At least one in three children in this country has difficulty learning to read. Research shows that children’s aggressive behavior and reading difficulties during early elementary school years are risk factors for adolescent problem behaviors such as delinquency, academic failure, and substance use. Oregon Research Institute scientists recently received high marks for their work to reverse this trend.
For the first time, researchers have inhibited the development of epilepsy after a brain insult in animals. By using gene therapy to modify signaling pathways in the brain, neurology researchers found that they could significantly reduce the development of epileptic seizures in rats.
Parents and pre-school children have a more positive interaction when sharing a reading experience with a traditional book as opposed to an electronic book or e-book, according researchers at Temple University’s Infant Laboratory and Erikson Institute in Chicago. This shared positive experience from traditional books characteristically promotes early literacy skills.
Neuroscientists had long believed that the only way to repair a spinal cord injury was to grow new neural connections, but researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have found that, especially in young rats, powerful cells near the injury site also work overtime to restrict nerve damage and restore movement and sensation.
In new research, reported in the current online issue of the journal Social Neuroscience, researchers from the University of Georgia and San Diego State University report for the first time that social exclusion actually causes changes in a person’s brain function and can lead to poor decision-making and a diminished learning ability.
With the help of tiny, transparent zebrafish embryos, researchers are hoping to prove that a microscopic nanoparticle can be part of a “new class of radioprotective agents” that help protect normal tissue from radiation damage just as well as standard drugs. They’ve shown that the nanoparticle, DF-1 — a soccer ball-shaped, hollow, carbon-based structure known as a fullerene — is as good as two antioxidant drugs and FDA-approved Amifostine in fending off radiation damage from normal tissue.
A gene variant associated with mental illness goes hand-in-hand with enlargement of a brain region that handles negative emotions, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center and the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System have found.
Scientists from King’s submitted a licence application yesterday (6 November) to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to allow them to fuse human cells with animal eggs. If granted, the licence will boost research into some of the most debilitating and untreatable neurological diseases.
It is possible to enjoy the tempting offerings of the holiday season and still manage your weight, according to nutrition and weight management expert Madelyn Fernstrom, Ph.D., director of the UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) Weight Management Center.
Despite an overall decline in invasive breast cancer in the United States in recent years, African-American women, particularly younger ones, have not seen a significant decline in their rates, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh. These findings, which are being presented at the American Public Health Association (AHPA) Annual Meeting in Boston, Nov. 4 ? 8, strongly suggest the need for additional research to understand why these differences persist and to determine whether avoidable or preventable factors account for these puzzling patterns, according to the investigators.