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Study: Am I Crazy or Did I Just See a Clown?

Dave McGinn
The Globe and Mail
Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:00 UTC
How much do you notice while you're on your cellphone? Not as much as you may think

Forget about the elephant in the room. Let's talk about the clown on the unicycle.

Just how much do you notice going on around you when talking on a cellphone? Not as much as you might think, according to a new study to be published in the December issue of Applied Cognitive Psychology.

In examining "inattentional blindness" or failing to see what's there because a person is distracted, Ira Hyman, a psychology professor at Western Washington University, looked at the effects of divided attention during walking.

Prof. Hyman and his team observed more than 100 people as they walked through the campus, some talking on cellphones or listening to MP3 players, others walking without any electronics or walking in a pair. The entire group walked past a clown riding a unicycle planted by Prof. Hyman's team and were asked afterward if they had noticed the strange sight.
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Dabbling in Surrealism can Boost your Brain Power


Times of India
Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:00 UTC
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© Unknown
Being exposed to surrealism can improve learning by compelling the brain to seek out structure, says a study.

Psychologists at UC Santa Barbara and the University of British Columbia revealed that exposure to the surrealism in, say, Franz Kafka's The Country Doctor or director David Lynch's Blue Velvet enhances the cognitive mechanisms that oversee implicit learning functions. "The idea is that when you're exposed to a meaning threat -- something that fundamentally does not make sense -- your brain is going to respond by looking for some other kind of structure within your environment," said Travis Proulx, a postdoctoral researcher at UCSB and co-author of the article.

"And, it turns out, that structure can be completely unrelated to the meaning threat," Proulx added.

During the study, Proulx and Steven J. Heine, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia asked that participants to read an abridged and slightly edited version of Kafka's The Country Doctor, which involves a nonsensical -- and in some ways disturbing -- series of events.
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Nutrition Researchers Debate New Study that Human Brains Regulate Sodium Intake Naturally

Anne Hart
Examiner
Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:22 UTC
According to a new study by UC Davis researchers published as an article this week in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, the human brain naturally regulates its own sodium intake for the entire body. It's a controversial article based on a research study that has prompted nutritionists to ask more questions than the study answers.

The new study gives UC Davis researchers the opportunity to challenge FDA guidelines asking consumers to reduce sodium levels when eating, especially when choosing processed or restaurant food.

According to the study, "Dietary Sodium and Cardiovascular Health in Hypertensive Patients, the Case Against Universal Sodium Restriction," the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology reports in the newly published abstract of the study that, "Only a single study has been reported in hypertensive patients that links baseline sodium, measured by 24-hour urinary excretion, and subsequent cardiovascular outcomes."

In that study, controlling for other risk factors, there was a "significant, independent, inverse association of urinary sodium excretion and coronary morbidity and mortality. Indeed, an increase of 66 mmol/24 h was associated with a 36% reduction in events."
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Cancer Drug Crosses Key Hurdle in Brain

Julie Steenhuysen
Reuters
Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:08 UTC
An experimental drug appears to cross a protective barrier in the brain that screens out most chemicals, offering potentially better ways to treat brain tumors, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.

The drug, made by privately held Angiochem Inc of Montreal was safe and showed evidence it could shrink tumors in two separate early phase studies totaling more than 100 people with a brain cancer called glioblastoma.

It also worked among people whose cancers had spread or metastasized to the brain, the researchers reported at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago.

In both studies, tumors shrank in patients who got a higher dose of the drug, called ANG1005. The drug also showed signs of working in patients whose cancers resisted the chemotherapy drug taxane.
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Net Surfing Slows Dementia


Straits Times
Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:44 UTC
Elderly
© Jose Raymond Thomas Devaraj
Net search stimulates mind more strongly than reading: Study

Surfing the Web can help slow the effects of age-related mental declines that can end in dementia by boosting the brain activity of the elderly, new research has found.

Using brain scans, a team at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) found that using the Internet stimulated the mind more strongly than reading, with effects that continued long after an Internet session had ended, the Sunday Times of London reported.

'We found that for older people with minimal experience, performing Internet searches for even a relatively short period of time can change brain activity patterns and enhance function,' Dr Gary Small, a professor of neuroscience at UCLA, told the newspaper.

Dr Small and his team worked with 24 men and women between the ages of 55 and 78. Half of them were regular users of the Internet, while the other half had little experience online.
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Brain tumor survivors shouldn't take it easy


Ivanhoe Newswire
Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:00 UTC
Exercise after receiving radiation to the brain is key to improving memory and mood, new research shows.

