Brain

A team of researchers led by a Michigan State University neuroscientist has created a quick but reliable test that can measure a person's creativity from single spoken words.

The "noun-verb" test is so simple it can be done by virtually anyone anywhere – even in an MRI machine, setting the stage for scientists to pinpoint how the brain comes up with unusually creative ideas.

Los Angeles, CA (October 30, 2013) Researchers have long studied the connections between hand dominance and different aspects of the human brain. A new study out today in SAGE Open finds that among those with mental illnesses, left-handers are more likely to suffer from psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia than mood disorders.

PHILADELPHIA – The combined toll of occupational, recreational and environmental noise exposure poses a serious public health threat going far beyond hearing damage, according to an international team of researchers writing today in The Lancet.

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Groundbreaking research nearly two decades ago linking a mother's educational background to her children's literacy and cognitive abilities stands out among decades of social science studies demonstrating the adverse effects of poverty.

Now new research conducted at Northwestern University has taken that finding in a neuroscientific direction: linking poor processing of auditory information in the adolescent brain to a lower maternal educational background.

Beyond plate size and calorie count, the war against obesity may have a new leader – the dinner table. Families that eat together without the television on and stay seated until everyone's finished have children with lower weights and body mass index (BMI), reports a Cornell behavioral economist in the October issue of Obesity.

Strong, positive socialization skills during dinners possibly supplant the need to overeat, the researchers explain. Mothers and fathers who talk meaningfully with children, especially young boys, about their day during dinner also have lower BMIs.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Patients who are unrealistically optimistic about their personal health risks are more likely to take preventive action when confronted with news that is worse than expected, while unrealistic pessimists are less likely to change their behavior after receiving feedback that is better than expected, according to researchers at the University of California, Riverside and Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich.

WASHINGTON, D.C. Oct. 29, 2013 -- Thermal infrared (IR) energy is emitted from all things that have a temperature greater than absolute zero. Human eyes, primarily sensitive to shorter wavelength visible light, are unable to detect or differentiate between the longer-wavelength thermal IR "signatures" given off both by living beings and inanimate objects. While mechanical detection of IR radiation has been possible since Samuel Pierpont Langley invented the bolometer in 1880, devices that also can recognize and identify an IR source after detection have been more challenging to develop.

Preserved specimens of the brains of mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and Göttingen physician Conrad Heinrich Fuchs, taken over 150 years ago, were switched – and this probably happened soon after the death of both men in 1855. This is the surprising conclusion reached by Renate Schweizer, a neuroscientist at Biomedizinische NMR Forschungs GmbH at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry. She has now correctly identified the two brains, both of which are archived in a collection at the University Medical Center Göttingen.

These results are published in the journal Nature Communications, on 25 October 2013.

Obesity affects more than 15% of adults in France, and its constitutive mechanisms are still not completely explained. Normally, fine control of weight and food intake is coordinated by a specialised part of the brain (the hypothalamus). It adjusts food intake depending on reserves and needs. In this way, after a period of excessive food intake and weight gain, a healthy subject will tend spontaneously to reduce their food intake for a while to return to their previous weight.

Lincoln, Neb., Oct. 29, 2013 – Usually, women can tell when someone's eyes aren't on her face and are, well, focused elsewhere on her body. In other words, there's a reason the saying on the t-shirt is My Eyes Are Up Here.

But how, exactly, does that "objectifying gaze" play out? Despite plenty of anecdotal evidence, research had yet to empirically document the nature of roving eyes when it came to women's bodies – until now.

New Rochelle, NY, October 29, 2013—Social media such as YouTube videos provide a popular and flexible venue for online activism.

ANN ARBOR—A brain stimulation technique that is used to treat tough cases of depressioncould be considerably improved with a new headpiece designed by University of Michigan engineers.

Computer simulations showed that the headpiece—a square array of 64 circular metalliccoils—could one day help researchers and doctors hit finer targets in the brain that are twice as deep as they can reach today, and without causing pain.

Modern medicine usually considers trauma — both the physical and the psychological kinds — as unequivocally damaging. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University are lending support to a more philosophical view of suffering, finding that trauma, however terrible, may have distinct psychological benefits.

Sexual abuse of children and adolescents can have serious health consequences for victims. Early studies have revealed that child sexual abuse is associated with an increased risk of later mental and physical health problems and risk-taking behavior.

Although it is believed that glioma is derived from brain tumor stem cells, the source and molecular signal pathways of these cells are still unclear. The potential of neural stem cells to transform into brain tumor stem cells has long been considered, but has not been confirmed. A team led by Prof.