Although progress has been made in recent years, the matter of youth suicide in Quebec still needs to be more effectively addressed. In fact, a new study in The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry shows that more lives could be saved through early detection and increased public awareness and information sharing among professionals. For this research, a team of scientists from the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and McGill University studied 67 suicide completers ages 25 and under and matched them with 56 living control subjects.

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sciencedaily.com

When making decisions about when and how to release a person from drug rehabilitation, doctors might take into account the person’s arrest history or behavior in an interview, but what they don’t consider is perhaps most central to the person’s success: their brains. How a person’s brain reacts to the thought of drugs could reveal whether he or she is ready to face the temptations of the outside world. Or take the case of people who make important economic decisions. The amount of risk those people are willing to take can depend on their surroundings. 

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med.stanford.edu

A spice commonly found in curries may boost the brain's ability to heal itself, according to a report in the journal Stem Cell Research and Therapy. The German study suggests a compound found in turmeric could encourage the growth of nerve cells thought to be part of the brain's repair kit. Scientists say this work, based in rats, may pave the way for future drugs for strokes and Alzheimer's disease. But they say more trials are needed to see whether this applies to humans.

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bbc.com

He went for two reasons. First, a colleague who was promoted to corporal alongside him confided that his wife had threatened divorce if he went to Vietnam. So, to help take the heat off his friend, Bill also volunteered. A pragmatist, Bill also thought that by going to Vietnam, he would get a war service loan, which would help his young family buy a house and make a better start in life. He was there 11 months. But when pounding mounds of waste at a rubbish dump with machine gun fire to use up unwanted ammunition.

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theage.au.com

Brain inflammation can rapidly disrupt our ability to retrieve complex memories of similar but distinct experiences, according to UC Irvine neuroscientists Jennifer Czerniawski and John Guzowski. Their study – which appears today in the Journal of Neuroscience – specifically identifies how immune system signaling molecules, called cytokines, impair communication among neurons in the hippocampus, an area of the brain critical for discrimination memory. 

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medicalxpress.com

While many parents have simply given up on trying to understand their teenagers, neuroscientists aren't ready to throw in the towel quite yet. Adolescents have long fascinated neuroscience researchers. Their enigmatic brains and behavior often leave lasting impressions -- and not always good impressions -- on friends, family, and society. Teenage boys in particular are prone to risky and destructive behavior that must be fully understood before attempts are made to control or harness it. We profiled a study on the subject just a few months ago.

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bigthink.com

 More than a billion people were amazed this summer when a 29-year-old paraplegic man from Brazil raised his right leg and kicked a soccer ball to ceremonially begin the World Cup. The sight of a paralyzed person whose brain directly controlled a robotic exoskeleton (designed at Duke University) was thrilling. We are now entering the golden age of neuroscience. We have learned more about the thinking brain in the last 10-15 years than in all of previous human history.

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online.wsj.com

The vast, complicated nature of the human brain make the intricacies of mental health and mental illness difficult to understand and to treat. Depression is especially hard to take on -- with an incredibly wide range of symptoms, manifestations, and potential treatments, it’s hard to know what will work and when. The tragic death of renowned actor and comedian Robin Williams underscores how difficult coping with depression can be.

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scpr.org

The tiny addition of a chemical mark atop a gene that is well known for its involvement in clinical depression and posttraumatic stress disorder can affect the way a person's brain responds to threats, according to a new study by Duke University researchers. The results, which appear online August 3 in Nature Neuroscience, go beyond genetics to help explain why some individuals may be more vulnerable than others to stress and stress-related psychiatric disorders

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Sciencecodex.com