Newsline — Wednesday, January 11, 2012 16:00
Review Addresses Effects of Heading in Soccer on Brain Injury
Scientists Study Songbird Brain Synapses to Learn About the Hormone Estrogen
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 9:00
American University biology professor Colin Saldanha — along with colleagues from the University of Massachussetts, Amherst, and the University of California, Los Angeles — recently published research that introduced a new method of estrogen synthesis to the scientific community: synaptocrine signaling, or at the synapse. Saldanha has always been intrigued by the hormone estrogen — in particular, how a hormone that promotes sexual behavior in women, but also can increase susceptibility to seizures, does not cause major cross-circuit meltdowns. As such, he has been studying the brains of songbirds — specifically, adult male zebra finches — for answers. Male zebra finches sing, but female zebra finches do not. During the spring mating season, when males court prospective mates with their songs, parts of the male birds’ brains nearly double in size, only to shrink back to normal come fall. Estrogen is behind the phenomenon. For more information, click here to read the full release.
National Academy of Sciences Names Two New Council Members from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 13:00
Two Brain & Behavior Research Foundation scientific council members are among 72 new members elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) — a non-profit organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to advancing science and promoting its use for the greater good. The academy also serves as an official advisor to the federal government on issues related to science and technology. Huda Akil, PhD, of the University of Michigan and Robert C. Malenka, PhD, MD, of Stanford University School of Medicine join nine other Scientific Council Members on the National Academy of Sciences. Election to NAS membership is a high honor that recognizes those who have made distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Researchers Link Low Levels of Vitamin D to Depression
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 9:00
In what is believed to be one of the largest investigations ever undertaken on the subject, UT Southwestern Medical Center psychiatrists working with the Cooper Center Longitudinal Study have linked low levels of Vitamin D to depression. The results of the study have been published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Mayo Clinic’s peer-reviewed journal. Low Vitamin-D levels already are associated with a number of health woes, including cardiovascular disease and neurological ailments. This new study helps clarify a debate that erupted after smaller studies produced conflicting results about the relationship between Vitamin D and depression. Major depressive disorder affects nearly one in 10 adults in the U.S. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Wake Forest Baptist to Participate in Clinical Trial of Brain Tumor Vaccine
Monday, January 9, 2012 17:06
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., is the only facility in the Southeast U.S. participating in a national clinical trial that tests the efficacy of a novel brain tumor vaccine. The vaccine will be tested in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most aggressive and highest grade of malignant glioma. Wake Forest Baptist will treat at least 25 patients in this randomized, placebo-controlled phase II clinical trial of ICT-107. Nationwide, 20 sites are taking part in this trial. Every patient enrolled in the study will undergo the current standard treatment for GBM, including surgery followed by radiation and chemotherapy. In addition, two-thirds of participants then will receive the experimental vaccine treatment, to be administered in the post-radiation phase of treatment, while the remaining one-third will get a “dummy” or placebo vaccine, plus standard therapy. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Society for Women’s Health Research Offers New Neuroscience Fellowship
Monday, January 9, 2012 13:00
The Society for Women’s Health Research’s (SWHR’s) new Donald G. and Darel Stein Fellowship promotes the study of sex differences in neuroscience, granting a travel award opportunity for four full-time students in this field. The award can be used for expenses associated with attendance at a scientific meeting where each student presents a poster on neuroscience and sex differences. Proposed projects must advance the understanding of sex differences in neuroscience from the perspective of laboratory research, health promotion, health education or health policy. Up to four awards will be funded each cycle. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Scientists Learning How to Better Suppress Brain Metastasis Damage
Thursday, January 5, 2012 18:07
Researchers are closer to fixing the damage brought on by brain metastasis, a major challenge in cancer treatment, according to data published in Cancer Research, an American Association for Cancer Research journal. “We are making progress from the neck down in cancer treatment, but brain metastases are increasing and are often a primary reason patients with breast cancer do not survive,” said Patricia S. Steeg, PhD, head of the Women’s Cancers Section at the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Research. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Adolescent Schizophrenia Linked to Progressive Brain Changes
Wednesday, January 4, 2012 0:00
Adolescents who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia and other psychoses seem to show greater decreases in gray matter volume and increases in cerebrospinal fluid in the frontal lobe versus healthy adolescents without a diagnosis of psychosis, reports an article in the January 2012 issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, a JAMA/Archives journal. “Progressive loss of brain gray matter (GM) has been reported in childhood-onset schizophrenia,” write the authors. “However, it is uncertain whether these changes are shared by pediatric patients with different psychoses.” For more information, click here to read the full release
‘Silent Strokes’ Linked to Memory Loss
Monday, January 2, 2012 9:00
New research links “silent strokes,” or small spots of dead brain cells, found in about one out of four older adults to memory loss in the elderly. The findings appear in the Jan. 3, 2012, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “The new aspect of this study of memory loss in the elderly is that it examines silent strokes and hippocampal shrinkage simultaneously,” said study author Adam M. Brickman, PhD, of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. For more information, click here to read the full release.
Study Recognizes Brain Benefits of a Diet High in Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Certain Vitamins
Friday, December 30, 2011 9:00
Those with diets high in several vitamins or in omega-3 fatty acids are less likely to experience the brain shrinkage associated with Alzheimer’s disease than people whose diets are not high in those nutrients, according to a new study published in the Dec. 28, 2011, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Those with diets high in omega-3 fatty acids as well as vitamins C, D and E, plus the B vitamins, also scored higher on mental thinking tests than people with diets low in those nutrients. Omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D are found primarily in fish. The B vitamins and antioxidants C and E are found primarily in fruits and vegetables. For more information, click here to read the full release.