Unique in its location and history, the island of Guam is a rich blend of cultures and customs. The largest island in Micronesia, Guam is home to the indigenous Chamorro people as well as people from other Micronesian islands, the US mainland, East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, India, Australia and New Zealand. The US military presence on Guam has contributed to the number of refugees and asylum seekers that have passed through the island on their journey to a new life.
Brain
Some of the same brain mechanisms that fuel drug addiction in humans accompany the emergence of compulsive eating behaviors and the development of obesity in animals, according to research funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a component of the National Institutes of Health.
SALT LAKE CITY, March 29, 2010 – A new study from University of Utah psychologists found a small group of people with an extraordinary ability to multitask: Unlike 97.5 percent of those studied, they can safely drive while chatting on a cell phone.
These individuals – described by the researchers as "supertaskers" – constitute only 2.5 percent of the population. They are so named for their ability to successfully do two things at once: in this case, talk on a cell phone while operating a driving simulator without noticeable impairment.
JUPITER, FL, March 23, 2010 –In a newly published study, scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have shown for the first time that the same molecular mechanisms that drive people into drug addiction are behind the compulsion to overeat, pushing people into obesity.
The new study, conducted by Scripps Research Associate Professor Paul J. Kenny and graduate student Paul M. Johnson, was published March 28, 2010 in an advance online edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Fast food is not only bad for your body, but may also harm your bank account.
UCSF scientists have used a novel cell-based strategy to treat motor symptoms in rats with a disease designed to mimic Parkinson's disease.
The strategy suggests a promising approach, the scientists say, for treating symptoms of Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases and disorders, including epilepsy.
UCSF scientists report that they were able to prompt a new period of "plasticity," or capacity for change, in the neural circuitry of the visual cortex of juvenile mice. The approach, they say, might some day be used to create new periods of plasticity in the human brain that would allow for the repair of neural circuits following injury or disease.
PROVIDENCE, RI – A study from Rhode Island Hospital has shown that a widely-used screening tool for bipolar disorder may incorrectly indicate borderline personality disorder rather than bipolar disorder. In the article that appears online ahead of print in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, the researchers question the effectiveness of the Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ).
How do we process thoughts and store memories? A team of researchers headed by Dr. Nahum Sonenberg of McGill's Department of Biochemistry and Goodman Cancer Centre has discovered that brains in mammals modify a particular protein in a unique way, which alters the protein's normal function. This discovery represents an important step in understanding how our brains work.
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Mice trained to improve their working memory become more intelligent, suggesting that similar improvements in working memory might help human beings enhance their brain power, according to research published today in Current Biology by researchers at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
PITTSBURGH, March 25 – Like a skittish driver slamming the brakes, a special class of T cells may be limiting the effectiveness of therapeutic vaccines for HIV by slowing the immune system response too soon, report University of Pittsburgh health science researchers in the current issue of PLoS ONE.
This release is available in Spanish.
Scholars from the University of Granada, Spain, and the National University of Comahue, Argentina, designed an educational intervention programme that achieved the integration of 100% of gypsy students in their Secondary School Centre, in the province of Granada. The programme ran for two academic years and was proven to be successful in improving gypsy students' school performance and in attaining full integration with their schoolmates.
Two genes have been associated with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) in a new study of 661 families. Researchers writing in BioMed Central's newly launched journal Molecular Autism found that variations in the genes for two brain proteins, LRRN3 and LRRTM3, were significantly associated with susceptibility to ASD.
Milan, Italy, 25 March 2010 - One of the most common complaints among healthy older adults relates to a decline in memory performance. This decline has been linked to an inability to ignore irrelevant information when forming memories. In order to ignore distracting information, the brain should act to suppress its responses to distractions, but it has been shown that in older adults there is in fact an increase in brain activity at those times.
Using a novel animal model to study craniofacial pain, researchers at Oregon Health & Science University's School of Dentistry (www.ohsu.edu/sod) have discovered that when tissues are inflamed, the nerve cells carrying pain information from the head to the brain produce in large quantities a protein involved in pain signaling. The finding could play a significant role in the development of new treatments for craniofacial pain conditions, such as migraines, temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder, trigeminal neuralgia, and toothache.