ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Why does one person who tries cocaine get addicted, while another might use it and then leave it alone? Why do some people who kick a drug habit manage to stay clean, while others relapse? And why do some families seem more prone to addiction than others?

The road to answering these questions may have a lot to do with specific genetic factors that vary from individual to individual, a new study in rats suggests.

Of course, an animal study can't explain all the factors that contribute to differences in addiction among humans. But the findings reveal new information about the roles played by both inherited traits and addiction-related changes in the brain.

Confounding rather than causation may explain association between statin use and lower risk of colorectal cancer

Each year, norovirus causes over 200,000 deaths and a global economic burden of $60 billion. A highly contagious virus that most people will contract 5 times in their lifetime, the most serious outcomes of the disease - hospitalization and death - are far more common among children and the elderly, and in low and middle income countries. In a new PLOS Collection - "The Global Burden of Norovirus & Prospects for Vaccine Development" - global norovirus experts fill critical knowledge gaps and provide key information to further development of a much-needed vaccine.

Insights from the collection

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have identified a circuit between two brain regions that controls alcohol binge drinking, offering a more complete picture on what drives a behavior that costs the United States more than $170 billion annually and how it can be treated.

The discovery of brain pathology through autopsy in former National Football League (NFL) players called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) has raised substantial concern among players, medical professionals, and the general public about the impact of repetitive head trauma. Using sophisticated neuroimaging and analytics, researchers have now identified abnormal areas of low blood flow in living professional football players. These findings, published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, raises the potential for better diagnosis and treatment for persons with football related head trauma.

TORONTO, April 26, 2016 - In 1442, Shinto priests in Japan began keeping records of the freeze dates of a nearby lake, while in 1693 Finnish merchants started recording breakup dates on a local river. Together they create the oldest inland water ice records in human history and mark the first inklings of climate change, says a new report published today out of York University and the University of Wisconsin.

The researchers say the meticulous recordkeeping of these historical "citizen scientists" reveals increasing trends towards later ice-cover formation and earlier spring thaw since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Schools that provide each student with a laptop computer, as well as the appropriate support for both students and teachers, see significant improvement in academic achievement, a new paper indicates.

Michigan State University's Binbin Zheng and colleagues analyzed years of studies on "one-to-one" laptop programs, including Zheng's own research, and found that such programs that take a comprehensive approach were linked to higher test scores in English, math, science and writing, along with other benefits.

A study led by researchers at Lund University in Sweden shows that ravens are as clever as chimpanzees, despite having much smaller brains, indicating that rather than the size of the brain, the neuronal density and the structure of the birds' brains play an important role in terms of their intelligence.

"Absolute brain size is not the whole story. We found that corvid birds performed as well as great apes, despite having much smaller brains", says Can Kabadayi, doctoral student in Cognitive Science.

Seven international tobacco control experts urged government regulators to avoid heavy-handed condemnation of e-cigarette use, in a study published online today in the journal Addiction.

The researchers noted that regulations of e-cigarettes are clearly needed, but that governments need to weigh growing evidence of the benefits e-cigarettes provide in helping some addicted cigarette smokers quit against the potential for harm if non-smokers take up vaping, the term commonly used to describe use of e-cigarettes.