Carnegie Mellon University scientists have discovered a crucial difference in the way learning occurs in the brains of adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Published in NeuroImage, Sarah Schipul and Marcel Just examined how the brains of typical and ASD individuals gradually became adapted to visual patterns they were learning, without awareness of the pattern, or implicit learning.

Signaling molecules of the Wnt family are ubiquitous in biology. From cnidaria to man, they are responsible for forming the basic shape of all organisms. Without Wnt, our body would not have a top or bottom, front or rear. In addition, Wnt controls numerous other development processes in the body. Overly active Wnt signaling, on the other hand, promotes carcinogenesis.

Wnt binds to receptors on the cell surface and fulfils its "classic" functions via a highly complex cascade of protein interactions in the cell's interior. At the end of this intracellular signaling pathway, specific genes in the nucleus are read (transcribed) - the known Wnt signal stimulates transcription.

Chicago - A simple blood test taken before surgery may predict how quickly patients recover from their procedure, suggests a new study in the December issue of Anesthesiology, the official medical journal of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA). According to the study, identifying a patient's immune state from blood samples taken before surgery, revealed patterns that may predict speed of recovery from postoperative pain and dysfunction.

Immune states are patient-specific immune responses to "stressors" that are released by cells during surgery, injury or trauma.

Ever wonder why that diet didn't work? An Israeli study tracking the blood sugar levels of 800 people over a week suggests that even if we all ate the same meal, how it's metabolized would differ from one person to another. The findings, published November 19 in Cell, demonstrate the power of personalized nutrition in helping people identify which foods can help or hinder their health goals.

ROANOKE, Va., Nov. 16, 2015 - Scientists from the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and clinicians from Carilion Clinic have discovered how to sensitize drug-resistant human glioblastoma cells to chemotherapy.

They published their results in Cancer Research, the scientific journal of the American Association of Cancer Research.

Glioblastoma accounts for almost half of all brain cancers. Fewer than one in 20 patients survive five years after their diagnosis, and treatment involves surgical removal of the cancerous tissue, followed by chemotherapy.

Due to disease-related changes in their brain, pain patients often suffer from an impaired tactile ability in their hands. In a pilot study conducted by scientists at the Ruhr-University Bochum, high frequency repetitive stimulation was investigated as a therapeutic approach for these patients. The results of this study have now been published in the journal "Frontiers in Neurology". They show that passive stimulation of this kind is a promising new therapy option.

Passive stimulation: a proven therapy approach

You were once a hollow shell. To sculpt that hollow ball into an organism with layers of internal organs, muscle and skin, portions of that embryonic 'shell' folded inwards. The same happens to fruit fly embryos, and researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have now identified a particular group of cells which are crucial for the first such fold. They also showed for the first time that the shape in which cells are arranged determines the direction in which they contract. Published today in Developmental Cell, the findings were obtained thanks to a new technique in which the scientists use a laser as a remote control.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- As the export of wood pellets from the U.S. to the European Union has increased six-fold since 2008, questions have been raised about the environmental impact of the practice. According to a new paper from a University of Illinois expert in environmental economics, even after accounting for factors ranging from harvesting to transportation across the Atlantic Ocean, wood pellets still trump coal by a wide margin in carbon emissions savings.

The greenhouse gas intensity of wood pellet-based electricity is between 74 to 85 percent lower than that of coal-based electricity, says published research co-written by Madhu Khanna, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics at Illinois.