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Social media data contain pitfalls for understanding human behavior

A growing number of academic researchers are mining social media data to learn about both online and offline human behavior. In recent years, studies have claimed the ability to predict everything from summer blockbusters to fluctuations in the stock market.

But mounting evidence of flaws in many of these studies points to a need for researchers to be wary of serious pitfalls that arise when working with huge social media data sets, according to computer scientists at McGill University in Montreal and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Fragile X study offers hope of new autism treatment

People affected by a common inherited form of autism could be helped by a drug that is being tested as a treatment for cancer.

Researchers who have identified a chemical pathway that goes awry in the brains of Fragile X patients say the drug could reverse their behavioural symptoms.

The scientists have found that a known naturally occurring chemical called cercosporamide can block the pathway and improve sociability in mice with the condition.

Stroke damage mechanism identified

Researchers have discovered a mechanism linked to the brain damage often suffered by stroke victims--and are now searching for drugs to block it.

Strokes happen when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off but much of the harm to survivors' memory and other cognitive function is often actually caused by "oxidative stress" in the hours and days after the blood supply resumes.

Moderate coffee consumption may lower the risk of Alzheimer's disease by up to 20 percent

Drinking 3-5 cups of coffee per day may help to protect against Alzheimer's Disease, according to research highlighted in an Alzheimer Europe session report published by the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee (ISIC), a not-for-profit organisation devoted to the study and disclosure of science related to coffee and health.

New research supporting stroke rehabilitation

Using world-leading research methods, the team of Dr David Wright and Prof Paul Holmes, working with Dr Jacqueline Williams from the Victoria University in Melbourne, studied activity in an area of the brain responsible for controlling movements when healthy participants observed a video showing simple hand movements and simultaneously imagined that they were performing the observed movement.

Teens with a history of TBI are nearly 4 times more likely to have used crystal meth

TORONTO, Nov. 26, 2014 - Ontario students between Grades 9 and 12 who said they had a traumatic brain injury in their lifetime, also reported drug use rates two to four times higher than peers with no history of TBI, according to research published today in The Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation.

Carnegie Mellon researchers identify brain regions that encode words, grammar, story

Some people say that reading "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" taught them the importance of friends, or that easy decisions are seldom right. Carnegie Mellon University scientists used a chapter of that book to learn a different lesson: identifying what different regions of the brain are doing when people read.

Copper on the brain at rest

In recent years it has been established that copper plays an essential role in the health of the human brain. Improper copper oxidation has been linked to several neurological disorders including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Menkes' and Wilson's. Copper has also been identified as a critical ingredient in the enzymes that activate the brain's neurotransmitters in response to stimuli. Now a new study by researchers with the U.S.

Elderly brains learn, but maybe too much

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- A new study led by Brown University reports that older learners retained the mental flexibility needed to learn a visual perception task but were not as good as younger people at filtering out irrelevant information.

Dogs hear our words and how we say them

When people hear another person talking to them, they respond not only to what is being said--those consonants and vowels strung together into words and sentences--but also to other features of that speech--the emotional tone and the speaker's gender, for instance. Now, a report in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on November 26 provides some of the first evidence of how dogs also differentiate and process those various components of human speech.

With age, we lose our visual learning filter

Older people can actually take in and learn from visual information more readily than younger people do, according to new evidence reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on November 26. This surprising discovery is explained by an apparent decline with age in the ability to filter out irrelevant information.

"It is quite counterintuitive that there is a case in which older individuals learn more than younger individuals," says Takeo Watanabe of Brown University.

Brain researchers pinpoint gateway to human memory

This news release is available in German.

How various brain areas interact in decisions

The value of a piece of chocolate cake can change. Someone who happens to be on a diet is more likely to choose a fruit dessert and judge the calorie-laden cake as unhealthy. Previous studies have shown that a specific network in the brain is active when a person must decide between various choices that vary depending on context. They emphasize the interaction between neurons in two brain areas of the prefrontal cortex - the controlling area on the front side of the brain.

Prefrontal cortex shows increased activity in all decisions

Prehistoric conflict hastened human brain's capacity for collaboration, study says

KNOXVILLE - Warfare not only hastened human technological progress and vast social and political changes, but may have greatly contributed to the evolutionary emergence of humans' high intelligence and ability to work together toward common goals, according to a new study from the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS).

Web-savvy older adults who regularly indulge in culture may better retain 'health literacy'

The Institute of Medicine defines health literacy as the degree to which a person is able to obtain, understand, and process basic health information and services, so that s/he can make appropriate decisions about his/her health.

Low levels of health literacy among older adults are associated with poorer self-care, particularly of long term conditions, higher than average use of emergency care services, low levels of preventive care, and an overall increased risk of death.