"Experienced mothers perceived their sleep to be more fragmented than that of first-time mothers.

No difference was noted in fathers.

Participants' sleep patterns were studied for two weeks. Mothers with one baby reported having less interrupted and better-quality sleep than mothers with more than one child,

These interventions should be tailored to each family member, depending on their situation.

he researchers aim to explain the differences between mothers and fathers, and determine why mothers with more than one child report worse sleep.

(50.4 percent) of cases are mild

the pooled percentage was 45.2 percent for the combined group of mild AD dementia and MCI that later progressed to AD.

We found that approximately 45 percent of all those who are cognitively impaired or diagnosed with AD-dementia had early AD.

Diagnosis and severity were assessed by consensus dementia review.

According to the researchers the finding that half of the people living with AD have mild disease underscores the need for research and interventions to slow decline or prevent progression of this burdensome disease.

The researchers believe that most people who have AD are still at a stage when there is still some preserved quality of life.

Studies with a popular laboratory model, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, have revealed a possible therapeutic avenue for a rare but deadly condition in which children are born without the ability to make molybdenum cofactor (Moco) on their own

Moco is essential for life

This suggests that such protein-Moco complexes could be used as a treatment for Moco deficiency in people.

C. elegans

The researchers found that the worms could take in Moco as a range of purified Moco-protein complexes. These included complexes with proteins from bacteria, bread mold, green algae and cow's milk. Ingesting these complexes saved the Moco-deficient worms.

"We do not want to overstate our findings, especially as they relate to patients, but we are extremely excited about the therapeutic and fundamental implications of this work."

viewers are not only more likely to share humorously presented news but are also more likely to remember the content from these segments.

"We wanted to test whether humor might make news more socially relevant, and therefore motivate people to remember it and share it."

The researchers also asked participants to answer questions about how likely they would be to share the news clips with others.

Participants were more likely to remember information about politics and government policy when it was conveyed in a humorous rather than non-humorous manner and were more willing to share the information online.

"This is significant because entertainment-based media has become an important source of political news, especially for young adults. Our results suggest that humor can increase knowledge about politics."

Although the disease, which is usually contracted by swimming in contaminated freshwater, is rare, increasing cases have been reported recently in the U.S., the Philippines, southern Brazil and some Asian countries.

traditional medicine in the Mediterranean region, could effectively treat PAM.

Then, they isolated and tested specific compounds from the extract. The most potent compound, inuloxin A, killed amoebae in the lab by disrupting membranes and causing mitochondrial changes, chromatin condensation and oxidative damage, ultimately forcing the parasites to undergo programmed cell death, or apoptosis.

Although inuloxin A was much less potent than amphotericin B in the lab, the structure of the plant-derived compound suggests that it might be better able to cross the blood-brain barrier. More studies are needed to confirm this hypothesis, the researchers say.

nformation from tactile sensors under the sole of the prosthetic foot and from angle sensors in the electronic prosthetic knee joint are converted into pulses of current and passed in to the nerves.

"To trick an above-knee amputee's brain into the belief that the prosthetic leg was similar to his own leg, we artificially restored the lost sensory feedback,

hey weighed down the healthy foot with additional weights and asked the study participant to rate how heavy he felt the two legs were in relation to each other. Neurofeedback was found to reduce the perceived weight of the prosthesis by 23 percent, or almost 500 grams.

The sensory feedback not only allowed him to have a faster gait but also to have a higher spelling accuracy.

When the researchers blocked the input to these neurons, the mice began moving during their sleep, just like someone with REM sleep behavior disorder.

Narcolepsy is characterized by suddenly falling asleep at any time during the day, even in mid-sentence. Cataplexy is a related illness in which people suddenly lose muscle tone and collapse.

They tested their hypothesis using a mouse model of narcolepsy in which cataplexic attacks could be triggered by chocolate. "We found that silencing the SLD-to-ventral medial medulla reduced the number of cataplexic bouts,"

The glycinergic neurons we have identified in the ventral medial medulla could be a good target for drug therapies for people with narcolepsy, cataplexy, or REM sleep behavior disorder,

that not only the cerebral cortex, but the entire auditory pathway, represents sounds according to prior expectations.

