SAN DIEGO – With football season in full swing, there's no shortage of talk about young players — from high school down to the pee wee levels — suffering from concussions. Yet many parents may lack knowledge about this mild traumatic brain injury, according to two studies to be presented Friday, Oct. 10 at a pre-conference symposium on pediatric sports medicine at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference & Exhibition in San Diego.
Brain
A previously unknown mechanism through which the brain produces new nerve cells after a stroke has been discovered at Lund University and Karolinska Institute in Sweden. The findings have been published in the journal SCIENCE.
A small, "empty" space teeming with activity: a synapse is a complex structure where the neural (electrical) signal from the presynaptic neuron, as it travels towards its target –a muscle, a gland or another neuron – turns into a chemical signal capable of crossing the synaptic space before becoming electrical again once on the other side.
A major complication associated with diabetes is delayed cell replication in epithelium and skin. Researchers at The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania have reported the presence and function of the opioid growth factor (OGF) and its nuclear-associated receptor (OGFr) in skin. OGF, an inhibitory growth factor, chemically termed [Met5]-enkephalin, can be upregulated in diabetes leading to depressed cell proliferation.
Intensive parenting and health education provided in homes of pregnant American Indian teens reduced the mothers' illegal drug use, depression and behavior problems, and set their young children on track to meet behavioral and emotional milestones they may have otherwise missed.
Just look into the light: not quite, but researchers at the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience and Department of Psychology have used light to erase specific memories in mice, and proved a basic theory of how different parts of the brain work together to retrieve episodic memories.
Optogenetics, pioneered by Karl Diesseroth at Stanford University, is a new technique for manipulating and studying nerve cells using light. The techniques of optogenetics are rapidly becoming the standard method for investigating brain function.
People with autism spectrum disorder often experience a period of accelerated brain growth after birth. No one knows why, or whether the change is linked to any specific behavioral changes.
A new study by UCLA researchers demonstrates how, in pregnant mice, inflammation, a first line defense of the immune system, can trigger an excessive division of neural stem cells that can cause "overgrowth" in the offspring's brain.
The paper appears Oct. 9 in the online edition of the journal Stem Cell Reports.
When young mice with the rodent equivalent of a rare autism spectrum disorder (ASD), called Rett syndrome, were fed a diet supplemented with the synthetic oil triheptanoin, they lived longer than mice on regular diets. Importantly, their physical and behavioral symptoms were also less severe after being on the diet, according to results of new research from The Johns Hopkins University.
Neurodevelopmental disorders such as Down syndrome and autism-spectrum disorder can have profound, lifelong effects on learning and memory, but relatively little is known about the molecular pathways affected by these diseases.
Oxytocin has been called the "love hormone" because it plays an important role in social behaviors, such as maternal care and pair bonding. In a study published by Cell Press on October 9th in the journal Cell, researchers uncover oxytocin-responsive brain cells that are necessary for female social interest in male mice during estrus—the sexually receptive phase of their cycle. These neurons, found in the prefrontal cortex, may play a role in other oxytocin-related social behaviors such as intimacy, love, or mother-child bonding.
Oxytocin, the body's natural love potion, helps couples fall in love, makes mothers bond with their babies, and encourages teams to work together. Now new research at Rockefeller University reveals a mechanism by which this prosocial hormone has its effect on interactions between the sexes, at least in certain situations. The key, it turns out, is a newly discovered class of brain cells.
Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have uncovered a molecular process in the brain known to control eating that transforms white fat into brown fat. This process impacts how much energy we burn and how much weight we can lose. The results are published in the Oct. 9 issue of the journal Cell.
A key mechanism behind diabetes may start in the brain, with early signs of the disease detectable through rising levels of molecules not previously linked to insulin signaling, according to a study led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai published in the journal Cell Metabolism.
Online learning interventions and small group debriefings can improve medical residents' attitudes and communication skills toward patients with substance use disorders, and may result in improved care for these patients, according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University College of Medicine published online in Academic Medicine.
MINNEAPOLIS – Women with a healthy diet and lifestyle may be less likely to have a stroke by more than half, according to a study published in the October 8, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The study looked at five factors that make up a healthy lifestyle: healthy diet; moderate alcohol consumption; never smoking; physically active; and healthy body mass index (BMI). Compared with women with none of the five healthy factors, women with all five factors had a 54-percent lower risk of stroke.