Researchers at Michigan State, Chicago, and WUSTL says sleep may reduce mistakes in memory for both the young and the old.
They studied the presence of false memory in groups of college students. Previous research has shown that sleep improves memory, but this study address errors in memory.
The study was published in the journal Learning & Memory.

References:

1. Sept. 14, 2009 — Sleep helps reduce errors in memory in the United Press International

and 4 others.

Cindy McCain explains the need for more funding for research to cure migraine headaches. As a nation, we spend very little on research into the causes and treatments of migraines. It is estimated that the NIH spends less than $13 million a year for migraine research. Neurology professor Todd Schwedt of WUSTL's Headache Center says that based on the burden migraine exacts from society, funding should be closer to $260 million.

References:

1. Sept. 9, 2009 — Commentary: More Funding To End Migraine in the Forbes.com

Technological and computational advances have enabled researchers to image the brain's wrinkled exterior in stunning detail, mapping the size and shape of each fold. Scientists pursuing this new discipline of "cortical cartography'' expect it to yield insights into how the brain develops and what happens when things go awry. WUSTL neurobiologist David Van Essen comments.

References:

1. Aug. 3, 2009 — Unfolding the mysteries of the brain in the The Boston Globe

WUSTL scientists have pinpointed compounds in the spinal fluid which may give an early warning of how fast patients with mild dementia will decline.

References:

1. May 11, 2009 — Chemical clue to dementia decline in the BBC News

U.S. researchers suggest autism diagnoses are not occurring soon enough. WUSTL social work professor and study lead author Paul Shattuck comments.

References:

1. May 5, 2009 — Autism diagnosis may occur years late in the United Press International

and 4 others.

Gender definitely makes a difference when it comes to stroke, new research shows. WUSTL neurology professor Mark Goldberg comments.

References:

1. Feb. 20, 2009 — Women Less Apt to Get Clot-Buster, Study Finds in the U.S. News & World Report online

and 3 others.

The latest injury to LA Lakers' center Andrew Bynum probably has more to do with bad karma than inherently bad knees, medical experts said Tuesday. Includes comments by WUSTL orthopedic surgeon Matthew Matava, the chief team doctor for the St. Louis Rams.

References:

1. Feb. 4, 2009 — Andrew Bynum's injuries probably just bad luck in the Los Angeles Times

WUSTL researchers led by Michael Crowder and Lori Anderson have studied a worm that can survive after nearly a day in a low oxygen environment.

References:

1. Feb. 3, 2009 — In a Worm, a Mutation to Survive in Low Oxygen in the The New York Times

Worms that can survive with almost no oxygen are teaching scientists how to rescue oxygen-starved cells in humans who suffer a heart attack or stroke, said WUSTL medical researcher Michael Crowder, whose study appears in Science.

References:

1. Jan. 29, 2009 — Lowly worm offers new clues on stroke, heart drugs in the Reuters

and 3 others.

Aches and pains may be a result of walking incorrectly. Yoga practices have helped some people relearn how to walk. WUSTL orthopaedic surgery professor Heidi Prather warns that breaking bad habits is no easy task.

References:

1. Nov. 13, 2008 — Learning How to Walk (Chewing Gum Not Included) in the The New York Times

and 15 others.

A dance studio in Brooklyn teaches a dance class designed for patients with Parkinson's disease. WUSTL scientists report a study that shows Parkinson's patients who took part in regular dance classes showed significant improvements in balance and mobility compared with those who did conventional exercise.

References:

1. Nov. 13, 2008 — Dancing moves Parkinson's patients to a better place in the USA Today

and 4 others.

Researchers at WUSTL and the University of Milan found that levels of a protein linked with Alzheimer's disease rise as people recover from brain injuries - a surprising finding that may help explain why injuries boost the risk of developing the disease. WUSTL neurology professor David Brody comments.

References:

1. Aug. 28, 2008 — Tracking Alzheimer's-linked protein in live brains in the Associated Press

and 79 others.