Although participants recognised the deviant faster when it was placed on positions where they expected it, the subcortical nuclei encoded the sounds only when they were placed in unexpected positions.

Predictive coding assumes that the brain is constantly generating predictions about how the physical world will look, sound, feel, and smell like in the next instant, and that neurons in charge of processing our senses save resources by representing only the differences between these predictions and the actual physical world.

e have now shown that this process also dominates the most primitive and evolutionary conserved parts of the brain. All that we perceive might be deeply contaminated by our subjective beliefs on the physical world."

Developmental dyslexia, the most wide-spread learning disorder, has already been linked to altered responses in subcortical auditory pathway and to difficulties on exploiting stimulus regularities in auditory perception.

when people think about themselves with others, they are more focused on the present, and less focused on the past or the future than when they think about themselves alone.

Time alone is reflected in people's thoughts as an opportunity to think about past experiences and future plans, to relax from the stress of social interactions, and to engage in self-selected leisure activities.

"Being alone and being with others are represented in people's minds as qualitatively different experiences, each contributing to the formation of an integrated self

For those facing current lockdowns alone, Uziel says the present findings, which highlight potential constructive effects of time alone, indicate that this could also be an opportunity for personal growth.

No evidence was found that a perceived susceptibility to becoming ill and a perceived severity of COVID-19 correlated with an increase in the intent to use a face covering in public.

"Based on our findings, it is possible that messaging strategies that focus on susceptibility to and severity of COVID-19 may not be as effective as targeting actions that influence individual intentions and social norms."

months before the vaccine is readily available to all individuals who seek it.

an essential component in the continuing effort to reduce the virus' transmission

COVID-19, and the consequences of the restrictions introduced to help tackle it, could be contributing to a number of serious mental health issues.

Amongst the male participants, the study found that COVID-19-related anxiety and stress was associated with greater desire for muscularity, with anxiety also associated with body fat dissatisfaction.

In some cases, these issues can have very serious repercussions, including triggering eating disorders.

Certainly during the initial spring lockdown period, our screen time increased, meaning that we were more likely to be exposed to thin or athletic ideals through the media, while decreased physical activity may have heightened negative thoughts about weight or shape. At the same time, it is possible that the additional anxiety and stress caused by COVID-19 may have diminished the coping mechanisms we typically use to help manage negative thoughts.

uring lockdown, women may have felt under greater pressure to conform to traditionally feminine roles and norms

iven that masculinity typically emphasises the value of toughness, self-reliance, and the pursuit of status, COVID-19-related stress and anxiety may be leading men to place greater value on the importance of being muscular."

The right hemisphere can also contribute when learning a new language, making it unclear if the left hemisphere is actually specialized for language.

In the earlier stages of language learning, native and new languages looked quite similar in the brain, but in advanced learners, the two languages were more distinct.

This may explain why it is more difficult to learn to speak a new language as an adult, even though it is possible to learn to understand it quite well.

"This study will likely bring new attention in the field to the ways in which circuits like this, widely considered a 'simple' one, are in fact highly complex and subject to modulatory influence like higher regions of the brain,"

Additionally, they describe novel anatomical projections that provide acetylcholine input to the MNTB.

"You can think of this modulation as akin to shifting an antenna's position to eliminate static for your favorite radio station."

the researchers identified for the first time a set of completely unknown connections in the brain between the modulatory centers and this important area of the auditory system.

understanding how other sensory information is processed in the brain.

The relationship between TBI and PTSD has garnered increased attention in recent years as studies have shown considerable overlap in risk factors and symptoms,

At 3 months, 77 participants, or 18 percent, had likely PTSD; at 6 months, 70 participants or 16 percent did. All subjects underwent brain imaging after injury.

"MRI studies conducted within two weeks of injury were used to measure volumes of key structures in the brain thought to be involved in PTSD,"

Specifically, smaller volume in brain regions called the cingulate cortex, the superior frontal cortex, and the insula predicted PTSD at 3 months.

Together, the findings suggest that a "brain reserve," or higher cortical volumes, may provide some resilience against PTSD.

They also found that being raised in a nurturing environment could significantly counteract the detrimental effect of early adversities on IQ and help children achieve their full intellectual potential.

