Paradoxical Alzheimer's Finding May Shed New Light On Memory Loss
ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2008) — Do you remember the seventh song that
played on your radio on the way to work yesterday? Most of us don't,
thanks to a normal forgetting process that is constantly "cleaning
house" -- culling inconsequential information from our brains.
Researchers at the Buck Institute now believe that this normal memory
loss is hyper-activated in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and that this
effect is key to the profound memory loss associated with the
incurable neurodegenerative disorder.

Last year, this same group of researchers found that they could
completely prevent Alzheimer's disease in mice genetically engineered
with a human Alzheimer's gene--"Mouzheimer's"--by blocking a single
site of cleavage of one molecule, called APP for amyloid precursor
protein. Normally, this site on APP is attacked by molecular scissors
called caspases, but blocking that process prevented the disease.

Problems getting around in old age? Blame your brain

New research shows how well people get around and keep their balance
in old age is linked to the severity of changes happening in their
brains. The study is published in the March 18, 2008, issue of
Neurology. White matter changes, also called leukoaraiosis, are
frequently seen in older people and differ in severity.

The three-year study called LADIS (Leukoaraiosis and Disability),
coordinated by the Department of Neurological and Psychiatric Sciences
of the University of Florence, involved 639 men and women between the
ages of 65 and 84 who underwent brain scans and walking and balance
tests. Of the group, 284 had mild age-related white matter changes,
197 moderate changes, and 158 severe changes.

The study found people with severe white matter changes were twice as
likely to score poorly on the walking and balance tests as those
people with mild white matter changes. The study also found people
with severe changes were twice as likely as the mild group to have a
history of falls. The moderate group was one-and-a-half times as
likely as the mild group to have a history of falls.

Disgusting videos key to first-ever brain imaging study comparing ways
of controlling emotions

"Control yourself!" Most of us haven't heard that admonition since our
last childhood tantrum. Nonetheless, it's something we often tell
ourselves, consciously or not, as we deal with life's daily ups and
downs. The ability to regulate one's emotions is critical to
successfully interacting with others. How we go about achieving that
self-control has an equally important effect on our own well-being.

Now, researchers at Stanford have conducted the first-ever brain
imaging study that directly contrasts two different techniques for
emotion regulation. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was
used to observe neural activity in people's brains as they employed
each of the two methods in coping with one of the most visceral of
human emotions: disgust.

The researchers found that while one method, cognitive reappraisal,
reduced the intensity of negative emotions the participants
experienced when exposed to videos of disgusting images, the other,
expressive suppression, actually increased it.

Second Depth-perception Method Discovered In Brain
ScienceDaily (Mar. 17, 2008) — It's common knowledge that humans and
other animals are able to visually judge depth because we have two
eyes and the brain compares the images from each. But we can also
judge depth with only one eye, and scientists have been searching for
how the brain accomplishes that feat.

Now, a team led by a scientist at the University of Rochester believes
it has discovered the answer in a small part of the brain that
processes both the image from a single eye and also with the motion of
our bodies.

The team of researchers, led by Greg DeAngelis, professor in the
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of
Rochester, has published the findings in the March 20 online issue of
the journal Nature.

"It looks as though in this area of the brain, the neurons are
combining visual cues and non-visual cues to come up with a unique way
to determine depth," says DeAngelis.