Brain
Connection Differences in Brains of People With Autism
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Carnegie Mellon Researchers Use New Imaging Technique To Discover Connection Differences in Brains of People With Autism
Using a new form of brain imaging known as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), researchers in the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University have discovered that the so-called white matter in the brains of people with autism has lower structural integrity than in the brains of normal individuals. This provides further evidence that the anatomical differences characterizing the brains of people with autism are related to the way those brains process information.
Parkinson’s disease impacts brain’s centers of touch and vision
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Movement disorder affects more than just motor control
Although Parkinson’s disease is most commonly viewed as a “movement disorder,” scientists have found that the disease also causes widespread abnormalities in touch and vision Ð effects that have now been verified using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brain. The new findings, by scientists at Emory University School of Medicine and Zhejiang University Medical School in Hangzhou China, will be presented on Oct. 17 at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Atlanta.
Scientists studying Parkinson’s disease (PD) previously have focused on the brain’s motor and premotor cortex, but not the somatosensory or the visual cortex. But Emory neurologist Krish Sathian, MD, PhD, and colleagues had earlier discovered, through tests of tactile ability, that PD patients have sensory problems with touch. They designed a study using fMRI to investigate the brain changes underlying these sensory abnormalities.
Overtraining not linked to altered brain chemistry
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Athletes who overtrain their bodies do not seem to have changes in brain levels of serotonin, suggesting that serotonin alterations don’t cause the depression and other symptoms these athletes commonly develop.
This finding suggests that the depression that may occur in overtrained athletes may be a unique variant and may need to be treated as such, the researchers report in the International Journal of Sports Medicine.
Athletes who push their bodies too hard, or “overtrain,” can end up with a host of physical and mental symptoms that take months or even years to recover from. The effects include heart rhythm disturbances, disabling muscle and nerve pain, stomach pain and ulcers, insomnia despite heavy fatigue, and depressive symptoms.
Key deficiencies found in brains of people with autism
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In a pair of groundbreaking studies, brain scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh have discovered that the anatomical differences that characterize the brains of people with autism are related to the way those brains process information.
Previous studies have demonstrated a lower degree of synchronization among activated brain areas in people with autism, as well as smaller size of the corpus callosum, the white matter that acts as cables to wire the parts of the brain together. This latest research shows for the first time that the abnormality in synchronization is related to the abnormality in the cabling. The results suggest that the connectivity among brain areas is among the central problems in autism. The researchers have also found that people with autism rely heavily on the parts of the brain that deal with imagery, even when completing tasks that would not normally call for visualization.
Pesticides increase risk of developing Parkinson’s disease
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Mayo Clinic researchers have found that using pesticides for farming or other purposes increases the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease for men.
Pesticide exposure did not increase the risk of Parkinson’s in women, and no other household or industrial chemicals were significantly linked to the disease in either men or women.
Findings will be published in the June issue of the journal Movement Disorders.
Identification of molecule that links both sides of the brain
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A Queensland Brain Institute-led team has identified a molecule that plays a key role in establishing the major nerve connections between each side of the adult brain.
QBI neural migration laboratory head Associate Professor Helen Cooper said her group’s research provided new clues regarding development of the corpus callosum, the main connecting nerve tract that shuttles information between the left and right hemispheres of the adult brain.
Using a mouse model, neuroscientists at The University of Queensland - working with Associate Professor Steven Stacker and his team at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Melbourne - have identified a molecule that helps control development of the corpus callosum.
Brain research offers insight into mechanisms of prejudice
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By scanning subjects’ brains while they were thinking about people either politically like or different from them, researchers have found that different areas of the brain are active in the two cases.
The researchers said their findings offer insight into the neural machinery that gives rise to perceptions that other racial or ethnic groups are different from one’s own.
They concluded that their work offers insight into prejudice and that one way to reduce prejudice is to emphasize how alike different groups are, rather than highlighting their differences.
New theory on how the brain detects motion
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Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have discovered a neural circuit that is likely to play an important role in the visual perception of moving objects. Their finding, published in the April issue of the journal Neuron, forces neurobiologists to rethink the neural pathways that our brain relies on to detect motion.
It had long been assumed that sensory information about color and fine detail is relatively unimportant for the perception of moving objects. Mainly, because the neural pathways in the brain carrying color and fine detail information seemed to be completely separate from areas of the brain previously associated with motion processing.
In an elegant anatomical study, Salk researchers now show that a neural pathway carrying color and fine detail does connect to the motion processing areas of the cortex (the outer layer of the brain), and this information most likely helps the brain detect moving objects.
Gene Variations Linked to Brain Aneurysms
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Variations in a gene seem to be linked to brain (cerebral) aneurysms, suggests research published ahead of print in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
Brain aneurysms occur when a section of an artery bulges, often at a stress point, such as a branch or a bend. This weakens the wall and makes it prone to rupture and the discharge of blood into other areas of the brain.
The condition may affect up to 8% of the population, but inflammation is thought to have a key role.
Brain development patterns differ in smartest kids
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A new study ties intelligence to the speed of brain changes in childhood and the teen years, rather than the size of the brain itself.
During childhood and adolescence, the cerebral cortex—the outer layer of the brain, which is involved in learning, language, attention and other higher-order skills, and is also known as the gray matter—gets thicker and thicker until it reaches a peak, and then thins out again. In the current study of 629 brain scans from 307 healthy young people, Dr. Philip Shaw of the National Institutes of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland and his colleagues found this process happened more rapidly and dramatically in the most intelligent individuals.
Ecstasy-related memory impairment can be permanent
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Taking the drug Ecstasy can impair memory and learning, but giving up the drug can stop the slide in mental capacity, a new study shows. However, researchers also found evidence that in heavy Ecstasy users, the effects on memory may persist even after they quit.
“The message should be loud and clear that if you’re using a lot, you’re not going to recover learning and memory,” Dr. Konstantine K. Zakzanis of the University of Toronto at Scarborough, the study’s lead author, told Reuters Health.
Significant advance in our understanding of how sound is encoded for transmission to the brain
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Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have discovered that our ears use the most efficient way to process the sounds we hear, from babbling brooks to wailing babies.
These results represent a significant advance in our understanding of how sound is encoded for transmission to the brain, according to the authors, whose work is published with an accompanying “News and Views” editorial in the Feb. 23 issue of Nature.
Study provides new evidence of the importance of reward pathways in the brain
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Deleting a specific gene in the brain has the same effect that antidepressants do in mice that have been conditioned to be depressed, report researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center.
Mice are normally social animals, easily approaching and greeting unfamiliar mice. But when the strange mice are aggressive, a mouse over time becomes timid and withdrawn. Administering antidepressants such as Prozac improves their behavior, but so does deleting a gene called BDNF.
Slower Reaction Times Linked to Higher Death Risk, Even in Young Adults
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Slower reaction times and poorer memory are associated with a greater risk of dying in young and old people, a new study shows.
The finding in younger subjects is especially surprising, given that prior research linking higher mortality with poorer cognitive function in the elderly was attributed to degeneration of the brain due to aging.
Being groggy in the morning is as bad as being drunk
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According to researchers in the U.S., grogginess on waking up in the morning should not be dismissed because it seriously impairs thinking and memory skills.
They warn that this has implications for doctors, firefighters and those who are expected to go straight into action the moment they wake up.
