Brain

Preschool children who showed less ability to estimate the number of objects in a group were 2.4 times more likely to have a later mathematical learning disability than other young people, according to a team of University of Missouri psychologists. Parents may be able to help their children develop their skills at approximating group sizes by emphasizing numerals while interacting with young children.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 14, 2013) — What if we could pinpoint a hereditary cause for

Alzheimer's, and intervene to reduce the risk of the disease? We may be closer to that goal, thanks to a team at the University of Kentucky. Researchers affiliated with the UK Sanders-Brown Center on Aging have completed new work in Alzheimer's genetics; the research is detailed in a paper published today in the Journal of Neuroscience.

A visual projection of human heartbeats can be used to generate an "out-of-body experience," according to new research to be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. The findings could inform new kinds of treatment for people with self-perception disorders, including anorexia.

ANN ARBOR—It's always in front of a million people and feels like eternity. You're strolling along when suddenly you've stumbled—the brain realizes you're falling, but your muscles aren't doing anything to stop it.

For a young person, a fall is usually just embarrassing. However, for the elderly, falling can be life threatening. Among the elderly who break a hip, 80 percent die within a year.

Human farming and the introduction of domestic dogs are posing a threat to the ability of Burmese long-tailed macaques to use stone tools. This was found in a study led by Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU) carried out at Thailand's Laem Son National Park. The research team has advised Thailand's authorities that in the management of their marine national parks they should pay closer attention to macaques' use of stones as tools.

The occurrence of post-stroke depression results from the effects of biological, psychological, and social factors, likely involving neurotransmitters, neuroendocrine effects, nerve anatomy, neurotrophic factors, neural regeneration, inflammatory reactions, and social psyche factors. Synaptotagmin promotes neurotransmitter release, regulates the transfer of synaptic vesicle to synaptic active zones, and is a key factor in information transfer among neurons. The Xingnao Jieyu capsule has been shown to effectively relieve neurologic impairments and lessen depression.

Previous studies have suggested that the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder in earthquake rescue workers is relatively high. Risk factors for this disorder include demographic characteristics, earthquake-related high-risk factors, risk factors in the rescue process, personality, social support and coping style. A recent study published in the Neural Regeneration Research (Vol. 8, No. 20, 2013) examined the current status of a unit of 1 040 rescue workers who participated in earthquake relief for the Wenchuan earthquake that occurred on May 12th, 2008.

Peripheral nerve defects are very common in clinical surgery. For repair of short-segment nerve defects, freeing nerve, nerve diversions or joint flexion can be used to directly connect the two stumps of nerves by using microsurgical techniques; while for long-segment nerve defects, we require a bridging material to bridge defected nerves. Nerve allograft is the most similar to autologous nerve in structure with rich sources. Antigenicity-free nerve allografts which retain the natural three-dimensional structure will become ideal scaffold materials for tissue-engineered nerves. Dr.

Twelve national dementia clinical practice guidelines included only half of 31 ethical issues the authors had identified as important in patient care, finds a study by Daniel Strech, of Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany, and colleagues, published in this week's issue of PLOS Medicine.

STANFORD, Calif. —The steady accumulation of a protein in healthy, aging brains may explain seniors' vulnerability to neurodegenerative disorders, a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine reports.

The study's unexpected findings could fundamentally change the way scientists think about neurodegenerative disease.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- About 10 percent of the U.S. population suffers from dyslexia, a condition that makes learning to read difficult. Dyslexia is usually diagnosed around second grade, but the results of a new study from MIT could help identify those children before they even begin reading, so they can be given extra help earlier.

The study, done with researchers at Boston Children's Hospital, found a correlation between poor pre-reading skills in kindergartners and the size of a brain structure that connects two language-processing areas.

Dreaming remains one of the great mysteries of human cognition. It is still not fully known when dreams occur, and which mechanisms in the brain produce them. A major difficulty for studying dreams is that they leave only a fleeting memory upon awakening.

A new study reports that the incidence of ischemic stroke—the most common type of stroke, caused by a clot in the blood vessels of the brain—among non-Hispanic Whites and Mexican Americans over age 60 has declined over the past decade. Most concerning, however, is that the increased relative burden of stroke comparing Mexican Americans and non-Hispanic Whites has not changed at all in the last decade. Overall, Mexican Americans suffer much more, 34%, from this disease than non-Hispanic Whites.

Regular exercise is not only good for health, but can give people living with HIV a significant mental boost. This is according to a study by Dr. David J. Moore and colleagues at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), published in Springer's Journal of NeuroVirology. The study found that HIV-infected adults who exercise suffered significantly less neurocognitive impairment compared to patients who do not exercise.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have uncovered a protein switch that can either increase or decrease memory-building activity in brain cells, depending on the signals it detects. Its dual role means the protein is key to understanding the complex network of signals that shapes our brain's circuitry, the researchers say. A description of their discovery appears in the July 31 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.