Category: News
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Psychopathic violent offenders’ brains can’t understand punishment
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…
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Research shows tailored treatment needed for children with autism spectrum disorder
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.
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That’s using your head
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,…
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Largest genome sequencing study finds surprises: siblings’ autism may have different genetic causes
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…
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Genetic discovery about childhood blindness
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…
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Examining links between anxiety and chronic pain
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…
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Blame it on your brain: salt and hypertension
Study sheds new light on link between salt intake and blood pressure An international research team led by scientists at McGill University has found that excessive salt intake “reprograms” the brain, interfering with a natural safety mechanism that normally prevents the body’s arterial blood pressure from rising.
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York U researchers discover how midbrain map continuously updates visuospatial memory
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…
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Research published in Neuron shows activity in neuron complex can predict attention
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…
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Scientists discover tiny gene fragments linked to brain development and autism
“We were amazed by the extent to which microexons are misregulated in people with autism,” says Professor Benjamin Blencowe Very small segments of genes called “microexons” influence how proteins interact with each other in the nervous system, say scientists at the University of Toronto.