The Dana Foundation announces a Request for Proposals for the 2012 grant program in Brain and Immuno-Imaging.
Deadline: Noon, Feb. 28, 2012. 
This will be the Foundation’s only RFP for 2012.

Suicide and the United States Army

Perspectives from the Former Psychiatry Consultant to the Army Surgeon General

Cerebrum January2012_suicide - feature
by COL (Ret) Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, M.D., M.P.H.

Cerebrum

The suicide rate of active-duty soldiers doubled between 2003 and 2010. In response, the Department of Defense and the United States Army improved their data collection methods to better understand the causes of military suicides. As retired colonel Dr. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie writes, unit history and the accumulation of stressors—from relationship problems to chronic pain—are significant suicide risk factors among soldiers. But, she argues, Army officials must use this knowledge to design more-effective strategies for suicide reduction, including limiting access to weapons, especially post-deployment, and better connecting soldiers with their communities.

Podcast

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Learning

Training executive function is a big part of why we send kids to school. But what works best? The New York Academy of Sciences invited neuroscientists and educators to meet in Aspen to hash out what we know and how schools might change to help every child succeed. (audio link)

News

Making Memory May Mean Modeling and Remodeling

by Moheb Costandi

We build on memory to predict the future, and might remember better if reality surprises us. Researchers offered these and other insights during the recent meeting of the Experimental Psychology Society in London this month.

News

Decision-Making: Beyond Dopamine

by Kayt Sukel

Research presented at the recent Society for Neuroscience annual meeting suggests that norepinephrine and serotonin also play roles in helping us decide.

The Power of Suggestion
Column

The Power of Suggestion

by Guy McKhann, M.D.

Brain in the News

With growing evidence regarding a placebo response, it is important to minimize the effects as much as possible.

See also

News

Wanted: Better Brain-Process Biomarkers for Drug Trials

by Jim Schnabel

Researchers seek faster, cheaper ways to evaluate potential neurodegenerative disease.

Social Neuroscience

Social Neuroscience

How a Multidisciplinary Field Is Uncovering the Biology of Human Interactions

by John Cacioppo, Ph.D., and Stephanie Ortigue, Ph.D.

Cerebrum

Social neuroscientists boost our knowledge of the biology of animal and human interactions in areas as diverse as drug abuse, pair-bonding, and social isolation. As the field continues to grow, we will better understand the social, biological, and cognitive factors that determine how we relate to others.

News

Playing Video Games May Make Specific Changes to the Brain

by Kayt Sukel

Areas that are linked to reward and self-control appear to change when young people play video games, according to two recent studies.

Briefing Paper

Neuromarketing: Prove Thyself & Protect Consumers

by Ann Parson

Neuromarketing, the practice of using neuroscience to try to determine a person’s unconscious biological reactions to a product, is here to stay, but whether it works is much harder to prove.

Beyond Dopamine: The Search for Disease-Stopping Parkinson’s Drugs

by Jim Schnabel

BrainWork

New treatment strategies take aim at the underlying disease process in Parkinson’s. (PDF version also available) 

Do-It-Yourself Neuroscience
News

Do-It-Yourself Neuroscience

by Moheb Costandi

Using off-the-shelf electronics and a little ingenuity, teachers and scientists are helping kids do basic brain science—and even high-tech optogenetics.

Primer

Brain Imaging Technologies and Their Applications in Neuroscience

by Carolyn Asbury, Ph.D.

Imaging is becoming an increasingly important tool in both research and clinical care. This comprehensive report describes types of imaging and what the images can tell us about the brain. It is online in sections and also available complete as 45-page PDF. 

See also

Charlie Rose: The Brain Series
Video

Charlie Rose: The Brain Series

This month, Rose discussed neurological, psychiatric, and addictive disorders with Eric Kandel of Columbia University, Gerald Fischbach of the Simons Foundation, Cornelia Bargmann of Rockefeller University, Nora Volkow of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and Thomas Insel of the National Institute of Mental Health. The Charlie Rose Brain Series is shown on PBS stations, and then is available on the program's website.

 

NIH Announces First National Research Study Recruitment Registry 

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has launched ResearchMatch.org, which seeks to connect people who want to participate in clinical trials with researchers conducting the studies. The user-friendly site will cover an array of diseases.

The NIH also is sponsoring the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study. Doctors at 59 research centers are looking for people with the very earliest complaints of memory problems that affect their daily activities. See a list of locations and how to contact the researchers.  

The Alzheimer's Association hosts a more-general Find a Clinical Trial page for patients, healthy volunteers, doctors, and others.

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