Tuesday, 03 May 2011 05:00
Amygdala detects spontaneity in human behavior
Amygdala detects spontaneity in human behavior
A pianist is playing an unknown melody freely without reading from a musical score. How does the listener's brain recognise if this melody is improvised or if it is memorized?
Tuesday, 03 May 2011 05:00
Illinois professor chairs committee that recommends immediate calories, protein for TBI
Illinois professor chairs committee that recommends immediate calories, protein for TBI
URBANA A Vietnam veteran who conducted early-morning mine sweeps on that country's roads, University of Illinois nutrition professor John Erdman knows the damage that a traumatic brain injury (TBI) can cause. That's why he was happy to chair a committee that ...
Tuesday, 03 May 2011 05:00
Ecstasy associated with chronic change in brain function
Ecstasy associated with chronic change in brain function
Ecstasy the illegal "rave" drug that produces feelings of euphoria and emotional warmth has been in the news recently as a potential therapeutic. Clinical trials are testing Ecstasy in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Tuesday, 03 May 2011 05:00
Dependency and passivity -- you can have 1 without the other
dependency and passivity -- you can have 1 without the other
Think of a dependent person, and you think of someone who's needy, high-maintenance, and passive. That's how many psychologists and therapists think of them, too; passivity is key. But dependency is actually more complex and can even have active, positive aspects, writes Robert Bornstein...
Monday, 02 May 2011 19:00
Think it's easy to be macho? Psychologists show how 'precarious' manhood is
Manhood is a "precarious" status -- difficult to earn and easy to lose. And when it's threatened, men see aggression as a good way to hold onto it. These are the conclusions of a new article by University of South Florida psychologists Jennifer K. Bosson and Joseph A. Vandello. The paper is published in Current Directions in Psychological Science,...
Monday, 02 May 2011 19:00
Researchers develop device to measure brain temperature non-invasively
Doctors have long sought a way to directly measure the brain's temperature without inserting a probe through the skull. Now researchers have developed a way to get the brain's precise temperature with a device the diameter of a poker-chip that rests on a patient's head, according to findings presented May 1 at the annual meeting of the Pediatric...
Monday, 02 May 2011 19:00
New protein regulates water in the brain to control inflammation
A new protein, called aquaporin-4, is making waves and found to play a key role in brain inflammation, or encephalitis. This discovery is important as the first to identify a role for this protein in inflammation, opening doors for the development of new drugs that treat brain inflammation and other conditions at the cellular level rather than...
Monday, 02 May 2011 19:00
Public Favors Equal Custody for Children of Divorce
The public favors equal custody for children of divorce, according to findings in a pair of studies by Arizona State University researchers that will appear in the May 2011 journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law....
Monday, 02 May 2011 16:30
Cells talk more in areas Alzheimer's hits first, boosting plaque component
Higher levels of cell chatter boost amyloid beta in the brain regions that Alzheimer's hits first, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report. Amyloid beta is the main ingredient of the plaque lesions that are a hallmark of Alzheimer's....
Monday, 02 May 2011 15:30
Alzheimer's-related protein disrupts motors of cell transport
A protein associated with Alzheimer's disease clogs several motors of the cell transport machinery critical for normal cell division, leading to defective neurons that may contribute to the memory-robbing disease, University of South Florida researchers report....
Monday, 02 May 2011 14:00
Dual medications for depression increases costs, side effects with no benefit to patients
Taking two medications for depression does not hasten recovery from the condition that affects 19 million Americans each year, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found in a national study....
Monday, 02 May 2011 14:00
Pain and itch connected down deep
Despite much research on pain receptors, investigators have only recently focused on itch and how the body distinguishes between itch and pain. This research, including new findings by UC Berkeley's Diana Bautista, show that the receptors responding to irritants actually work by triggering pain receptors, which in turn send signals to the brain...
Monday, 02 May 2011 05:00
Moderate levels of secondhand smoke deliver nicotine to the brain
Moderate levels of secondhand smoke deliver nicotine to the brain
NIH-funded study shows how secondhand smoke may increase vulnerability to nicotine addiction
Exposure to secondhand smoke, such as a person can get by riding in an enclosed car while someone else smokes, has a direct, measurable impact on the brainand the effect is similar to what ...
Sunday, 01 May 2011 17:30
System in brain -- target of class of diabetes drugs -- linked to weight gain
University of Cincinnati researchers have determined why a certain class of diabetes drugs leads to weight gain and have found that the molecular system involved (PPAR-³ found in the brain) is also triggered by consumption of high-fat foods. The study could lead to the modification of existing diabetes therapies and even dietary...
Sunday, 01 May 2011 07:00
Screening very preterm infants for autism at 18 months often inaccurate
Extremely premature infants who screen positive for autism spectrum disorder at 18 months of age may not actually have autism. Rather, they may fail screening tests due to an unrelated cognitive or language delay....
Sunday, 01 May 2011 06:00
Adverse changes in sleep duration are associated with lower cognitive scores in middle-aged adults
A study in the May 1 issue of the journal Sleep describes how changes in sleep that occur over a five-year period in late middle age affect cognitive function in later life. The findings suggest that women and men who begin sleeping more or less than 6 to 8 hours per night are subject to an accelerated cognitive decline that is equivalent to four...
Saturday, 30 April 2011 07:00
Maternal obesity puts infants at risk
Babies born to obese mothers are at risk for iron deficiency, which could affect infant brain development....
Friday, 29 April 2011 17:00
The rewards of doing 'something'
People don't really care what they're doing -- just as long as they are doing something. That's one of the findings summarized in a new review article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science....
Thursday, 28 April 2011 21:00
Alcohol, mood and me (not you)
Thanks in part to studies that follow subjects for a long time, psychologists are learning more about differences between people. In a new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the author describes how psychologists can use their data to learn about the different...
Thursday, 28 April 2011 20:00
From the Start, the Mind Knows Night from Day
The brain is apparently programmed from birth to develop the ability to determine sunrise and sunset, according to new research on circadian rhythms that sheds new light on brain plasticity and may explain some basic human behaviors....
Thursday, 28 April 2011 20:00
From the beginning, the brain knows the difference between night and day
The brain is apparently programmed from birth to develop the ability to determine sunrise and sunset, according to new research on circadian rhythms that research sheds new light on brain plasticity and may explain some basic human behaviors....
Thursday, 28 April 2011 19:00
Jump in communication skills led to species explosion in electric fishes
The Mormyridae, a family of African fishes that communicate by means of weak electric discharges, has more than 200 species. New work shows the fishes evolved a complex signal-processing brain before a burst of speciation. Together with other evidence the finding suggests brain evolution triggered diversification....
Thursday, 28 April 2011 19:00
BU researchers probe link between theta rhythm and ability of animals to track location
In a paper to be published April 29, 2011, in the journal Science, a team of Boston University researchers under the direction of Michael Hasselmo, professor of psychology and director of Boston University's Computational Neurophysiology Laboratory, and Mark Brandon, a recent graduate of the Graduate Program for Neuroscience at Boston University,...