A nurturing environment also led to better growth and fewer psycho-social difficulties in adolescence, but it did not mitigate the effects of early adversities on growth and psycho-social difficulties."

one in five children are raised in poverty and 15 percent do not complete high school, with higher rates for children in Black and Hispanic families.

Parents want to provide nurturing environments and we need to help them." She said this includes interacting with young children in a positive way such as reading children's books from the library, singing songs together, and playing games with numbers and letters. Children who engage in age-appropriate chores with adult supervision like picking up toys and clearing the table gain skills and feel good about helping.

"This research highlights the importance of nurturing caregivers, both at home and at school to help children lead more productive lives as adults."

These figures are consistent with other studies addressing the impact of the pandemic on mental health.

Almost 10,000 people from 78 countries participated, giving information about their mental health and overall situation during the Covid-19 lockdown.

Hong Kong and Turkey reported more stress than other countries;

Austria, Germany and Switzerland, on the other hand, reported significantly fewer negative emotions

These differences are likely due to a combination of chance, nation-specific responses to the pandemic, cultural differences and factors such as political unrest.

attention to people's mental health remains important.

language skills.

They were tested once and then again an average of 1.7 years later.

Researchers tested memory skills of the people with primary progressive aphasia by showing them pictures of common objects. After waiting 10 minutes, they were shown the same pictures along with others and had to indicate whether they had seen the picture before. This test was given once and then again an average of 2.4 years later.

their verbal memory and language skills declined with equal severity during the study.

Left sided asymmetry of brain shrinkage and a lower incidence of brain proteins known as ApoE4 and TDP-43 were identified as potential contributors to the preservation of memory in this rare type of Alzheimer's disease.

Limitations of the study are the relatively small sample size and that autopsies were not available for all of the primary progressive aphasia cases.

deep, evolutionarily ancient mechanism that helps us balance overall cost and benefit.

Second, it may be influenced by uncertainty about the outcome (you never know, it might work out, so why not keep trying?)

have shown that both capuchin monkeys and rhesus macaques are susceptible to the same behavior and that it occurs more often when the monkeys are uncertain about the outcome.

That helps when you're foraging for food, hunting prey, waiting for eggs to hatch, seeking a mate, or building a nest or enclosure.

"They're like my second set of kids," she said.

"Most rounds lasted only 1 second. So if you didn't get a reward after that, it was actually better to quit and start a new round. That would likely get you a treat sooner than if you had kept going."

"They persisted 5 to 7 times longer than was optimal," said Brosnan, "and the longer they had already tried, the more likely they were to complete the entire task."

t suggests that this behavior is likely driven by evolution and deeply embedded across species.

"Monkeys have really quick reaction times on these games," said Brosnan, "so one second to them is actually a long time."

it shows that human capacities like rationalization, or human concerns like not giving up on something we have publicly committed to, are probably not the main drivers of the sunk cost phenomenon.

reminds us that there is sometimes a good reason to give up.

prefrontal cortex

Major differences in gene activity particularly affected two cell types in PTSD patients -- interneurons, which inhibit neural activity, and microglia, immune system cells in the central nervous system, the researchers report Dec. 21 in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

About 8% of the general population has been diagnosed with PTSD.

as many as 35% exhibit PTSD symptoms.

These differences might help explain why women are more than twice as likely to develop PTSD and other anxiety disorders than men and why they are likely to experience more severe symptoms, the findings suggest.

"This is a new beginning for the PTSD field,

"We need new treatments for PTSD, and studies like this will provide the scientific foundation for a new generation of medication development efforts."

found, using virtual reality, that people differ in how much they are influenced by their visual environment

"These findings may also help us to better understand and predict why astronauts may misestimate how far they have moved in a given situation, especially in the microgravity of space," says Harris.

Not only did the VRI-vulnerable group rely more on vision to tell them how they were oriented, but they also found visual motion to be more powerful in evoking the sensation of moving through the scene,

This decision is helped by the fact that we normally move at right angles to gravity.

But if a person's perception of gravity is altered by the visual environment or by removing gravity, this distinction becomes much harder."

The findings could also be helpful for virtual reality game designers, as certain virtual environments may lead to differences in how players interpret and move through the game.