How do our brains combine information from the external world (sensory stimulation) with information on our internal state such as hunger, fear or stress? NERF-scientists demonstrate that the habenula, a specific part in our brain consisting of neural circuits, acts as a gate for sensory information, thus regulating behavior in response to external stimuli. Emre Yaksi (NERF – VIB/imec/KU Leuven): "Our brain has high levels of spontaneous activity, even in the absence of sensory stimulation. We think that this spontaneous neural activity in combination with sensory stimulation ...

In recent years, the 1.5 kilos of bacteria that live inside our bodies, mainly in the gut, have proven their crucial importance for our healthy functioning. Beyond their more obvious role in digestion, they are also involved, for example, in the development of the immune system and the neuronal system, and in the onset of certain diseases. Three leading European researchers on the gut microbiome will share their recent findings on the relations between gut flora and obesity, diabetes, and cardio-metabolic diseases in general. Links Between Human Gut Microbiota and Metabolic ...

Understanding the region of interstellar space through which the solar system travels is no easy task. Interstellar space begins beyond the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles surrounding the sun that reaches far beyond the outer planets. Voyager 1 has crossed into this space, but it's difficult to gain a complete global picture from measurements in only one direction. Spacecraft data in the past five years from near Earth and cosmic ray observations have painted a better picture of the magnetic system that surrounds us, while at the same time raising new questions. ...

New research from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden shows that the final stage of the normal inflammatory process may be disrupted in patients with Alzheimer's disease. A study published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia shows that levels in the brain and cerebrospinal fluid of the molecules necessary for tissue recovery through the clearance of harmful inflammatory substances are lower than normal in patients with Alzheimer's disease. The study also showed association between the lower levels of these molecules with impaired memory function. Alzheimer's disease is ...

Our response to societal pressures about vaccination has a direct effect on the spread of pediatric infectious diseases in areas where inoculation is not mandatory, says new research published this week in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. By incorporating social norms into predictive mathematical modelling, a research team from the University of Guelph and the University of Waterloo found that they can foresee the observed patterns of population behaviour and disease spread during vaccine scares—times when anti-vaccine sentiment is strong. "If vaccination is not ...

Research by the University of Southampton has provided new insight into the consequence of accumulated 'misfolded proteins' in neurodegenerative disorders, such as Prion and Alzheimer's disease. Prion and Alzheimer's disease are protein misfolding brain diseases, where genetic mutations, or more commonly, interactions between an individual's genetics and environmental influences cause functional proteins in neurons to become misfolded or misrouted. In these diseases, there is a progressive death of nerve cells in specific brain regions, which is associated with the increasing ...

It's much easier to remember a place you have visited than a long, complicated password, which is why computer scientist Ziyad Al-Salloum of ZSS-Research in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, is developing a system he calls geographical passwords. Writing in a freely available "open access" research paper in the International Journal of Security and Networks, Al-Salloum emphasizes how increasingly complicated our online lives are becoming with more and more accounts requiring more and more passwords. Moreover, he adds that even strong, but conventional passwords are a security risk ...

New Rochelle, NY, February 13, 2014—Food spoiling and poisoning caused by microbial contamination can cause major health, social, and economic problems. The broad scope of antimicrobial approaches to kill or prevent the growth of microorganisms in foods and beverages, including a variety of natural and artificial preservative strategies, are described in a comprehensive Review article in Industrial Biotechnology, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the Industrial Biotechnology website. In the Review "Ingredient ...

MAYWOOD, IL – New insights into the physiological causes of depression are leading to treatments beyond common antidepressants such as Prozac and Zoloft, researchers are reporting in the in the journal Current Psychiatry. Depression treatments on the horizon include new medications, electrical and magnetic stimulation of the brain and long-term cognitive behavioral therapy for stress management. Authors are Murali Rao, MD, and Julie M. Alderson, DO. Rao is professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Loyola University Chicago ...

People living in cold, northern latitudes have bacteria in their guts that may predispose them to obesity, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Arizona, Tucson. The researchers' analysis of the gut microbes of more than a thousand people from around the world showed that those living in northern latitudes had more gut bacteria that have been linked to obesity than did people living farther south. The meta-analysis of six earlier studies by UC Berkeley graduate student Taichi Suzuki and evolutionary ...

If she loves you and then she loves you not, don't blame the petals of that daisy. Blame evolution. UCLA researchers analyzed dozens of published and unpublished studies on how women's preferences for mates change throughout the menstrual cycle. Their findings suggest that ovulating women have evolved to prefer mates who display sexy traits – such as a masculine body type and facial features, dominant behavior and certain scents – but not traits typically desired in long-term mates. So, desires for those masculine characteristics, which are thought to have been ...

Austin – February 14, 2014 - Money and parenting don't mix. That's according to new research that suggests that merely thinking about money diminishes the meaning people derive from parenting. The study is one among a growing number that identifies when, why, and how parenthood is associated with happiness or misery. "The relationship between parenthood and well-being is not one and the same for all parents," says Kostadin Kushlev of the University of British Columbia. While this may seems like an obvious claim, social scientists until now have yet to identify the psychological ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — When mothers feed their newborns formula in the hospital, they are less likely to fully breastfeed their babies in the second month of life and more likely to quit breastfeeding early, even if they had hoped to breastfeed longer, UC Davis researchers have found. "We are a step closer to showing that giving formula in the hospital can cause problems by reducing how much women breastfeed later," says Caroline Chantry, lead author and professor of clinical pediatrics at UC Davis Medical Center. "Despite being highly motivated to breastfeed their babies, ...

