Researchers have found an association between physical fitness and the brain in 9- and 10-year-old children: Those who are more fit tend to have a bigger hippocampus and perform better on a test of memory than their less-fit peers.
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September 16, 2010
September 10, 2010
Mental maturity scan tracks brain development
Five minutes in a scanner can reveal how far a child's brain has come along the path from childhood to maturity and potentially shed light on a range of psychological and developmental disorders, scientists have shown.
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August 16, 2010
Is Your Brain Autistic?
There's been a lot of buzz and some scepticism about theNew brain scan to diagnose autismHere's a quick overview. Autism is believed to be a disorder of brain development. If so, it should be possible to diagnose it based on a brain scan. Unfortunately, it's not. You can't tell, from a scan, whether someone has autism or not. Not even if you're a world expert.There are reports of various differen
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July 17, 2010
Shedding Light On How Psychiatric Risk Gene Disrupts Brain Development
Scientists are making progress towards a better understanding of the neuropathology associated with debilitating psychiatric illnesses like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. New research, published by Cell Press in the July 15 issue of the journal Neuron, reveals mechanisms that connect a known psychiatric risk gene to disruptions in brain cell proliferation and migration during development...
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July 8, 2010
In Monkey Model, Fetal X-Ray Exposure Interferes With Memory In Adulthood
Learning and memory impairments are important contributors to the disability associated with schizophrenia. These functional impairments emerge long before the onset of other symptoms associated with schizophrenia, suggesting that they are a consequence of a disturbance in brain development...
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July 5, 2010
Fetal X-ray exposure interferes with memory in adulthood, monkey study finds
Learning and memory impairments are important contributors to the disability associated with schizophrenia. These functional impairments emerge long before the onset of other symptoms associated with schizophrenia, suggesting that they are a consequence of a disturbance in brain development. In order to investigate the impact of early life disturbances in brain development upon learning and memor
12 Vote(s)
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May 19, 2010
Altered brain development found in children with newly diagnosed epilepsy
A newly published study reports that children with new/recent onset epilepsy have significantly slowed expansion of white matter volume compared to healthy children over a two year interval. The reduced white matter volume may affect brain connectivity and influence cognition.
14 Vote(s)
14 Vote(s)
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February 15, 2010
Common thread links multiple human cognitive disorders
A new study reveals that a common underlying mechanism is shared by a group of previously unrelated disorders which all cause complex defects in brain development and function. It helps to explain why these different chromatin abnormalities all interfere with proper gene expression patterns necessary for normal development and mature brain function.
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January 28, 2010
Prenatal alcohol exposure can alter the brain’s developing pain regulatory system
Prenatal alcohol exposure is widely known to impair brain development in exposed offspring. Rodent studies have shown that developmental deficits in newborns related to altered levels of a brain chemical called serotonin, leading to subsequent alterations in patterns of neonatal acute pain responses and/or hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal stress reactivity. New findings show a "blunted response" to
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January 26, 2010
Expectant Mom’s Flu Exposure Stunts Baby’s Brain Development
For expectant mothers, catching even a mild case of the flu could stunt brain development in their newborns, according to a new study conducted in rhesus macaques. Writing in the most recent online edition (Jan...
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