Summary: A randomized crossover study found that stimulant medication produced clear improvements in classroom behavior and seatwork productivity for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but it had no measurable effect on how much curriculum content those children actually learned during instruction. Source: Florida International University Background: For decades, many doctors, parents, and teachers … Read more

Summary: Ghostwriter is a deep learning system that uses a Siamese neural network to compare writing styles and identify whether a student likely wrote a submitted assignment or had it written by someone else. The algorithm analyzes a student’s current text against past submissions and returns a percentage score indicating similarity in writing style, offering … Read more

Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have identified and characterized a bacterial enzyme that shows promise as a potential therapeutic to aid smoking cessation. Kim Janda, the Ely R. Callaway Jr. Professor of Chemistry and a member of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at TSRI, emphasized that the work remains in the early … Read more

Summary: Researchers at Princeton have created a computational model that improves tracking of how cancer spreads through the body. Source: Princeton University Princeton researchers have introduced a new computational method that significantly improves the ability to reconstruct how cancer cells migrate from one site in the body to another. Metastasis — the process by which … Read more

Researchers use popular music to help people with severe brain injuries recall personal memories In the first study of its kind, researchers Amee Baird and Séverine Samson investigated how popular music can trigger autobiographical memories in people with severe acquired brain injury (ABI). Published in the journal Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, their preliminary case-series explores music-evoked autobiographical … Read more

Children with autism and related conditions frequently face challenges in several areas of communication. A new doctoral thesis in linguistics from the University of Gothenburg finds that listening to varied speech sounds can help these children develop speech, gestures, and sensitivity to rhythm and melody. Children diagnosed with autism spectrum conditions (ASC)—including autism, Asperger’s syndrome, … Read more

Summary: Walking increases the brain’s processing of peripheral visual input. Source: University of Wurzburg How do we perceive our surroundings? Which sensory inputs are handled peripherally and which are processed centrally in the brain? Understanding how movement affects perception is essential for basic neuroscience and may eventually help explain or inform treatments for conditions such … Read more

Summary: Recent research suggests psychedelic substances such as psilocybin may offer therapeutic benefits for conditions like depression, anxiety, addiction and PTSD. Emerging work also explores how these experiences can increase people’s sense of connection to nature and, potentially, encourage greater environmental responsibility. Source: The Conversation In recent years scientific interest in the psychological effects of … Read more

Summary: Researchers have identified a genetic pathway linking the heart and brain that explains why people faint. By treating the heart as a sensory organ that sends signals back to the brain, the team mapped specific neural circuits that trigger the sudden loss of consciousness known as syncope. The work focuses on the Bezold–Jarisch reflex … Read more

Summary: Can an organism without any nerve cells — no neurons, no brain — still learn? New research shows that the giant single-celled organism Stentor coeruleus can. Using molecular processes closely resembling those used by human neurons, particularly calcium signaling and the enzyme CaMKII, this trumpet-shaped pond organism learns to ignore repeated, harmless disturbances. These … Read more