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Binge-eating disorder linked to lifelong impairments in 12-country study
Date: Sep-24-2013Binge-eating disorder, designated only months ago by the American Psychiatric Association as a diagnosis in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is associated with substantial lifelong impairments comparable to those of bulimia nervosa, according to a World Health Organization study based on community epidemiological surveys conducted in 12 nations worldwide. The publication of the results online in Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences is timed to coincide with the beginning of Weight Stigma Awareness Week (September 23-27)...
Neurofeedback can enhance the signal-to-noise ratio in thought, enabling a sharper focus on tasks
Date: Sep-24-2013The sweep of a needle across the grooves of a worn vinyl record carries distinct sounds: hisses, scratches, even the echo of skips. For many years, though, those yearning to hear Frank Sinatra sing "Fly Me to the Moon" have been able to listen to his light baritone with technical clarity, courtesy of the increased signal-to-noise ratio of digital remasterings...
New method for analyzing gene expression in single cells opens window into tumors and other tissues
Date: Sep-24-2013A team of researchers affiliated with Ludwig Cancer Research and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden report in the current issue of Nature Methods a dramatically improved technique for analyzing the genes expressed within a single cell -- a capability of relevance to everything from basic research to future cancer diagnostics. "There are cells in tumors and in healthy tissues that are not present in sufficient numbers to permit analysis using anything but single-cell methods," explains senior author, Rickard Sandberg, PhD...
Study findings may affect how clinicians and health systems deliver patient-centered care
Date: Sep-24-2013Psychiatrists and psychologists have long understood that an individual's personality can define how he or she views the world around them, reacts to situations, and interacts with others. It now appears that personality traits can be linked to the frequency with which older adults use expensive health care services...
How brain cell connections get cemented early in life could aid understanding of autism, schizophrenia, intellectual disability
Date: Sep-24-2013When we're born, our brains aren't very organized. Every brain cell talks to lots of other nearby cells, sending and receiving signals across connections called synapses. But as we grow and learn, things get a bit more stable. The brain pathways that will serve us our whole lives start to organize, and less-active, inefficient synapses shut down. But why and how does this happen? And what happens when it doesn't go normally? New research from the University of Michigan Medical School may help explain...
Exploring barriers to HIV vaccine response
Date: Sep-24-2013Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) discovered that an antibody that binds and neutralizes HIV likely also targets the body's own "self" proteins. This finding could complicate the development of HIV vaccines designed to elicit this protective antibody, called 4E10, and others like it, as doing so might be dangerous or inefficient...
Possible epigenetic sources of chronic aggressive behavior in boys
Date: Sep-24-2013Chronic aggressive behaviour exhibited by some boys from disadvantaged families may be due to epigenetic changes during pregnancy and early childhood. This is highlighted by two studies conducted by a team led by Richard E. Tremblay, professor emeritus at the University of Montreal and Moshe Szyf, professor at McGill University, published in the journal PLOS ONE. The first author of the two papers, Nadine Provençal, was jointly supervised by professors Szyf and Tremblay...
New anesthetics likely following propofol discovery
Date: Sep-24-2013Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Imperial College London have identified the site where the widely used anesthetic drug propofol binds to receptors in the brain to sedate patients during surgery. Until now, it hasn't been clear how propofol connects with brain cells to induce anesthesia. The researchers believe the findings, reported online in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, eventually will lead to the development of more effective anesthetics with fewer side effects...
'Odour is a means of chemical communication between mother and child' - Johannes Frasnelli, University of Montreal
Date: Sep-24-2013What woman has not wanted to gobble up a baby placed in her arms, even if the baby is not hers? This reaction, which everyone has noticed or felt, could have biological underpinnings related to maternal functions. For the first time, an international team of researchers has found evidence of this phenomenon in the neural networks associated with reward...
Pandemic 'natural experiment' brings scientists closer to universal flu vaccine
Date: Sep-24-2013Scientists have moved closer to developing a universal flu vaccine after using the 2009 pandemic as a natural experiment to study why some people seem to resist severe illness. Researchers at Imperial College London asked volunteers to donate blood samples just as the swine flu pandemic was getting underway and report any symptoms they experienced over the next two flu seasons. They found that those who avoided severe illness had more CD8 T cells, a type of virus-killing immune cell, in their blood at the start of the pandemic...
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