Jon Hamilton

The Human Voice May Not Spark Pleasure In Children With Autism

Jon Hamilton — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:45:00 +0000

The human voice appears to trigger pleasure circuits in the brains of typical kids, but not children with autism, a Stanford University team reports. The finding could explain why many children with autism seem indifferent to spoken words.

The Stanford team used functional MRI to compare the brains of 20 children who had autism spectrum disorders and 19 typical kids.

With Epilepsy Treatment, The Goal Is To Keep Kids Seizure-Free

Jon Hamilton — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 06:55:00 +0000

Barton Holmes was 16 months old when he had his first seizure. "He was convulsing and his eyes were rolling in the back of his head," his mother, Catherine McEaddy Holmes, says. "His lips were blue. I thought he was dying."

The seizure ended in less than a minute. And by the time an ambulance arrived, Barton was back to his old self.

'Extremely Active' Atlantic Hurricane Season Predicted

Jon Hamilton — Thu, 23 May 2013 22:20:00 +0000

Unusually warm ocean temperatures and favorable wind patterns mean the Atlantic is likely to see "an active or extremely active" hurricane season this year, say officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The agency expects between seven and 11 hurricanes and as many as 20 named storms during the 2013 season, which runs from June 1 through November.

So for residents of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, "now is the time to pay attention to preparedness," NOAA's acting administrator, Kathryn Sullivan, told a news conference Thursday at the agency's new Climate Prediction

Forecasters Had Chance To Warn Moore, Okla., Before Tornado

Jon Hamilton — Tue, 21 May 2013 00:12:00 +0000

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

Joining us now is NPR science correspondent Jon Hamilton who has done a lot of reporting on tornadoes before. And, Jon, talk a bit about the path of this tornado and the destruction that it's brought.

JON HAMILTON, BYLINE: Well, if you look at it on the weather maps, it looks like it cut a large swath that went a few miles south of Oklahoma City, so that would have taken it right through Moore. And that's a suburban - a number of suburban communities, lot of houses, lot of schools.

Experts Agree: 'Psychiatry's Bible' Is No Bible

Jon Hamilton — Fri, 17 May 2013 21:39:00 +0000

When the American Psychiatric Association releases its new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -- DSM-5 -- this weekend, lots of journalists and commentators will refer to it as "psychiatry's bible."

That's a term that makes the manual's authors and other mental experts cringe.

Why Is Psychiatry's New Manual So Much Like The Old One?

Jon Hamilton — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:39:00 +0000

The American Psychiatric Association is about to release an updated version of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The DSM helps mental health professionals decide who has problems such as depression, anxiety and schizophrenia.

Psychiatry's new manual, DSM-5, has been nearly 20 years in the making. During that time, scientists have learned a lot about the brain.

How Can Identical Twins Turn Out So Different?

Jon Hamilton — Thu, 09 May 2013 20:34:00 +0000

A study of genetically identical mice is providing some hints about humans.

Imagine A Flying Pig: How Words Take Shape In The Brain

Jon Hamilton — Thu, 02 May 2013 07:00:00 +0000

This is a story about a duck. More precisely, it's a story about what your brain just did when you read the word "duck."

Chances are, your brain created an image of a web-footed waterfowl. It also may have recalled the sound of quacking or the feel of feathers. And new research suggests that these mental simulations are essential to understanding language.

Just a few decades ago, many linguists thought the human brain had evolved a special module for language.

A Sleep Gene Has A Surprising Role In Migraines

Jon Hamilton — Wed, 01 May 2013 20:56:00 +0000

Mutations on a single gene appear to increase the risk for both an unusual sleep disorder and migraines, a team reports in Science Translational Medicine.

The finding could help explain the links between sleep problems and migraines.

A Tale Of Mice And Medical Research, Wiped Out By A Superstorm

Jon Hamilton — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 07:31:00 +0000

When Superstorm Sandy inundated lower Manhattan last year, thousands of lab animals drowned and many scientists lost months or even years of work. One of those scientists is Gordon Fishell, a brain researcher at New York University.

Just hours before Sandy reached New York, Fishell says, he began to worry that animals housed in a basement below his lab were in danger.

Genetically Modified Rat Is Promising Model For Alzheimer's

Jon Hamilton — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 21:34:00 +0000

A rat with some human genes could provide a better way to test Alzheimer's drugs.

The genetically modified rat is the first rodent model to exhibit the full range of brain changes found in Alzheimer's, researchers report in The Journal of Neuroscience.

"It's a big step forward" for drug development, says Roderick Corriveau, a program director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, or NINDS, which helped fund the work.

Listen Up To Smarter, Smaller Hearing Aids

Jon Hamilton — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 07:18:00 +0000

One day in the fall of 2010, composer Richard Einhorn woke up and realized there was something horribly wrong with his hearing.

"There was an enormous, violent buzzing in my ears," he says. "And I realized that my right ear had gone completely deaf."

Einhorn, who lives in New York, was experiencing a rare problem called sudden deafness.

Obama's Plan To Explore The Brain A 'Most Audacious Project'

Jon Hamilton — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 23:32:00 +0000

President Obama has announced an ambitious plan to explore the mysteries of the human brain.

In a speech Tuesday, Obama said he will ask Congress for $100 million in 2014 to "better understand how we think and how we learn and how we remember." Other goals include finding new treatments for Alzheimer's disease, epilepsy and traumatic brain injury.

The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative would accomplish this by developing tools that would allow researchers to monitor millions or even billions of in

The Number Of Early Childhood Vaccines Not Linked To Autism

Jon Hamilton — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 07:08:00 +0000

A large new government study should reassure parents who are afraid that kids are getting autism because they receive too many vaccines too early in life.

The study, by researchers at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, found no connection between the number of vaccines a child received and his or her risk of autism spectrum disorder.

Maybe Isolation, Not Loneliness, Shortens Life

Jon Hamilton — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 07:28:00 +0000

Loneliness hurts, but social isolation can kill you. That's the conclusion of a study of more than 6,500 people in the U.K.

The study, by a team at University College London, comes after decades of research showing that both loneliness and infrequent contact with friends and family can, independently, shorten a person's life.