Health News

How The Brain Evaluates Risk

Date: Sep-21-2012
People are faced with thousands of choices every day, some inane and some risky. Scientists know that the areas of the brain that evaluate risk are the same for each person, but what makes the value assigned to risk different for individuals? To answer this question, a new video article in Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to characterize subjective risk assessment while subjects choose between different lotteries to play...

First Extensive Analysis Of Allen Human Brain Atlas Has Implications For Basic Understanding Of The Human Brain And For Medicine

Date: Sep-21-2012
Scientists at the Allen Institute for Brain Science reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature that human brains share a consistent genetic blueprint and possess enormous biochemical complexity. The findings stem from the first deep and large-scale analysis of the vast data set publicly available in the Allen Human Brain Atlas. The results of this study are based on extensive analysis of the Allen Human Brain Atlas, specifically the detailed all-genes, all-structures survey of genes at work throughout the human brain...

Minorities Make Up Nearly Half Of Kidney Recipients In Live Donor Transplant Chains

Date: Sep-21-2012
The largest U.S. multicenter study of living kidney transplant donor chains showed that 46 percent of recipients are minorities, a finding that allays previous fears that these groups would be disadvantaged by expansion of the donor pool through this type of exchange process...

Emotional Recovery May Be Delayed By Post-Breakup Facebook Surveillance

Date: Sep-21-2012
More than 900 million people worldwide are active users of the social networking site Facebook, and it is estimated that as many as one-third report using Facebook to check on the activities of former romantic partners. The effects of remaining Facebook friends with an ex-lover or even just following their activities online can disrupt a person's ability to heal emotionally and move on with his or her life, according to an article in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert Inc., publishers...

Allowing Minors To Taste Alcohol Discourages Later Abuse, Parents Believe

Date: Sep-21-2012
One in every four moms think that it is okay to give their kids a tiny taste of alcohol when they are young, with the hope that it will make the children not want to drink when they are teens, while 40% think that taking a sip of alcohol will result in young kids wanting to drink more when they are older, according to a recent study published in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. A 2008 study claimed that when moms overestimated their kids' future alcohol use, the teens were led to drink more, because they believed it was what their parents expected anyways...

Playground Peers Can Predict Success In Adulthood

Date: Sep-21-2012
Your success as an adult can be best predicted by your childhood peers from grade school, even better than you can predict for yourself. Childhood peer evaluation of classmate personality traits can better predict adulthood success than self-evaluation as a child, according to a new study by members of the Concordia-based Centre for Research in Human Development, Lisa Serbin of the Department of Psychology at Concordia University, and Alexa Martin-Storey, a recent Concordia graduate and a current post-doctoral student at the University of Texas...

Parkinson's Patients Benefit From Walking To The Beat

Date: Sep-21-2012
Walking to a specific rhythm can be advantageous during rehabilitation for Parkinson's Disease patients. Parkinson's Disease is a brain disorder characterized by tremors and difficulty walking. Eventually stiffness becomes prominent, muscles become weaker, and posture is affected. Many studies have recommended certain rehabilitation paths, acupuncture being one of them.. In a new study published in PLOS One, findings suggest further studies should be completed to investigate visual, auditory, and tactile signals and their role in rehabilitation...

An International 'Dream Team' Against Breast Cancer

Date: Sep-21-2012
The Vall d'Hebron Breast Cancer Unit, the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) and SOLTI, an academic breast cancer research group , are heading up a multi-centre international study involving four Spanish and three North American research centres*. The aim of the study is to investigate whether BKM120, a drug that inhibits the PI3K pathway (phosphatidylinositol-3-Kinase) can be an effective treatment against triple-negative breast cancer. At present it is known that breast cancer can be classified into different subtypes with varying prognoses and responses to treatment...

Global Climate Change Responsible For Northern Spread Of Avian Malaria, May Also Affect The Spread Of Human Malaria

Date: Sep-21-2012
Malaria has been found in birds in parts of Alaska, and global climate change will drive it even farther north, according to a new study published today in the journal PLOS ONE. The spread could prove devastating to arctic bird species that have never encountered the disease and thus have no resistance to it, said San Francisco State University Associate Professor of Biology Ravinder Sehgal, one of the study's co-authors. It may also help scientists understand the effects of climate change on the spread of human malaria, which is caused by a similar parasite...

Unreliable Neural Responses Found In Autistic Adults

Date: Sep-21-2012
Autism is a disorder well known for its complex changes in behavior - including repeating actions over and over and having difficulty with social interactions and language. Current approaches to understanding what causes these atypical behaviors focus primarily on specific brain regions associated with these specific behaviors without necessarily linking back to fundamental properties of the brain's signaling abilities...