A personality profile marked by overly gregarious yet anxious behavior is rooted in abnormal development of a circuit hub buried deep in the front center of the brain, say scientists at the National Institutes of Health. They used three different types of brain imaging to pinpoint the suspect brain area in people with Williams syndrome, a rare genetic disorder characterized by these behaviors. Matching the scans to scores on a personality rating scale revealed that the more an individual with Williams syndrome showed these personality/temperament traits, the more abnormalities there were in the brain structure, called the insula.
Development
Newborn screening for DMD shows promise as an international model
Investigators at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, working with the DNA Sequencing Core Facility at the University of Utah, have developed an approach to newborn screening (NBS) for the life-threatening genetic disorder, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and potentially other muscular dystrophies. As a model for NBS, the approach published online in January in the Annals of Neurology provides evidence that this approach could be implemented if approved by regulatory bodies at a state level or alternatively through the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children.
Clinical trial examines antioxidant effects for Alzheimer’s disease on cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers
An antioxidant combination of vitamin E, vitamin C and α-lipoic acid (E/C/ALA) was not associated with changes in some cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers related to Alzheimer disease in a randomized controlled trial, according to a study published Online First by Archives of Neurology.
New model show how the brain is organized to process odor information
Just like a road atlas faithfully maps real-word locations, our brain maps many aspects of our physical world: Sensory inputs from our fingers are mapped next to each other in the somatosensory cortex; the auditory system is organized by sound frequency; and the various tastes are signaled in different parts of the gustatory cortex.
New research may have discovered how memories are encoded in our brains
University of Alberta led research may have discovered how memories are encoded in our brains.