Latest Frontal lobe Stories
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. "” A new study of brain activity in depressed and anxious people indicates that some of the ill effects of depression are modified "“ for better or for worse "“ by anxiety.The study, in the journal Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, looked at depression and two types of anxiety: anxious arousal, the fearful vigilance that sometimes turns into panic; and anxious apprehension, better known as worry.The researchers used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging...
Like patients, engineered mice falter at working memory tasksThe strongest known recurrent genetic cause of schizophrenia impairs communications between the brain's decision-making and memory hubs, resulting in working memory deficits, according to a study in mice."For the first time, we have a powerful animal model that shows us how genetics affects brain circuitry, at the level of single neurons, to produce a learning and memory deficit linked to schizophrenia," explained Thomas...
The study, published online by the journal Biological Psychiatry, is the first study done with monkeys that examines the effects of flu during pregnancy. CHAPEL HILL "“ Rhesus monkey babies born to mothers who had the flu while pregnant had smaller brains and showed other brain changes similar to those observed in human patients with schizophrenia, a study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in collaboration with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found.The study,...
Reading this story requires you to willfully pay attention to the sentences and to tune out nearby conversations, the radio and other distractions. But if a fire alarm sounded, your attention would be involuntarily snatched away from the story to the blaring sound.New research from Vanderbilt University reveals for the first time how our brains coordinate these two types of attention and why we may be temporarily blinded by surprises.The research was published March 7, 2010, in Nature...
Brain differences caused by known schizophrenia gene may explain late development of classic symptomsIn reports of two new studies, researchers led by Johns Hopkins say they have identified the mechanisms rooted in two anatomical brain abnormalities that may explain the onset of schizophrenia and the reason symptoms don't develop until young adulthood. Both types of anatomical glitches are influenced by a gene known as DISC1, whose mutant form was first identified in a Scottish family with a...
Have you ever forgotten to post an important letter or let an appointment slip your mind? A new study from UK researchers suggests that for those who regularly use ecstasy or other recreational drugs, this kind of memory lapse is more common. Their research, which uncovered potential links between memory deficits and cocaine for the first time, appears in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, published by SAGE.Florentia Hadjiefthyvoulou, John Fisk, and Nikola Bridges from the University of...
A new study by researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP), King's College London has discovered abnormalities in the white matter of the brain that seem to be critical for the timing of schizophrenia. The study, led by Professor Phillip McGuire and Dr Sophia Frangou, has been published in this month's edition of the British Journal of Psychiatry.The white matter of the brain consists of nerve fibers that connect parts of the brain and help regulate behavior. The normal brain develops in...
Researchers at Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) pioneer bilateral epidural prefrontal cortical stimulationA new neurosurgical procedure may prove helpful for patients with treatment-resistant depression. Bilateral epidural prefrontal cortical stimulation (EpCS) was found generally safe and provided significant improvement of depressive symptoms in a small group of patients, according to lead researcher Ziad Nahas, M.D. at the Medical University of South Carolina. The data are...
Using a mouse model, U.S. scientists say they have discovered schizophrenia symptoms are triggered by a low level of a brain protein. In human and mouse brains, the brain protein kalirin is needed to build the dense network of highways -- dendritic spines -- which allow information to flow from one neuron to another. Peter Penzes of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine finds that without adequate kalirin, the frontal cortex of the brain of a person with schizophrenia only has...
It comes as no surprise that some babies are more difficult to soothe than others but frustrated parents may be relieved to know that this is not necessarily an indication of their parenting skills. According to a new report in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, children's temperament may be due in part to a combination of a certain gene and a specific pattern of brain activity.The pattern of brain activity in the frontal cortex of the brain has...
