Brain

Smoking high potency 'skunk-like' cannabis can damage a crucial part of the brain responsible for communication between the two brain hemispheres, according to a new study by scientists from King's College London and Sapienza University of Rome.

A follow-up study to assess the effects of personally tailored diabetes care in general practice has revealed that such care reduces mortality (both all-cause and diabetes-related), in women, but not men. The study is by Dr Marlene Krag, The Research Unit for General Practice, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and colleagues, and is published in Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD).

Frank Paul, a glaciologist at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, has created animations from satellite images of the Karakoram mountain range in Asia to show how its glaciers flow and change. The images of four different regions compress 25 years of glacier changes into just one second, revealing the complex glacier behaviour in the Karakoram. The animations are published today (26 November) in The Cryosphere, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).

A new study from the University of Exeter has found that teaching is not essential for people to learn to make effective tools. The results counter established views about how human tools and technologies come to improve from generation to generation and point to an explanation for the extraordinary success of humans as a species. The study reveals that although teaching is useful, it is not essential for cultural progress because people can use reasoning and reverse engineering of existing items to work out how to make tools.

Fish viewed digital models with unfamiliar fish faces longer and from a further distance than models with familiar faces, according to a study published November 25, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Masanori Kohda from the Osaka City University, Japan and colleagues.

Minutes count when treating stroke, but current diagnostics take as long as three hours, careful lab work, and skilled technicians to arrive at a conclusive diagnosis. Scientists at Cornell University's Baker Institute for Animal Health have developed a device that helps diagnose stroke in less than ten minutes using a drop of blood barely big enough to moisten your fingertip.

Nature Publishing Group (NPG), part of Springer Nature, today releases Turning Point: Chinese Science in Transition, a White Paper which takes the pulse of China's scientific research at a critical time in its development. It is the first report of its kind to be undertaken in China by a global publisher, drawing on quantitative and qualitative data NPG has recently gathered through interviewing and surveying more than 1,700 leading Chinese researchers.

The burst of energy and hyperactivity that comes with a cocaine high is a rather accurate reflection of what's going on in the brain of its users, finds a study published November 25 in Cell Reports. Through experiments conducted in rats exposed to cocaine, the researchers mapped out the network of circuits that cause wild firing of neurons that produce dopamine, a neurotransmitter that regulates movement and emotion. The findings also help explain how cocaine use eventually leads to desensitization.

Before the fluid of the middle ear drains and sound waves penetrate for the first time, the inner ear cells of newborn rodents practice for their big debut. Researchers at Johns Hopkins report they have figured out the molecular chain of events that enables the cells to make "sounds" on their own, essentially "practicing" their ability to process sounds in the world around them.

• Fastest pigeons tend to become flock leaders
• Leaders learn navigation skills more effectively than followers

Many birds travel in flocks, sometimes migrating over thousands of miles. But how do the birds decide who will lead the way? Researchers at Oxford University, reporting in the journal Current Biology, can offer new insight based on studies in homing pigeons. For pigeons, it seems, leadership is largely a question of speed.

As you're driving to work along a busy road, your eyes on the traffic lights ahead, hoping they won't turn to red, you pass signs warning of roadworks, ads on bus shelters... Suddenly a dog runs out in front of you. What are your chances of seeing it before it's too late?

KINGSTON - Queen's University researchers Philip Burge and Dianne Groll (Psychiatry) and two co-authors have just published a study regarding the attitudes and preferences of prospective adoptive parents. The study found that those who were most open to considering children with special needs had been formally seeking to adopt for some time and had completed government-required SAFE assessments and training.

Schizophrenia has been considered an illness of disrupted brain connectivity since its earliest descriptions. Several studies have suggested brain white matter is affected not only in patients with schizophrenia but also in individuals at increased risk for the disease. Marc M. Bohlken, M.Sc., of University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands, and coauthors investigated whether schizophrenia risk and white matter integrity share common genes. The imaging study included 70 individual twins discordant for schizophrenia (one with, one without) and 130 healthy control twins.

Amsterdam, NL, November 25, 2015 - Exercise can enhance the development of new brain cells in the adult brain, a process called adult neurogenesis. These newborn brain cells play an important role in learning and memory. A new study has determined that mice that spent time running on wheels not only developed twice the normal number of new neurons, but also showed an increased ability to distinguish new objects from familiar objects. These results are published in the first issue of Brain Plasticity, a new journal from IOS Press.

The prevalence of neural tube defects in Europe has not declined substantially in the past 20 years, despite long-standing recommendations for women to take folic acid supplements if planning a pregnancy, finds a study in The BMJ today.

Europe has failed to implement an effective policy for prevention of neural tube defects by folic acid, argue the researchers.