Brain

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Trying to explain riding a bike is difficult because it is an implicit memory. The body knows what to do, but thinking about the process can often interfere. So why is it that under certain circumstances paying full attention and trying hard can actually impede performance? A new UC Santa Barbara study, published today in the Journal of Neuroscience, reveals part of the answer.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research suggests that treadmill training soon after a spinal cord injury can have long-lasting positive effects on recovery – as long as the training is accompanied by efforts to control inflammation in the lower spinal cord.

The study, in animals, also is among the first to show that spinal cord injuries can create impairments in parts of the cord located many spine segments away from the trauma site.

Though one might think the brains of people who develop Alzheimer's disease (AD) possess building blocks of the disease absent in healthy brains, for most sufferers, this is not true. Every human brain contains the ingredients necessary to spark AD, but while an estimated 5 million Americans have AD – a number projected to triple by 2050 – the vast majority of people do not and will not develop the devastating neurological condition.

Johns Hopkins biophysicists have discovered that full activation of a protein ensemble essential for communication between nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord requires a lot of organized back-and-forth motion of some of the ensemble's segments. Their research, they say, may reveal multiple sites within the protein ensemble that could be used as drug targets to normalize its activity in such neurological disorders as epilepsy, schizophrenia, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.

LA JOLLA, CA – August 7, 2013 – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have decoded an important molecular signal that guides the development of a key region of the brain known as the neocortex. The largest and most recently evolved region of the brain, the neocortex is particularly well developed in humans and is responsible for sensory processing, long-term memory, reasoning, complex muscle actions, consciousness and other functions.

A plastic material already used in absorbable surgical sutures and other medical devices shows promise for continuous administration of antibiotics to patients with brain infections, scientists are reporting in a new study. Use of the material, placed directly on the brain's surface, could reduce the need for weeks of costly hospital stays now required for such treatment, they say in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience.

New research shows that as culture has evolved over the last two centuries – with increasing urbanization, greater reliance on technology, and widespread availability of formal education – so has human psychology. The findings are forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

A new UCLA analysis of words used in more than 1.5 million American and British books published between 1800 and 2000 shows how our cultural values have changed.

The increase or decrease in the use of certain words over the past two centuries — a period marked by growing urbanization, greater reliance on technology and the widespread availability of formal education — reveals how human psychology has evolved in response to major historical shifts, said Patricia Greenfield, a distinguished professor of psychology at UCLA and the author of the study.

DURHAM, N.C. -- A person's math ability can range from simple arithmetic to calculus and abstract set theory.

But there's one math skill we all share: a primitive ability to estimate and compare quantities without counting, like when choosing a checkout line at the grocery store.

Previous studies have suggested there's a connection between how well a person does at the approximate number system and how skilled they become at the symbolic math they learn in school.

A number of studies in which patients with lesions to frontal pre-motor areas are included have identified deficits in action comprehension. In addition, imaging studies have revealed the activation of brain areas associated with perception or action during tasks involving reading of words with related semantic meaning. For example, the mere passive reading of action verbs such as kick, pick and lick has been found to activate areas of the sensory-motor cortex associated with the legs, hands and face, respectively.

Studies have shown that calpain participates in gentamicin-, neomycin- and kanamycin-induced inner ear cell apoptosis. Cisplatin has been shown to be an anticancer drug. However, cisplatin can lead to severe ototoxicity, induce cochlear cell apoptosis, and result in hearing decrease or loss, which limits the application of cisplatin in a clinical setting to a certain degree. A recent study by Liang Chang and colleagues from Jinzhou Central Hospital established a BALB/c mouse model of cisplatin-induced ototoxicity to detect the susceptibility to cisplatin-induced ototoxicity.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Pregnant women regularly consume food and beverages containing toxins believed to pose potential risks to developing fetuses, according to researchers at the University of California in Riverside and San Diego, suggesting that health care providers must do more to counsel their patients about the dangers of hidden toxins in the food supply.

Preliminary studies by Dr. Zhihong Chen and colleagues from Chengde Medical College have shown that sericin might improve aberrant Akt signaling, decrease heme oxygenase-1 expression in the hippocampus and cerebral cortex, and reduce the apoptosis of hippocampal neurons in diabetic rats, thus protecting the nervous system. Recently, it is reported that the growth hormone/insulin-like growth factor 1 axis undergoes abnormal changes in diabetes mellitus, which aggravate the disease progression and trigger complications.

UC San Francisco researchers have developed a two-minute assessment tool to help hospital staff predict a patient’s risk of delirium, a change in mental cognition characterized by severe confusion and disorientation that can prolong hospital stays.

The condition, which occurs in as many as one in five hospitalized patients, tends to develop rapidly and can lead to higher death rates and increased health care costs.

Dolphins can recognize their old tank mates' whistles after being separated for more than 20 years — the longest social memory ever recorded for a non-human species.

The remarkable memory feat is another indication that dolphins have a level of cognitive sophistication comparable to only a few other species, including humans, chimpanzees and elephants. Dolphins' talent for social recognition may be even more long-lasting than facial recognition among humans, since human faces change over time but the signature whistle that identifies a dolphin remains stable over many decades.