Nutrition rating systems and their accompanying symbols are intended to help consumers make healthy choices, but shoppers may be confused by the variety of symbols that have proliferated in recent years. Moreover, different rating systems focus on different nutrients, and questions have been raised about the nutritional criteria underlying these systems. Front-of-Package Nutrition Rating Systems and Symbols: Phase 1 Report presents the preliminary findings of an Institute of Medicine committee's review of these nutrition information tools.
Brain
AUGUSTA, Ga. – Temporary combativeness after surgery—a complication affecting up to half of anesthetized children—may be preventable with drugs that decrease epinephrine production, according to a Medical College of Georgia pediatric anesthesiologist.
Researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have shown how stem cells, together with other cells, repair damaged tissue in the mouse spinal cord. The results are of potential significance to the development of therapies for spinal cord injury.
A low Apgar score at birth is strongly associated with cerebral palsy in childhood, concludes a study from researchers in Norway published on bmj.com today.
The Apgar score is a quick and simple way to assess a baby's condition at birth. The baby is assessed on five simple criteria (complexion, pulse rate, reaction when stimulated, muscle tone, and breathing) on a scale from zero to two. The five values are then summed up to obtain a score from zero to 10.
STANFORD, Calif. - An alarming number of adolescents already battling eating disorders are also intentionally cutting themselves, and health-care providers may be failing to diagnose many instances of such self-injury, according to a new study from Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A study by researchers at Purdue University suggests that some high school football players suffer undiagnosed changes in brain function and continue playing even though they are impaired.
In a study that sheds new light on the causes of Parkinson's disease, researchers report that brain cells in Parkinson's patients abandon their energy-producing machinery, the mitochondria. A shutdown in fuel can have devastating effects on brain cells, which consume roughly 20 percent of the body's energy despite making up only 2 percent of body weight.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- By creating a better way to see molecules at work in living brain cells, researchers affiliated with MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the MIT Department of Chemistry are helping elucidate molecular mechanisms of synapse formation. These studies could also help further understanding of how synapses go awry in developmental diseases such as autism and Fragile X syndrome. The study will appear in the Oct. 7 issue of Cell.
Witnessing a person from our own group or an outsider suffer pain causes neural responses in two very different regions of the brain. And, the specific region activated reveals whether or not we will help the person in need. Researchers at the University of Zurich studied the brain responses of soccer fans and now have neurobiological evidence for why we are most willing to help members of our own group.
INDIANAPOLIS –A new study from the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis looks at how much African Americans and whites favor or prefer their own racial group over the other, how much they identify with their own racial group, and how positively they feel about themselves.
LA JOLLA, CA-By comparing a clearly defined visual input with the electrical output of the retina, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies were able to trace for the first time the neuronal circuitry that connects individual photoreceptors with retinal ganglion cells, the neurons that carry visuals signals from the eye to the brain.
STANFORD, Calif. — With the help of tiny, see-through fish, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers are homing in on what happens in the brain while you sleep. In a new study, they show how the circadian clock and sleep affect the scope of neuron-to-neuron connections in a particular region of the brain, and they identified a gene that appears to regulate the number of these connections, called synapses.
A new study reveals that brain signals elicited by the sight of someone suffering pain differ as a function of whether we identify positively or negatively with that person and that these differential brain signals predict a later decision to help or withdraw from helping. The research, published by Cell Press in the October 7th issue of the journal Neuron, provides fascinating insight into the neural mechanisms involved in decisions that benefit others, known as prosocial behavior, and how they are modulated by perceived group membership.