When researchers examined human postmortem brain tissue, some from typical brains and others from those with an autism diagnosis, they found evidence of changes to blood vessels in autistic brains. Explains Efrain Azmitia, a biology professor at New York University and senior author of the study published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders:…
Architecture Of mTOR Protein Complex Solved
For a long time it has been known that the protein TOR – Target of Rapamycin – controls cell growth and is involved in the development of diseases such as cancer and diabetes. Researchers at the University of Basel’s Biozentrum together with scientists from ETH Zurich have now examined the structure of mammalian TOR complex…
Coffee May Improve Athletic Endurance Performance
The caffeine in a morning cup of coffee could help improve athletic endurance, according to a new University of Georgia review study. Author Simon Higgins, a third-year doctoral student in kinesiology, reviewed more than 600 scholarly articles and screened them for those that focused only on caffeinated-coffee conditions, measured the caffeine dose and measured an…
Scientists Identify Neural Population Highly Selective for Music
Scientists have long wondered if the human brain contains neural mechanisms specific to music perception. Now, for the first time, MIT neuroscientists have identified a neural population in the human auditory cortex that responds selectively to sounds that people typically categorize as music, but not to speech or other environmental sounds. “It has been the…
Distractibility Trait Predisposes Some To Attentional Lapses
People vary according to different personality traits, such as extraversion or conscientiousness, and new research suggests that they also vary according to a particular cognitive trait: distractibility. Says study author Nilli Lavie of University College London: “We all know from personal experience that some people appear to be more prone to lapses of attention than…
Emotion Processing In Brain Changes With Tinnitus Severity
While some tinnitus patients adapt to the condition, many others are forced to limit daily activities as a direct result of their symptoms. A new study reveals that people who are less bothered by their tinnitus use different brain regions when processing emotional information. Tinnitus, otherwise known as ringing in the ears, affects nearly one-third…
Narcissism Seed Of Violence From Children Toward Parents
For the first time, a Spanish study carried out on 591 adolescents and their parents demonstrates that exposure to violence in the home, a lack of affectionate and positive communication between parents and children, and a permissive upbringing all create narcissistic adolescents who physically or verbally assault their parents. It is a taboo subject that…
Early Childhood Depression Alters Brain Development
The brains of children who suffer clinical depression as preschoolers develop abnormally, compared with the brains of preschoolers unaffected by the disorder, according to new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Their gray matter — tissue that connects brain cells and carries signals between those cells and is involved in seeing,…
Sadness-induced Inflammation Linked To Comorbid Diseases
Feeling sad can change levels of stress-related opioids in the brain and increase levels of inflammatory proteins in the blood that are linked to increased risk of co-morbid diseases including heart disease, stroke and metabolic syndrome, according to a study by researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). Previous studies…