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With a fresh incision curving along his hairline from temple to ear visible to all, former South Dakota Gov. Bill Janklow broke down and cried Friday as he announced that he's dying of brain cancer. But it wasn't the cancer that prompted the tears. It was recalling what he called the one regret of his life: a 2003 car wreck that killed a Minnesota man and ended Janklow's political career. "I know it's over. I know it's at the end of the trail, but I don't hurt," he said of the weeks-old cancer diagnosis. Janklow, 72, a Republican who dominated...

DURHAM, N.C. - Immune system cells of the brain, which scavenge pathogens and damaged neurons, are also key players in memory and learning, according to new research by Duke neuroscientists. Earlier studies by Staci Bilbo, an assistant professor in psychology & neuroscience, had shown that laboratory rats experiencing an infection at an early age have an aggressive immune response to subsequent infections, which also harms their learning and memory. In a study published in the Oct. 26 Journal of Neuroscience, Bilbo's team identifies the source of the learning difficulties and traces it back to the immune system itself. The researchers...

The birds which cannot cope with the demise of Communism Several bird species which live behind the former iron curtain have been unable to adapt to the demise of Communism, scientists have found. Jasper Copping 9:30PM BST 22 Oct 2011 A study has identified several species of songbirds which have suffered following the demise of the Soviet Bloc after being unable to cope with the consequences of the changes it unleashed in eastern Europe. While some birds have thrived after adapting to socio-economic changes affecting their habitats – such as the regeneration of eastern bloc cities and the emergence of...

A group of Japanese neuroscientists is trying to peer into the mind — literally. They have devised a way to turn the brain’s opaque gray matter into a glassy, see-through substance. The group, based at the government-financed Riken Brain Science Institute in Wako, Japan, has created an inexpensive chemical cocktail that transforms dead biological tissue from a colored mass into what looks like translucent jelly. Soaking brain tissue in the solution makes it easier for neuroscientists to see what’s inside, a step they hope will uncover the physical basis of personality traits, memories and even consciousness. “I’m very excited about...

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t—you’re right,” said Henry Ford. A new study, to be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that people who think they can learn from their mistakes have a different brain reaction to mistakes than people who think intelligence is fixed. “One big difference between people who think intelligence is malleable and those who think intelligence is fixed is how they respond to mistakes,” says Jason S. Moser, of Michigan State University, who collaborated on the new study with Hans S. Schroder,...

Taking another step towards creating devices that could be meshed with brain function to help those with brain damage, or perhaps one day, to improve on abilities, researchers at Tel Aviv University, led by Professor of Psychobiology Matti Mintz, have developed an adjunct to a part of a rat brain. The team, who will be presenting their results this month at a biotechnology meeting in the UK, has created a computer chip that is able to emulate one of the functions of the rat cerebellum. The cerebellum is the small odd looking part of the brain that looks like a...

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Older people with low levels of vitamin B12 in their blood may be more likely to lose brain cells and develop problems with their thinking skills, according to a study published in the September 27, 2011, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Foods that come from animals, including fish, meat, especially liver, milk, eggs and poultry, are usually sources of vitamin B12. The study involved 121 people age 65 and older living on the south side of Chicago. Their blood was drawn to measure levels of vitamin B12 and...

Scientists are a step closer to constructing a digital version of the human visual system. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have developed an algorithm that can be applied to functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) imagery to show a moving image a person is seeing. Neuroscientists have been using fMRI to study the human visual system for years, which involves measuring changes in blood oxygen levels in the brain. This works fine for studying how we see static images, but it falls short when it comes to moving imagery. Individual neuronal activity occurs over a much faster time scale,...

Article is published in the American Journal of Physiology— Regulatory, Integrative, and Comparative PhysiologyBethesda, Md. (Sept. 16, 2011)—Researchers have long known that regular exercise increases the number of organelles called mitochondria in muscle cells. Since mitochondria are responsible for generating energy, this numerical boost is thought to underlie many of the positive physical effects of exercise, such as increased strength or endurance. Exercise also has a number of positive mental effects, such as relieving depression and improving memory. However, the mechanism behind these mental effects has been unclear. In a new study in mice, researchers at the University of South...

Ray Kurzweil, the prominent inventor and futurist, can't wait to get nanobots into his brain. In his view, these devices will be equipped with a variety of sensors and stimulators and will communicate wirelessly with computers outside of the body. In addition to providing unprecedented insight into brain function at the cellular level, brain-penetrating nanobots would provide the ultimate virtual reality experience. In an interview with GOOD magazine, Kurzweil says: "By the late 2020s, nanobots in our brain, that will get there noninvasively, through the capillaries, will create full-immersion virtual-reality environments from within the nervous system. So if you want...