Exercise appears to prevent the decline of erasable memory, which is similar to the memory problems patients with brain tumors experience following whole-brain radiation.

"This is the type of short-term memory people use to find their car after they have parked it in a large lot," Christina Williams, Ph.D., a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the Duke University in Durham, N.C., was quoted as saying. "After radiation, this type of memory becomes impaired in many people."

In the scientists' experiment, one group of mice was kept in their cages following brain radiation, to live among other mice as they normally would -- eating and playing. A separate group of mice, however, was given access to a running wheel to use as they wanted. The mice that were able to exercise scored just as well on a memory test as normal mice did; however, the mice that did not have access to the exercise wheel did not.
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Diabetes Reduces Brain Function

David Gutierrez
Natural News
Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:00 UTC
Repeated exposure to the low blood sugar levels caused by poorly controlled diabetes may damage the brain's cognitive function, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Edinburgh and presented at a conference of the nonprofit Diabetes U.K.

"This study reinforces previous evidence which suggests that poorly controlled diabetes affects the functioning of the brain," said Iain Frame of Diabetes U.K. "We already know that Type 2 diabetes increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, which is a type of dementia, and this research adds another piece to a very complex jigsaw puzzle."

Type 2 diabetes is marked by unusually high blood sugar levels due to the body's acquired insensitivity to the sugar-regulating hormone insulin. Excessive doses of insulin or other diabetes drugs may push blood sugar levels too low, resulting in a hypoglycemic episode -- or "hypo" -- in which the brain is starved of the glucose it needs to function.

Symptoms of hypos include blurred vision, dizziness, elevated heart rate, hunger, fatigue, sweating and weakness.
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Neuroscientists: Why is the Brain Deceived as if by Magic?

Mary Brophy Marcus
USA Today
Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:00 UTC
Eric Mead
© Ed Kosmicki/USA TodayMagicians such as Eric Mead, who is what is known in the trade as a "mind reader," are helping neuroscientists understand what happens when the brain is tricked.
They seem an unlikely match, but magicians and neuroscientists are pairing up to share their knowledge and learn more about the workings of the human mind.

At the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago on Saturday, thousands of scientists gathered to watch magicians perform and then chat about attention, memory and perception.

"There is no better way to see how the mind works than to study how we can be deceived," says Thomas Carew, president of the Society for Neuroscience.

Researchers say they hope what they glean from magicians will help them better understand, diagnose and treat certain cognitive illnesses.

"We are trying to develop with magicians an understanding of how they manipulate awareness, how they apply insights about cognition and perception to do that," says Stephen Macknik, director of the Laboratory of Behavioral Neurophysiology at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, a conference presenter on the topic. "We want to poach their powers and use them to increase brain discovery."
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Breast Cancer May Be Developing Earlier

Mindy Hartman
Huliq News
Tue, 20 Oct 2009 06:00 UTC
Researchers noted that breast cancer may be developing in more women at younger ages.

The findings presented at the 2009 Breast Cancer Symposium, held last week in San Francisco, could potentially affect how women are screened for breast cancer.

Reserachers reported that women with a high genetic risk of developing breast cancer are being diagnosed sooner than similar women in the past. They note this may suggest that tumors are being found earlier in the younger generation.

About 5 percent to 10 percent of breast cancer cases are thought to be connected to a genetic mutation that is also linked to ovarian cancer. Women with the mutations, known as BRCA1 or BRCA2, have an increased risk of developing breast tumors the scientists noted. Over a lifetime, 60 percent of these women will develop the disease, according to the American Cancer Society. By comparison, 12 percent of women in the general population will develop breast cancer.
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Added Oxygen During Stroke Reduces Brain Tissue Damage

Emily Caldwell
Medical News Today
Tue, 20 Oct 2009 05:00 UTC
Scientists have countered findings of previous clinical trials by showing that giving supplemental oxygen to animals during a stroke can reduce damage to brain tissue surrounding the clot.

The timing of the delivery of 100 percent oxygen - either by mask or in a hyperbaric chamber - is critical to achieving the benefit, however.

"The use of supplemental oxygen after blood flow is restored in the brain appears to actually cause harm by unleashing free radicals," said Savita Khanna, assistant professor of surgery at Ohio State University and principal investigator of the research. "The resulting tissue damage was worse than stroke-affected tissue that received no treatment at all."

Previous clinical trials in humans have suggested that administering oxygen under pressure could harm stroke patients. But the studies did not take into account the status of blood flow in the brain at the time the oxygen was delivered, Khanna noted.
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