News

UCLA researchers have identified a potential diagnostic marker that could help predict how likely someone with cervical cancer is to respond to the standard treatment of chemotherapy and radiation.

Our ability to feel and understand the emotions of others, "empathy," is at the core of our prosocial behaviors such as cooperation and caregiving. Scientists have recognized two types of empathy: cognitive and affective. Cognitive empathy involves understanding another person's emotions on an intellectual level, taking into consideration someone's situation and how they would react (for example, "putting yourself in someone else's shoes"). Affective empathy, on the other hand, is a kind of emotional contagion, where you feel someone's emotion instinctively after observing their expression or other mood indicators. Both these types strongly predict how parents behave with their children and can subsequently influence child psychological development. Therefore, understanding how empathy is shaped can help us to decipher parental behavior.

There are few moments in life as precious, as critical and as celebrated as baby’s first breath. New research from the University of Virginia School of Medicine sheds light on the lifelong changes in breathing systems that occur precisely with that first breath – and may offer important insights into Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

A new genetic risk factor for Motor Neurone Disease (MND), which if treated could halt or prevent the degenerative condition, has been identified in so-called 'junk DNA' by scientists at the University of Sheffield. The newly discovered genetic changes are present in up to one percent of MND patients.

Why do some people age faster than others? One potential answer, a new UCLA-led study indicates, is that a mother's stress prior to giving birth may accelerate her child's biological aging.

Every 11 minutes, an American dies by suicide. That's 132 people a day or more than 48,000 annually. For those left behind, the haunting question is why.