Born-again Christian who have been wondering all these years just why they are so different from the rest of the crowd may now have an answer via a new study out of Duke University Medical Center. Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Templeton Foundation found that individuals who identify themselves as “born-again” Christians tend to have smaller brains than Protestants who claim no such experience. According to USA Today, the 11-year study, “which included at least two MRI measurements on 268 adults between 1994 and 2005 … found an association between participants’ professed religious affiliation and...

People with rare, inherited forms of the neurological disease have early markers—which researchers can use to test preventive treatments. For the first time, scientists have been able to detect signs of Alzheimer's disease 10 to 20 years before the onset of dementia. The study, presented Wednesday at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Paris, focused on people with rare, inherited forms of the disease who develop it relatively young, with symptoms beginning in the patients' 30s, 40s, and 50s. Researchers say the results will help them test drugs that could prevent or slow the progression of the disease, not only...

Researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Mainz discover a mechanism that can protect from aging processes Humans are getting older and older, and the number of people with dementia is increasing. The factors controlling degeneration of the brain are still mostly unknown. However, researchers assume that factors such as stress, accumulation of toxic waste products as well as inflammation accelerate aging. But, vice versa, there are also mechanisms that can - like a bodyguard - protect the brain from degenerating, or repair defective structures. Researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Mainz have now discovered a hitherto unknown function...

A research breakthrough has proven that it is possible to reprogram mature cells from human skin directly into brain cells, without passing through the stem cell stage. The unexpectedly simple technique involves activating three genes in the skin cells; genes which are already known to be active in the formation of brain cells at the fetal stage. The new technique avoids many of the ethical dilemmas that stem cell research has faced. For the first time, a research group at Lund University in Sweden has succeeded in creating specific types of nerve cells from human skin. By reprogramming connective tissue...

New York - A representative for Mary Tyler Moore says the veteran sitcom star will have surgery to remove a brain tumor. Spokeswoman Alla Plotkin says Moore's doctors recommended the elective procedure after monitoring the tumor for some time. Plotkin did not say when the surgery would take place. It would remove a meningioma (meh-NIN'-jee-OH'-muh), a slow-growing tumor in the membranes that cover the brain. Meningiomas usually occur in older adults and are mostly benign.

“He might look rather pleased with himself in this picture - but it's likely he regrets posing for this snap now,” reports the Mail Online, UK. “For when police raided the home of drug dealer Darren Ellis, 35, they found this photograph of him holding up his stash of cannabis.” Also, in stupidity-related news, the Herald Sun, Australia, reports two “women are due in court today on cannabis possession charges after one of them repeatedly set off a metal detector at an airport in New Zealand, allegedly leading to the discovery of foil-wrapped cannabis in her bra.” Talk about stupid:...

There's still no foolproof way to predict who will develop dementia, but brain scientists say they have identified a new clue: Cluelessness, as in an inability to tell when people are lying or using sarcasm. A preliminary new study conducted at the University of California at San Francisco suggests that the neurodegenerative process responsible for dementia also causes deterioration of regions of the brain responsible for detecting insincere speech. "These patients cannot detect lies," study author Dr. Katherine Rankin, of the university's Memory and Aging Center, said in a written statement. "This fact can help them be diagnosed earlier." It...

Enlarge Image Lefty or righty? A new study links a larger anterior cingulate cortex (left) to politically liberal views and a larger right amygdala to conservatism. Credit: R. Kanai et al., Current Biology, 21 (26 April 2011) Politics can be a touchy topic, especially when it comes to neuroscience. Researchers who've dared to tackle questions about how people's political leanings might be reflected in the brain have often earned scoffs and scoldings from their colleagues. A provocative new study is likely to be no exception. It claims to find features of brain anatomy that differ between people who identify...

We all know that people at opposite ends of the political spectrum often really can't see eye to eye. Now, a new report published online on April 7th in Current Biology, reveals that those differences in political orientation are tied to differences in the very structures of our brains. Individuals who call themselves liberal tend to have larger anterior cingulate cortexes, while those who call themselves conservative have larger amygdalas. Based on what is known about the functions of those two brain regions, the structural differences are consistent with reports showing a greater ability of liberals to cope with conflicting...

In pictures, Obama appears to have a long scar which goes up the side of his head and over his crown. Some conspiracy theorists claim they are scars that you would see on someone who has had brain surgery. But without medical records (along with his school records and birth certificate) no one seems to be able to provide an answer as to the cause of the mystery scars. Ben Hart, a blogger for Escape The Tyranny a website which presents itself as a Social Network & Forum For Conservatives, said: 'Obama's almost done with his first term, and we...