Brain | Page 1509 | Science Codex

Carnegie Mellon scientists offer explanation for 'face blindness'

PITTSBURGH—For the first time, scientists have been able to map the disruption in neural circuitry of people suffering from congenital prosopagnosia, sometimes known as face blindness, and have been able to offer a biological explanation for this intriguing disorder.

Currently thought to affect roughly two percent of the population, congenital prosopagnosia manifests as the lifelong failure to recognize faces in the absence of obvious neurological damage, and in individuals with intact vision and intelligence.

K-State psychologist studies ways to improve soldiers' work-life relationship

MANHATTAN, KAN. -- The U.S. military provides its members with policies to help balance their work and family commitments. But a researcher at Kansas State University has found that simply providing programs might not be enough to maintain a supreme equilibrium.

Satoris Culbertson, assistant professor of psychology at K-State, and colleagues have been studying how soldiers' perceptions of a family-friendly environment relates to their physical fitness, confidence in task performance and intentions to remain in the military.

To make better MRI images, let the atoms spin out of control

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Scientists here and in France have made a new theoretical advance in atomic behavior that could lead to sharper magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) pictures.

The discovery could one day help enable the development of portable MRI machines.

In the November 25 online issue of the Journal of Chemical Physics, they explain why scientists couldn't completely control the behavior of atomic nuclei during some nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments.

UT Southwestern researchers find clue to safer obesity drugs

DALLAS – Nov. 25, 2008 – Once hailed as a miracle weight-loss drug, Fen-phen was removed from the market more than a decade ago for inducing life-threatening side effects, including heart valve lesions. Scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center are trying to understand how Fen-phen behaves in the brain in order to develop safer anti-obesity drugs with fewer side effects.

In a study appearing in the Nov. 25 issue of Neuron, the researchers define a circuit in the brain that explains the ways fenfluramine, a component of Fen-phen, suppresses appetite.

Why C is not G: How we identify letters

The next time you are reading a book, or even as you read this article, consider the words that you are seeing. How do you recognize these words? Substantial research has shown that while reading, we recognize words by their letters and not by the general shape of the word. However, it was largely unknown how we differentiate one letter from another.

The physics of explosives and blast helmets

November 25, 2008 -- Of all the threats facing U.S. soldiers in combat, among the most dangerous are roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices (IED's). At the 61st Meeting of the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics this week in San Antonio, Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) scientist David Mott is presenting research aimed at predicting the risk of traumatic brain injury for U.S. soldiers and other people who are wounded by improvised explosive devices.

Major teaching and learning research program draws conclusions

The Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP), the largest research initiative into education related topics ever undertaken in the United Kingdom, presents its major conclusions on 24th and 25th November after nine years of investigations across all sectors of education, from the importance of preschool education to lifelong learning. The programme was funded and managed by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

SDSC-led team sets records in simulating seismic wave propagation across the Earth

A team led by researchers at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego has successfully completed record-setting, petascale-level simulations of the earth's inner structure, paving the way for seismologists to model seismic wave propagations at frequencies of just over one second – the same frequencies that occur in nature.

Social amoeba seek kin association

HOUSTON (November 25, 2008)–Starving "social amoebae" called Dictyostelium discoideum seek the support of "kin" when they form multi-cellular organisms made up of dead stalks and living spores, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University in Houston in a report that appears online today in the open-access journal Public Library of Science Biology.

Scripps Florida scientists find blocking a neuropeptide receptor decreases nicotine addiction

The study was published in an online Early Edition issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the week of November 24. Scripps Florida is a division of The Scripps Research Institute.

The neuropeptide, hypocretin-1 (Orexin A), may initiate a key signaling cascade, a series of closely linked biochemical reactions, which maintains tobacco addiction in human smokers and could be a potential target for developing new smoking cessation treatments.

Adult brain neurons can remodel connections

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Overturning a century of prevailing thought, scientists are finding that neurons in the adult brain can remodel their connections. In work reported in the Nov. 24 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Elly Nedivi, associate professor of neurobiology at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and colleagues found that a type of neuron implicated in autism spectrum disorders remodels itself in a strip of brain tissue only as thick as four sheets of tissue paper at the upper border of cortical layer 2.

Mammals can be stimulated to regrow damaged inner retina nerve cells

Researchers at the University of Washington (UW) have reported for the first time that mammals can be stimulated to regrow inner nerve cells in their damaged retinas. Located in the back of the eye, the retina's role in vision is to convert light into nerve impulses to the brain.

Why women should eat less, move more and consider wearing transdermal HRT patches during menopause

Weight and appetite experts from around the world met at a conference in Bangkok earlier this year to discuss sex differences in obesity. One line of discussion looked at factors leading to women's weight gain during menopause, and how it might be avoided.

Co-chairs of the conference, Dr Amanda Sainsbury-Salis from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research and Dr Jennifer Lovejoy from the University of Washington, Seattle have summarised the conference consensus for the December issue of Obesity Reviews. The paper is now available online.

Panamanian termite goes ballistic: Fastest mandible strike in the world

A single hit on the head by the termite Termes panamensis (Snyder), which possesses the fastest mandible strike ever recorded, is sufficient to kill a would-be nest invader, report Marc Seid and Jeremy Niven, post-doctoral fellows at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Rudolf Scheffrahn from the University of Florida.

Study suggests reliability of cognitive assessment tool varies widely

November 24, 2008, Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Sun City, AZ, USA -- A study published in the November issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (Volume 15:3) suggests the reliability of the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale – Cognitive (ADAS-Cog) may vary and possess the ability to affect clinical trial outcomes.

Moreover, this study further suggests that ADAS-Cog rater training and experience are factors that contribute to variances seen in this assessment tool.