Athletes who suffer a concussion can experience a decline in their mental and physical processes more than 30 years later, according to a Canadian study that's the first to identify these kinds of long-term effects.
The researchers examined 40 healthy, former university-level athletes between the ages of 50 and 60. Of those, 19 had suffered a concussion more than 30 years ago, and 21 had no history of concussion.
Compared to those who were concussion-free, the participants who'd been concussed only once or twice in their early adulthood showed declines in attention and memory, as well as a slowing of some types of movement.
Gene therapy seems to have cured eight of 10 children who had potentially fatal "bubble boy disease," according to a study that followed their progress for about four years after treatment. The eight patients were no longer on medication for the rare disease, which cripples the body's defenses against infection. The successful treatment is reported in Thursday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine and offers hope for treating other diseases with a gene therapy approach.
Lack of sleep is a common complaint but for many, falling asleep involuntarily during the day poses a very real and dangerous problem. A new study from the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) at McGill University demonstrates interestingly, that sleep-wake states are regulated by two different types of nerve cells (neurons), melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) neurons and orexin (Orx) neurons, which occupy the same region of the brain but perform opposite functions.
The MNI study is the first to discover that MCH neurons are activated during sleep and could thus be important in regulating the sleep state. The study, published in this week's issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides deeper understanding of the sleep-wake cycle and vital insight into the basis of sleep disorders such as narcolepsy and possibly also other diseases such as depression and Parkinson's.
Sleep is regulated by processes in the brain in response to how long we are awake in addition to the light/dark cycle controlled by the circadian rhythm. With Drs. Oum Hassani and Maan Gee Lee, Dr. Barbara Jones at the MNI were studying a structure in the brain called the lateral hypothalamus (LH) known to be critical for maintaining wakefulness. MCH neurons, co-distributed with Orx neurons, constitute less than 10% of the LH.
We all have goals and desires, but unfortunately, they are not always achieved. For example, a fouled basketball player tries for a free throw shot, but misses. It may be obvious that he wanted to make the shot, but the outcome did not match that goal. As adults, we are able to tell the difference between people's internal goals and the behaviors they influence. When do we gain this ability? Are infants able to "see" the hidden reasons behind certain actions? That is, can an infant tell that the basketball player intended to make the free throw shot, even though he missed? Earlier research indicates that older infants (15- to 18-month olds) are able to separate goals and intentions from actions, but University of Michigan psychologists Amanda C. Brandone and Henry M. Wellman conducted a study to determine if younger infants also have this ability.
Marilyn Elias
USA TodayWed, 28 Jan 2009 19:43 UTC
A Southern California man employed in the entertainment business is the fourth person verified by scientists to have an ultra-rare memory gift: He recalls in detail most days of his life, as well as the day and date of key public events, says Larry Cahill, who co-leads a project on people with super-memory.
The name of the latest "bona fide" won't be released by scientists because he's a research subject, but he is free to identify himself.
Meanwhile, MRI scans on Jill Price, 43, the Los Angeles religious school administrator who in 2006 was the first person confirmed to have such an ability, reveal two abnormally large areas in her brain.
Elizabeth Landau
CNNWed, 28 Jan 2009 18:09 UTC
© Getty ImagesScientists have found mechanisms for how the brain creates short-term and long-term memories.
What was the name of that guy with that stuff in that place with those things? Don't you remember?
We all suffer occasional lapses in memory. Some people suffer severe neurological conditions, such as Alzheimer's, that rob them of their ability to form memories or remember recent events.
Three new studies shed light on the way the brain forms, stores and retrieves memories. Experts say they could have implications for people with certain mental disorders.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and David Kirby
Huffington PostWed, 28 Jan 2009 13:36 UTC
Even as the evidence connecting America's autism epidemic to vaccines mounts, dead-enders at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) -- many of whom promoted the current vaccine schedule and others with strong ties to the vaccine industry -- are trying to delay the day of reckoning by creating questionable studies designed to discredit any potential vaccine-autism link and by derailing authentic studies.
A study released Wednesday finds that bisphenol A, a chemical widely used to make plastic and suspected of causing cancer, stays in the body much longer than previously thought.
The findings are significant because the longer the chemical lingers in the body, the greater chance it has of doing harm, scientists say.
Researchers from the University of Rochester in New York also say the chemical may get into the body from sources such as plastic water pipes or dust from carbonless paper and not only from food containers that leach the chemical when heated.
The study results, published Wednesday in Environmental Health Perspectives, have sparked a flurry of concern and renewed calls for regulation.
"The study reinforces the urgent need for stricter government oversight and regulation of this extremely toxic chemical," said Janet Nudelman, director of program and policy at the Breast Cancer Fund, a health advocacy group. "It adds to what we already know about BPA, a chemical so powerful that at extremely low levels - parts per billion or even parts per trillion - it can cross the placenta and alter the mammary gland of the developing fetus, increasing breast cancer risk later in life."
Is it possible to share a pain that you observe in another but have never actually experienced yourself? A new study uses a sophisticated brain-imaging technique to try and answer this question. The research, published by Cell Press in the January 29th issue of the journal Neuron, provides insight into brain mechanisms involved in empathy.
Brain-imaging studies have shown similar patterns of brain activity when subjects feel their own emotions or observe the same emotions in others. It has been suggested that a person who has never experienced a specific feeling would have a difficult time directly empathizing with a person through a "mirror matching" mechanism that requires previous experience and would instead have to rely on a higher inferential processes called "perspective taking."
"Patients with congenital insensitivity to pain (CIP) offer a unique opportunity to test this model of empathy by exploring how the lack of self-pain representation might influence the perception of others' pain," explains lead author Dr. Nicolas Danziger from the Department of Clinical Neurophysiology and Pain Center at the Pitie-Salpetriere in Paris, France.
Psychopathic criminals are managing to trick correctional staff and parole boards into releasing them back into the community, research claims.
A study published in the journal Legal and Criminological Psychology today suggests criminals diagnosed with psychopathy are more likely to be released then non-psychopaths despite their higher re-offence rate.
