Brain

BUFFALO, N.Y. - The cumulative number of successful phishing cyberattacks has risen sharply over the last decade, and in 2014 that figure surged past the total U.S. population.

To date, about 400 million breaches have yielded hackers some kind of personal information, according to Arun Vishwanath, an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University at Buffalo and an expert in cyber deception.

"That means everyone in the country may have been breached," says Vishwanath. "Everyone. Including me and you."

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- A new machine-learning simulation system developed at the University of Illinois promises cosmologists an expanded suite of galaxy models - a necessary first step to developing more accurate and relevant insights into the formation of the universe.

The feasibility of this method has been laid out in two recent papers written by astronomy, physics and statistics professor Robert Brunner, his undergraduate student Harshil Kamdar and National Center for Supercomputing Applications research scientist Matthew Turk.

A common genetic variation, ApoE4, linked to Alzheimer's disease greatly raises the likelihood of tiny brain bleeds in some men, scientists have found.

Such hemorrhages in brain tissue - microbleeds - leave small points of damage throughout the brain and contribute to memory loss.

The study led by USC Davis School of Gerontology scientists reveals that the gene variant, ApoE4, has different effects on men and women diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's disease.

Because social media is used so pervasively in modern society to tap into people's behaviors and thoughts, neuroscientists are finding Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms to be very useful tools in a broad range of research areas. A review published November 11 in Trends in Cognitive Sciences describes some of the approaches that neuroscientists can use to gain valuable insights from social media and highlights some of the questions that might be answered by social media-based studies.

Making a computer that learns and remembers like a human brain is a daunting challenge. The complex organ has 86 billion neurons and trillions of connections -- or synapses -- that can grow stronger or weaker over time. But now scientists report in ACS' journal Nano Letters the development of a first-of-its-kind synthetic synapse that mimics the plasticity of the real thing, bringing us one step closer to human-like artificial intelligence.

HANOVER, N.H. - Dartmouth researchers studying rats have discovered that activation of designer neural receptors can suppress cravings in a brain region involved in triggering those cravings.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Natural resource agencies have embraced an approach known as adaptive management to adjust and refine their management plans in the face of uncertainties caused by climate change and the functioning of complex ecosystems.

But a paper co-written by an Indiana University law professor finds that agencies often apply adaptive management in ways that fail to promote learning, an approach the authors call "AM Lite."

Brain disorders that cause intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disorders may share common defects despite having different genetic causes, a study has found.

A study of two models of intellectual disability in mice has found that they share similar disease mechanisms.

Researchers found that treatment with a statin drug called Lovastatin - commonly used to treat high cholesterol - can correct high levels of protein production in the brain linked to the conditions.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Nov. 11, 2015 - Scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have found new evidence that mindfulness meditation reduces pain more effectively than placebo.

This is significant because placebo-controlled trials are the recognized standard for demonstrating the efficacy of clinical and pharmacological treatments.

MADISON, Wis. -- "Blink and you'll miss it" isn't only for eyelids. The human brain also blinks, dropping a few frames of visual information here and there.

Those lapses of attention come fast -- maybe just once every tenth of a second. But some people may be missing more than others, according to psychologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Eating is a fundamentally multisensory experience: we don't just eat our food, we also see it, smell it, and hear ourselves chewing it. However, perception of non-food components of the dining experience can also influence flavor perception. For instance, desserts are rated as sweeter if they are presented on a white vs. black plate, and exposure to loud noise reduces affective food ratings.

Treatment with antiangiogenesis drugs may improve the effectiveness of radiation treatment of nervous system tumors that interfere with the hearing of patients with the genetic disorder neurofibromatosis 2 (NF2). A team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators reports in PNAS Early Edition that use of an antiangiogenesis drug reduced the radiation dose required to shrink tumors in animal models of the NF2-associated tumors called vestibular schwannomas.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- There are many ways to divvy up a pile of cookies. Among the possibilities: Everyone can get an equal number, or those who contributed more to the cookie baking can get a larger share.

In studies, young children usually default to splitting up resources equally. However, as children get older, they shift toward a merit-based approach, in which people who work harder on a task are rewarded with a bigger portion.

London (November 10, 2015). There is an urgent need to do more to recognize prenatal alcohol exposure at an early stage and to integrate better pathways for diagnosis, assessment and support, finds a special issue of the SAGE journal Adoption & Fostering. The issue highlights the importance of raising awareness of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) as there are unclear protocols and guidelines in place to adequately support those directly affected.

Gymnastic feats like balance beam routines clearly require a great deal of coordination. But even seemingly trivial actions such as crossing stepping-stones on a river or just walking in a straight line require these very same skills. The group of Dr. Megan Carey, principal investigator at Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, has developed a novel tool to investigate how the brain generates coordinated movement.