Neuroscience

If you see commercials for brain-training products, the companies all tout laboratory studies and scientific backing for their products in how they can improve your brainpower. Most intervention studies like these have a critical flaw, notes a new paper in Perspectives on Psychological Science: They do not account for the placebo effect. The results of psychological interventions, like medical ones, must be compared to improvements in a control condition, say University of Illinois psychology professor Daniel Simons, who co-wrote the article with Walter Boot, Cary Stothart and Cassie Stutts…

The minds of murderers who kill impulsively - crimes of passion, as they are commonly called - and those who carefully carry out premeditated crimes differ markedly both psychologically and intellectually, according to a new paper. Predatory murderers had more psychiatric disorders, though not intellectual impairment. Adam Lanza and James Holmes fit that profile, as do many of the large planned homicides that have occurred in the last decade, whereas it may be that New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was an impulse killer - unless the investigation into another killing pans out.…

A group of investigators from San Diego State University's Brain Development Imaging Laboratory say they can see the effects of autism on the brain. They conclude that connectivity between the thalamus, a deep brain structure crucial for sensory and motor functions, and the cerebral cortex, the brain's outer layer, is impaired in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The thalamus is a crucial brain structure for many functions, such as vision, hearing, movement control and attention. They examined more than 50 children, with autism and without, according to their paper in BRAIN, and…

While too much of anything can be bad at any time, a little drinking - 3 to 7 glasses of alcohol a week - does not seem to harm fetal neurodevelopment, according a large study published in the online only journal BMJ Open. Good thing too, or entire generations of children would be mentally stunted - not drinking at all during pregnancy became the cultural norm a generation ago and it used the same kinds of longitudinal study that now says moderate drinking is okay. And more affluent and better educated mums-to-be tend to drink more than women who are less well off, say the researchers, which…

Fibromyalgia is a blanket term for a general painful condition that affects approximately 10 million people in the United States. Because it lacks consistent symptoms and treatments, some doctors believe an unknown number of instances are psychosomatic but a new paper in PAIN MEDICINE concludes that fibromyalgia may have a rational biological basis, located in the skin.  Fibromyalgia is characterized by widespread deep tissue pain, tenderness in the hands and feet, fatigue, sleep disorders, and cognitive decline. However, routine testing has been largely unable to detect a biological…

An experiment to probe brain circuits involved in compulsive behavior - where mice were bred missing a gene suspected to be involved in compulsive behavior and obesity - resulted in offspring mice that were neither compulsive groomers nor obese. Their Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) paper suggests that the brain circuits that control obsessive-compulsive behavior are intertwined with circuits that control food intake and body weight.   University of Iowa psychiatrists Michael Lutter, M.D., Ph.D. and Andrew Pieper, M.D., Ph.D., led the study, which included…

You've heard of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) but less well-known is canine compulsive disorder (CCD).  The causes of OCD, which affects about 2 percent of the population, are unknown and the disorder often goes untreated or undiagnosed for decades. People with OCD often exhibit repetitive behaviors or persistent thoughts that are time consuming and interfere with daily routines. Canine compulsive disorder is even less understood anddDogs with CCD engage in repetitious and destructive behaviors such as flank- and blanket-sucking, tail chasing, and chewing. Both OCD…

Researchers have reversed behavioral and brain abnormalities in adult mice that resemble schizophrenia by restoring normal expression to a suspect gene, Neuregulin 1, that is over-expressed in humans with the illness. Targeting Neuregulin 1, which makes a protein important for brain development, may hold promise for treating at least some patients with the brain disorder, say the scientists. Like patients with schizophrenia, adult mice biogenetically-engineered to have higher Neuregulin 1 levels showed reduced activity of the brain messenger chemicals glutamate and GABA. The mice also showed…

The itch sensation is triggered by two categories of itch-inducing agents: histamine (involving the histamine receptor) and non-histamine (involving a Mas-like G-protein coupled receptor). While the molecular distinction is crucial for developing effective treatments for the specific forms of itch sensation, it remains unclear as to how the two forms of itch sensations are encoded in the sensory system. A heavily debated school of thought suggests that itch sensation, in response to either histamine and non-histamine inducers, is differentially triggered by distinct populations of sensory…

A naturally occurring protein, diazepam binding inhibitor (DBI) , secreted only in discrete areas of the mammalian brain may act as a Valium-like brake on certain types of epileptic seizures.  Valium, which is notoriously addictive, prone to abuse and dangerous at high doses, was an early drug treatment for epilepsy, but it has fallen out of use for this purpose because its efficacy quickly wears off and because newer, better anti-epileptic drugs have come along. Researchers writing in Neuron say DBI calms the rhythms of a key brain circuit and so could prove valuable in developing novel…