Medicine articles

Personalized approach to smoking cessation may be reality in three to five years
A personalized approach to smoking cessation therapy is quickly taking shape. New evidence from Duke University Medical Center and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) suggests that combining information about a smoker's genetic makeup with his or her smoking habits can accurately predict which nicotine replacement therapy will work best.

Could our minds be tricked into satisfying our stomachs?
The key to losing weight could lie in manipulating our beliefs about how filling we think food will be before we eat it, suggesting that portion control is all a matter of perception.

Keep your fingers crossed!: How superstition improves performance
Don't scoff at those lucky rabbit feet. New research shows that having some kind of lucky token can actually improve your performance - by increasing your self-confidence.

A person's language may influence how he thinks about other people
The language a person speaks may influence their thoughts, according to a new study on Israeli Arabs who speak both Arabic and Hebrew fluently. The study found that Israeli Arabs' positive associations with their own people are weaker when they are tested in Hebrew than when they are tested in Arabic.

Autism has unique vocal signature, new technology reveals
A new automated vocal analysis technology could fundamentally change the study of language development as well as the screening for autism spectrum disorders and language delay, reports a study in the July 19 online Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Foreign accents make speakers seem less truthful to listeners
A foreign accent undermines a person's credibility in ways that the speaker and the listener don't consciously realize, new research at the University of Chicago shows.

Every action has a beginning and an end (and it's all in you brain)
Rui Costa, Principal Investigator of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (Portugal), and Xin Jin, of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health (USA), describe in the latest issue of the journal Nature, that the activity of certain neurons in the brain can signal the initiation and termination of behavioural sequences we learn anew.

Taking music seriously
Those ubiquitous wires connecting listeners to you-name-the-sounds from invisible MP3 players -- whether of Bach, Miles Davis or, more likely today, Lady Gaga -- only hint at music's effect on the soul throughout the ages.

Laughter is not just funny
Everybody enjoys a laugh but new research from an international team shows it's not as simple as you might think.

Can blocking a frown keep bad feelings at bay?
Your facial expression may tell the world what you are thinking or feeling. But it also affects your ability to understand written language related to emotions, according to research published in the July issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

In-store displays: how do consumers perceive pricing?
A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research unlocks the key to making the price of a product seem less expensive to consumers.

Background music can impair performance
For decades research has shown that listening to music alleviates anxiety and depression, enhances mood, and can increase cognitive functioning, such as spatial awareness. However, until now, research has not addressed how we listen to music. For instance, is the cognitive benefit still the same if we listen to music whilst performing a task, rather than before it? Further, how does our preference for a particular type of music affect performance? A new study from Applied Cognitive Psychology shows that listening to music that one likes whilst performing a serial recall task does not help performance any more than listening to music one does not enjoy.

Brainstem, spinal cord images hidden in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel fresco
Michelangelo, the 16th century master painter and accomplished anatomist, appears to have hidden an image of the brainstem and spinal cord in a depiction of God in the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers reports. These findings by a neurosurgeon and a medical illustrator, published in the May Neurosurgery, may explain long controversial and unusual features of one of the frescoes' figures.

In the 'neck' of time: scientists unravel key evolutionary trait leading to better brain power
By deciphering the genetics in humans and fish, scientists now believe that the neck -- that little body part between your head and shoulders -- gave humans so much freedom of movement that it played a surprising and major role in the evolution of the human brain, according to Cornell and New York University neuroscientists in the July 27 issue of the online journal Nature Communications.

Breaching the blood-brain barrier to create powerful new tools for fighting cancer
One of the human body's most powerful defensive tools, the blood-brain barrier is a chemical labyrinth that prevents toxins and viruses in the bloodstream from reaching the brain. This foolproof security system, however, limits the ability of physicians to deliver drugs directly to the brain, making it difficult to treat brain tumors.

Your personality plays a role in your political behavior
Our personalities play a role in every aspect of our lives, from friendships to hobbies, from whom we marry to what we do for a living.

Proteins linked to longevity also linked to Alzheimer's
Sirtuins appear to control production of the devastating protein fragments that form plaques in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.

Remembering to forget: the amnesic effect of daydreaming
When your mind drifts, it's hard to remember what was going on before you stopped paying attention. Now a new study has found that the effect is stronger when your mind drifts farther - to memories of an overseas vacation instead of a domestic trip, for example, or a memory in the more distant past.

Trojan horse delivery system attacks cancer cells from inside
Combining nature and Greek mythology, researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have developed a tiny "Trojan Horse" system for delivering cancer-fighting drugs. With this system, the drugs are delivered only once they are inside the cancerous cells, so there is no damage to the healthy cells in the surrounding area.

Molecular mechanism triggering Parkinson's disease identified in study
Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified a molecular pathway responsible for the death of key nerve cells whose loss causes Parkinson's disease. This discovery not only may explain how a genetic mutation linked to Parkinson's causes the cells' death, but could also open the door to new therapeutic approaches for the malady.