability of the BPT and the variability in training dose and improvement.

SAN DIEGO — A pilot study by a multi-disciplinary team of investigators at Georgetown University suggests that a simple dot test could help doctors gauge the extent of dopamine loss in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). Their study is being presented at Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

Lumosity, the online cognitive training and neuroscience research company, is presenting today at the annual 2013 Society for Neuroscience meeting showing that optimizing training tasks can accelerate and lengthen learning rates. The study, titled "Optimizing Cognitive Training Task Designs to Improve Learning Rates in a Large Online Population," found that altering various psychophysical task parameters that make a task more challenging led to different learning rates of the tasks.

SAN DIEGO – Can quitting drugs without treatment trigger a decline in mental health? That appears to be the case in an animal model of morphine addiction. Georgetown University Medical Center researchers say their observations suggest that managing morphine withdrawal could promote a healthier mental state in people.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Research from Oregon Health & Science University's Vollum Institute, published in the current issue of Nature, is giving scientists a never-before-seen view of how nerve cells communicate with each other. That new view can give scientists a better understanding of how antidepressants work in the human brain — and could lead to the development of better antidepressants with few or no side effects.

Recent advances in robotics technology make it possible to create prosthetics that can duplicate the natural movement of human legs. This capability promises to dramatically improve the mobility of lower-limb amputees, allowing them to negotiate stairs and slopes and uneven ground, significantly reducing their risk of falling as well as reducing stress on the rest of their bodies.

Faced with the dual demands of motherhood and poverty, as many as one fourth of low-income minority mothers struggle with major depression. But the stigma associated with mental illness coupled with limited access to quality treatment prevent the majority of these struggling women from receiving help.

DALLAS – Nov. 7, 2013 – UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report that disrupting the light-dark cycle of mice increased their susceptibility to inflammatory disease, indicating that the production of a key immune cell is controlled by the body's circadian clock.

WASHINGTON D.C. Nov. 7, 2013 -- Although we don't often think about it, fluid dynamics touches almost every aspect of our lives, from a billowing breeze that buffets a flag, to swirling river currents that shape canyons to the surging blood that sustains our lives. One of the basest of bodily functions -- urination -- is governed primarily by the equations of fluid motion.

Later this month, at the American Physical Society (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics (DFD) meeting in Pittsburgh, Pa., two teams of researchers reveal new insight into the physics of peeing.

November 7, 2013 - From Cal Ripkin, Jr., to MLK to Robert Downey, Jr., finding men named after their fathers is easy. Children named after men in the family – with so-called patronyms – are common around the world. But what about matronymns – names for a mother or grandmother? New research shows that matronymns are rare and that family naming trends follow a regional pattern in the United States: People in states with a relatively high emphasis on honor are more likely to use patronyms, especially in the face of a terrorist threat.