RICHLAND, Wash. -- In biology, a protein's shape is key to understanding how it causes disease or toxicity. Researchers who use X-rays to takes snapshots of proteins need a billion copies of the same protein stacked and packed into a neat crystal. Now, scientists using exceptionally bright and fast X-rays can take a picture that rivals conventional methods with a sheet of proteins just one protein molecule thick. Using a type of laser known as XFEL, the technique opens the door to learning the structural details of almost 25 percent of known proteins, many of which have ...

Suffering an injury to the head or neck increases ischemic stroke risk three-fold among trauma patients younger than 50, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2014. "These findings are important because strokes after trauma might be preventable," said Christine Fox, M.D., M.A.S., lead author and assistant professor of neurology at the University of California San Francisco. Researchers studied the health records of 1.3 million patients younger than 50 years who had been treated in emergency trauma rooms. ...

Hispanic stroke patients admitted to hospitals in the border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas were less likely than non-Hispanics in the same border states to receive clot-busting drugs and more likely to die, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2014. Researchers analyzed stroke care for Hispanic and non-Hispanic patients according to demographics and clinical characteristics in states bordering Mexico and states not on the Mexican border. They found: Of the nearly 35,000 Hispanic stroke ...

Stroke survivors often resume driving without being formally evaluated for ability — though stroke can cause deficits that can impair driving, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2014. Researchers surveyed 162 stroke survivors a year after their strokes and found: More than 51 percent returned to driving — many a month after suffering a stroke. Only 5.6 percent received a formal driving evaluation. Eleven percent of those who returned to driving reported their strokes had greatly impacted their abilities ...

Newborns are more susceptible to infections, presumably because of their immature and inexperienced immune systems. The most common dangerous condition in newborns and infants are lower respiratory tract infections caused by viruses, especially respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). A study published on February 13th in PLOS Pathogens shows how the immune system in the lungs during early life differs from the one in older children and adults. Ideally, newborns could be protected against RSV by vaccination, but it is known that the immune system in early life is less responsive ...

Washington, DC (February 13, 2014) — Intensive dialysis treatments in pregnant women with kidney failure lead to a higher proportion of live births than standard dialysis care, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The findings suggest that more frequent and longer dialysis sessions should be considered for dialysis patients of childbearing age who want to become pregnant or who are already pregnant. When young women develop advanced kidney disease, pregnancy becomes dangerous and often impossible ...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Where you live could affect whether or not you spend compulsively, according to new research from San Francisco State University published today in the Journal of Consumer Culture. Individuals who live in wealthy neighborhoods are more likely to have materialistic values and poor spending habits, the study says, particularly if they are young, living in urban areas and relatively poor compared with their surroundings. The study is the first to show a connection between neighborhood socioeconomic status and materialism. The reason for the link, said ...

Researchers have tied a particular gene to the development of cortical convolutions—the prominent but enigmatic folds covering the surface of the human brain. Their discovery should shed some light on these characteristic contours, which have been the subject of wild speculation for ages, and perhaps also provide a better understanding of how such brain ridges form, how they evolved from our pre-human ancestors and, ultimately, how they influence brain function. The exact role of cortical convolutions remains unknown, but theories have abounded. (Some, for example, have ...

This news release is available in Spanish, French, Arabic, Japanese and Chinese. "Termites are what inspired this whole research topic for us," said the study's lead author Justin Werfel, a researcher at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "We learned the incredible things these tiny insects can build and said: Fantastic. Now how do we create and program robots that work in similar ways but build what humans want?" Unlike humans, who require a high-level blueprint to build something complicated, termites can build ...

Scientists from Stanford University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have discovered that crude oil interferes with fish heart cells. The toxic consequence is a slowed heart rate, reduced cardiac contractility and irregular heartbeats that can lead to cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death. The research, published in the Feb. 14 issue of Science, is part of the ongoing Natural Resource Damage Assessment of the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. While crude oil is known to be cardiotoxic to developing fish, the physiological mechanisms ...

The first thorough comparison of evidence for natural gas system leaks confirms that organizations including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have underestimated U.S. methane emissions generally, as well as those from the natural gas industry specifically. Natural gas consists predominantly of methane. Even small leaks from the natural gas system are important because methane is a potent greenhouse gas – about 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide. A study, "Methane Leakage from North American Natural Gas Systems," published in the Feb. 14 issue of the journal ...

The interactive map, produced by researchers from Oxford University and UCL (University College London), details the histories of genetic mixing between each of the 95 populations across Europe, Africa, Asia and South America spanning the last four millennia. The study, published this week in Science, simultaneously identifies, dates and characterises genetic mixing between populations. To do this, the researchers developed sophisticated statistical methods to analyse the DNA of 1490 individuals in 95 populations around the world. The work was chiefly funded by the Wellcome ...