Children with irregular bedtimes are more likely to have behavioral difficulties. finds a study in Pediatrics, because it can disrupt natural body rhythms and cause sleep deprivation, undermining brain maturation and the ability to regulate certain conduct.

Analysing data from more than 10,000 children in the UK Millennium Cohort Study, the team collected bedtime data at three, five and seven years, as well as incorporating reports from the children's mothers and teachers on behavioral problems.

The study found a clear clinical and statistically significant link between bedtimes and behavior as irregular bedtimes affected children's behavior by disrupting circadian rhythms, leading to sleep deprivation that affects the developing brain.

New research marks an important step toward new technology that, if implemented successfully, would increase the dexterity and clinical viability of robotic prosthetic limbs - touch-sensitive prosthetics that could convey real-time sensory information to amputees via a direct interface with the brain. 

Neurons that process sensory information such as touch and vision are arranged in precise, well-characterized maps that are crucial for translating perception into understanding.  A new study finds that, in mice brains, the actual act of birth in mice causes a reduction in serotonin, triggering sensory maps to form.

Girls in minority groups and low-income families, who are claimed to be most at risk for cervical cancer, are less likely to get the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine. 

Scholars from the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children's Hospital Colorado interviewed 41 low-income parents of girls ages 12-15 to determine why they didn't get the vaccine or finish the course. The survey interviewed both English and Spanish speakers.

Result: English-speaking parents expressed concerns over the need and safety of the vaccine, while Spanish-speaking parents said health care providers failed to explain that they needed three shots to be fully immunized. They also feared the vaccine would encourage sexual activity.

The brain may have its own way of easing social pain, according to a recent paper, and it involves the brain's natural painkiller system. 

Combining brain scans with questionnaire results, they determined that people who score high on a personality trait called resilience – the ability to adjust to environmental change – had the highest amount of natural painkiller activation. 

The team focused on the mu-opioid receptor system in the brain – the same system that the team has studied for years in relation to response to physical pain. Over more than a decade, U-M work has shown that when a person feels physical pain, their brains release chemicals called opioids into the space between neurons, dampening pain signals.

Researchers have isolated and characterized the progenitor cells that eventually give rise to malignant hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tumors – the most common form of liver cancer. The researchers found ways to identify and isolate the HCC progenitor cells (HcPC) long before actual tumors were apparent.

Principal investigator Michael Karin, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology and Pathology at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, and colleagues report that HcPC take form within dysplastic or abnormal lesions often found in damaged or cirrhotic livers. The liver damage can be due to viral infections like hepatitis or from chronic alcohol abuse.