Author: Julie

Psychopathic violent offenders have abnormalities in the parts of the brain related to learning from punishment, according to an MRI study led by Sheilagh Hodgins and Nigel Blackwood. “One in five violent offenders is a psychopath. They have higher rates of recidivism and don’t benefit from rehabilitation programmes. Our research reveals why this is and can hopefully improve childhood interventions to prevent violence and behavioural therapies to reduce recidivism,” explained Professor Hodgins of the University of Montreal and Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal. Continue reading →

Researchers from McMaster’s Offord Centre for Child Studies have found that preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) differed from each other in symptom severity and adaptive functioning at the time of diagnosis and some of these differences appeared to increase by the age of six. Continue reading →

Recent research into brain control of liver lipid production could cause break in obesity and diabetes treatment.

Ways of keeping the heart healthy has widened, with the discovery that the brain can help fight off hardening of the arteries.

Atherosclerosis—hardening and narrowing of the arteries—can be caused by fat build up that causes plaque deposits, and is one of the main causes of cardiovascular disease. Continue reading →

A new study led by The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) turns scientific prediction on its head. Contrary to what was expected, researchers found that siblings with autism spectrum disorder often carry very different genetic mutations.

This study, published in the Jan. 26 online edition of Nature Medicine, is the largest whole genome sequencing study in autism and one of the largest on any disorder to date. Continue reading →

Dr. Robert Koenekoop, director of the McGill Ocular Genetics Laboratory at The Montreal Children’s Hospital of the MUHC, co-led this research.
Finding genes for retinal degenerations has immediate benefits for people living with blindness and vision loss, their families, and their physicians. Establishing a genetic cause confirms the clinical diagnosis at the molecular level, helps predict the future visual prognosis, suggests therapies, and allows some patients to join clinical trials. While more than 200 genes for retinal degenerations have been identified, approximately 40-50% of cases remain a mystery. Continue reading →

Min Zhuo is a professor in the department of physiology at U of T and the Canada Research Chair in Pain and Cognition. Zhuo and his lab recently published a paper in the journal Neuron that showed how neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to physically re-organize itself in response to experience – can spur the interplay between chronic pain and anxiety. They also showed that a drug they developed for chronic pain can limit anxiety. Continue reading →

Study sheds new light on link between salt intake and blood pressure

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On the upcoming Super Bowl Sunday, a lot of us will be playing arm-chair quarterback. After the snap, we might use our eyes to track a wide receiver as he runs toward an opening, all the while remembering the location of the star running back in case he breaks through on a rushing play. This natural ability to track one moving player but be ready to quickly look back toward another one sounds simple. Continue reading →

Humans and other primates have an extraordinary ability to voluntarily and efficiently focus attention on important information while ignoring distraction. For decades it has been hypothesized that this ability relies on the evolutionary expansion of the lateral prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain located in the lateral convexity of the frontal lobe, that reaches its highest level of complexity in primates.

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