August 22, 2013 |
Nothing gets our attention like pain. But pain is more than the body's miniature cattle prod to get us to heed a wound, rest a swollen ankle, or stop eating chili peppers. Pain may be the language between animals and microbes. Far from being a product of an inflamed immune system, aggravated nerves far from the spine and brain appear to communicate with invading bacteria and regulate the fight against them, according to a study published online Wednesday in the journal Nature.
July 10, 2013 |
An immune system that ensures survival is one of the earliest gifts from a mother to her child. But sometimes, that gift can be a Trojan horse, sending soldiers that are programmed to attack the body's own antigens into the fetus, where they interfere with brain development. The result is maternal autoantibody related (MAR) autism, which may account for as much as 23% of the cases of that spectrum of brain disorders. Now UC Davis researchers believe they have found the targets of these maternal autoantibodies, a potential step in the path toward preventive treatment for women contemplating pregnancy.
June 6, 2013 |
If you lived during the early Cold War, you got nuked. On the other hand, you may have grown new brain cells. That's the take-away of research in the journal Cell that calculated the growth of brain cells in adult brains by using an isotope of carbon that was picked up by humans from the fallout due to above-ground nuclear testing from the late 1940s to 1963. Neuroscientists have shifted from an old view that you'll never have more neurons than you had when your brain was a pup. Studies have suggested that adult brains generate new neurons, particularly in the hippocampus, an area crucial to learning and memory.
May 31, 2013 |
How an autistic baby's brain fires up in response to words at 2 years of age may predict how well that child will learn language and even think and behave later in life, a new study shows. The research, published this week in the online journal PLOS One, suggests that a “social gateway” based in the brain impedes not only early language processing, but a broader spectrum of cognitive development, including the ability to adapt behavior to circumstances, according to Patricia Kuhl, who studies early language and brain development at the University of Washington's Institute for Brain and Learning Sciences.
May 14, 2013 |
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. - Even though its ubiquitous Internet search engine practically mints money, Google Inc. was widely seen as a company whose best days were behind it. It was written off as the next Microsoft Corp. - a staid high-tech giant in the shadows of Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. that had lost its sense of urgency and innovative edge. But that sentiment has shifted dramatically over the last year, and when Google swings open the doors to its annual conference for software developers Wednesday, it won't just be showcasing its latest products.
November 26, 2012 |
In a finding that points to a link between environmental toxins and autism, a new study shows that children who were exposed to the highest levels of traffic-related air pollution during gestation and in early infancy were three times more likely to be diagnosed with the neurodevelopmental disorder than were those whose early exposure to such pollutants was very low. The study , published Monday in the Archives of General Psychiatry, found that...