About 10 to 20 percent of the video gaming population is disabled, but they get little attention from the Nintendos, Sonys and Microsofts of the world. Now, academia is trying to show gamemakers that with a little thought and ingenuity, their titles can be played -- and purchased by -- gamers they have never courted before.
A U. Illinois instructor is organizing a game design seminar to build a socially oriented video game for players with quadriplegia. She hopes such hands-on design work will encourage gamemakers to keep the disabled in mind while creating their titles -- and show them how.
Perhaps the ultimate game controller operates on brain waves. A teenager being studied for epilepsy last fall at WUSTL was able to play "Space Invaders" using his thoughts.
Those findings could lead one day to artificial limbs that respond to human thought.

References:

1. April 10, 2007 — Disabled gamers want more than 'fluffy' choices in the Chicago Tribune

WUSTL researchers led by orthopaedic surgery professor Leesa Galatz say exposure to nicotine delays tendon-to-bone healing, suggesting the cause of failure of rotator-cuff repair following surgery, according to the study published in the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery.

References:

1. Oct. 18, 2006 — Smoking weakens tendon-to-bone healing in the United Press International

and 1 others.

A U.S. boy has become the first teenager to play a two-dimensional video game using only the signals from his brain to make movements.
WUSTL researchers led by neurological surgery professor Eric Leuthardt and biomedical engineering professor Daniel Moran say the boy's achievement might lead to creation of biomedical devices that can control artificial limbs, enabling the movement of a prosthesis by just thinking about it.

References:

1. Oct. 11, 2006 — Teenager moves video icons by imagination in the United Press International

and 2 others.

Scientists who study Alzheimer's disease say they are on the brink of finding treatments to slow or stop it.
A few weeks ago, Congress voted to reduce funding for research on Alzheimer's disease.
WUSTL scientists commenting are neurology professor Anne Fagan Niven, neurology professor and chair David Holtzman, and Tom Meuser, director of education and rural outreach at WUSTL's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.

References:

1. July 4, 2006 — Funding for Alzheimer's research is key, scientists say in the Kansas City Star

and 17 others.

WUSTL researchers studying mice said they have found key factors in the body that could lead to making better pain-reducing drugs.
WUSTL scientist Robert Gereau led the team that studied mice that were missing a specific potassium gene that regulates pain messages sent from the spinal cord to the brain.
The research advances a previous Harvard University study and will be published in the journal Neuron.

References:

1. April 5, 2006 — Mice offer insight into new pain drugs in the Associated Press

and 36 others.

Thanks to recent technological advances, scientists are learning to eavesdrop on the "language" of cells and decipher their "grammar." Much is still unknown, but the research could lead to new treatments for cancer, Parkinson's, epilepsy and many other diseases.
Cells communicate with one another by exchanging tiny chemical messengers called "transmitters" and "transporters." Familiar examples are the hormones adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, estrogen and testosterone.
WUSTL Center for Genome Sciences director Jeffrey Gordon and WUSTL ophthalmologist Russell Van Gelder comment.

References:

1. July 27, 2005 — Scientists learning to eavesdrop on the language of cells in the Kansas City Star

and 14 others.

New coverage on this topic -- Researchers and volunteers around the world are taking early steps toward a complex but straightforward technological goal: to use electrical signals from the brain as instructions to computers and other machines, allowing paralyzed people to communicate, move around and control their environment literally without moving a muscle.
Most dramatically, that could help "locked-in" patients - those who've lost all muscle movement because of conditions like Lou Gehrig's disease or brainstem strokes.
Article mentions research at WUSTL, where surgeons placed tiny electrodes on the surface of the brains of four people recently, they achieved accuracies of 74 percent to 100 percent with just three to 24 minutes of training.

References:

1. April 4, 2005 — Computers Obeying Brain Signals in the Associated Press Online
2. March 17, 2005 — Brain Power: Mind Control of External Devices in the LiveScience.com (New York)

and 25 others.

North

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NPR's "Talk of the Nation" host Neal Conan discusses the psychological and emotional impact of natural disasters like the devastating tsunamis that hit the Indian Ocean shorelines in Asia this past weekend during an interview with WUSTL psychiatrist Carol North and others. North heads the disaster research team at the School of Medicine.

References:

1. Dec. 28, 2004 — Psychological impact of tsunami on southern Asia in the National Public Radio (NPR)