Brain

People with otherwise untreatable depression improved in a small clinical trial after receiving continuous electrical stimulation of a part of the brain that scientists believe regulates sadness. A report this week in the journal Biological Psychiatry said 12 of 20 patients with chronic major depression benefited from the electronic device. For seven of the 12, the disease went into remission. The benefits were sustained over the course of the one-year study, researchers said.

If you're a teenager, don't read this. Scientists may have discovered a biological excuse for laziness. Studies conducted on adolescents and young adults show significant differences between the two age groups in the brain region that governs "drive," the internal momentum to work for a reward. This region, barely active in adolescence, apparently comes into its own in the early 20s.

Both night-shift work and chronic sleep deprivation are increasingly implicated in mental and cognitive problems. * Alzheimer's risk: Abnormal insulin levels (common in shift workers and sleep-deprived people) may increase the risk for certain neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, scientists at the University of Washington have found. Normally, insulin acts on the brain to promote learning and memory.

Massachusetts photographers have unearthed the only known image of legendary brain-injury patient Phineas Gage, a daguerreotype showing the former railroad worker sitting in repose and holding the nearly 4-foot-long iron rod that pierced his brain without killing him.

When he became a psychiatrist in the 1970s, John Ratey didn't expect to evolve into an exercise buff. But today, the Harvard University professor and expert in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder calls exercise the single most important tool people have to optimize brain function. If you get your body in shape, he says, your mind will follow. Ratey describes the emerging research on exercise and the brain in a book, "Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain," which was published in January by Little, Brown.

Want to give your children a head start in school this year? If you normally serve them cold cereal for breakfast, instead consider serving them oatmeal. Numerous studies already link the first meal of the day to better classroom performance. But recent findings suggest that what children eat at breakfast may also shape how well they learn and the knowledge they retain.

You are asleep on the table, surrounded by beeping monitors and people in white, unaware of the tube down your throat and the slice of the surgeon's knife. You wake a few hours later, as if from deep slumber -- and, thanks to the miracle of anesthesia, remember nothing. Back to normal -- or so it has long been assumed. The use of anesthetics dates back at least 150 years to when a traveling dentist reported using laughing gas on a patient.

The son of a friend of mine is 17, tall, good-looking, quiet -- and a prime example of how much and yet how little many kids know about illegal drugs. Asked what he has used, the teen rattles off pot, alcohol and 'shrooms (mushrooms), which he and a friend grow. But he's also done acid (LSD), crack (cocaine), crystal meth (a form of methamphetamine), prescription tranquilizers and painkillers such as Valium and Percocet, and, oh, yeah, GHB, Ecstasy (and its variants) and mescaline.

Pain, like beauty, is in the mind's eye. It is altered by empathy and tempered by faith, three new brain-imaging studies suggest. The bewitching effect of belief can alter directly how strongly people feel pain, causing measurable changes in brain cells and synapses whether the torment is theirs or a loved one's.

Traumatic brain injuries, one of the signature injuries of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, can be linked to such long-term problems as seizures, aggression and dementia reminiscent of Alzheimer's disease, according to an Institute of Medicine report released Thursday. Even mild brain injuries, the report found, appear associated with some long-term problems. The report is a wake-up call, said Dr.

Henry Molaison lived in relative obscurity, but he possessed one of the world's most famous brains. Known to generations of scientists and psychology students as H.M., Molaison lost the ability to form new memories after surgery removed part of his brain and, by agreeing to be studied over several decades, transformed the way we understand memory. H.M. died last December, but science isn't done with his brain. Molaison, a Hartford, Conn., native who in life often expressed a wish to do what he could to help people, donated his brain for research.

Anyone who's seen a toddler "at work" can tell that her learning style is a study in chaos. She moves from banging pots to tormenting the cat to demanding food to bursting into tears when she can't open the back door and hurdle off the deck -- all in the span of minutes. But when it comes to the daunting task of mastering language, that same child is a turbo-charged learning machine. An intriguing article published Tuesday in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science suggests credit for that ability should go to what she lacks -- a fully formed prefrontal cortex, the same thing that makes her dad so good at filtering out distractions and getting things done.

A world away from the roadside bombs and combat injuries of Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans are suffering the same type of brain injury seen in troops coming home from those war-torn countries. On American roads, at workplaces and on playing fields, more than 11 million have been hurt since the fighting overseas started. Almost 1 in 5 of these civilians will struggle with lingering, often subtle symptoms -- headaches, dizziness, concentration difficulties and personality changes -- for a year, and often longer.

Phineas Gage image: An article in Thursday's Section A about the discovery of a daguerreotype showing brain-injury patient Phineas Gage said the iron rod driven into his skull by a blast was successfully removed. In fact, the blast that drove the rod through his brain also drove it out the other side (it landed 25 to 30 yards behind him). Also, the article said gunpowder caused the blast; it was caused by blasting powder.

Cpl. Anthony Alegre's unit knew the Humvees they drove through the streets of Ramadi, Iraq, were woefully under-armored. They stuffed sandbags in the doors, but when roadside bombs turned the sand into shrapnel, they began wedging pieces of metal and wood around their seats. No use. The car bomb that hit Alegre's patrol on May 29, 2004, killed three of his fellow Marines and left four pieces of metal in his brain. No one expected the 20-year-old infantryman to survive.

Massachusetts photographers have unearthed the only known image of legendary brain-injury patient Phineas Gage, a daguerreotype showing the former railroad worker sitting in repose and holding the nearly 4-foot-long iron rod that pierced his brain without killing him.

Zapping the brain with a mild electrical current appears to help patients with a difficult-to-treat form of cerebral palsy, French researchers said Wednesday. Patients in the study were implanted with pacemaker-like devices known as deep-brain stimulators made by Medtronic Inc., which helped fund the study. After a year, eight out of the 13 people had improvements in motor symptoms, the researchers reported in Lancet Neurology.

For years, school systems across the nation dropped classes in the fine arts to concentrate on getting students to pass tests in reading and mathematics. Now, a growing body of brain research suggests that teaching the arts may be good for students across all disciplines. Scientists are looking at, for instance, whether students at an arts high school who study music or drawing have brains that allow them to focus more intensely or do better in the classroom.

Re "Latest pest-control attempt: Turn fire ants into zombies," May 16 A fly that injects the fire ant with eggs -- then the larvae destroy the ant's brain -- is being released by Texas agriculture officials. Has anyone thought about where this foreign fly will be laying eggs once the fire ants are all gone -- or even sooner? Then what? This fly is the most terrifying insect I can think of. Tom Freeman Pinon Hills, Calif.