Applying high-frequency electrical noise to the brain can boost maths skills up to six months later, say Oxford University researchers. (BBC)

People and policymakers may eventually wake up to the fact that we are not a bunch of sick individuals, each of us having a bunch of psychiatric diagnoses, cumulatively constituting a sick society. This is a myth generated by an overly ambitious psychiatry and a remarkably greedy pharmaceutical industry. (Wired)

The US adolescents who signed up for the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) in the 1970s were the smartest of the smart, with mathematical and verbal-reasoning skills within the top 1% of the population. Now, researchers at BGI (formerly the Beijing Genomics Institute) in Shenzhen, China, the largest gene-sequencing facility in the world, are searching for the quirks of DNA that may contribute to such gifts. (Nature)

Today, The Lancet has published a new series of three papers that examine the genetics, diagnosis, and treatment of bipolar disorder. The authors outlined future challenges and debated imminent changes to the criteria for diagnosis of the illness, along with additional commentary assessing proposals for mental disorders specifically associated with stress in the International Classification of Diseases-11. (Medical Daily)

DARPA, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has awarded $6 million to a team of researchers to develop nanotechnology therapies for the treatment of traumatic brain injury and associated infections. (Nanowerk)

Families with exceptional longevity appear to have delayed onset of Alzheimer’s disease, U.S. researchers say. (UPI)

Randles, along with UBC professor Steve Heine, set out to test a new approach to issues that lie at the heart of anxiety, whether it takes the form of social nervousness or existential dread. What if, they wondered, instead of drugging patients out of feeling anxious, we could target and disarm the neural alarm system that raises those feelings in the first place? What if, in other words, we could trick a habitually anxious brain into seeing unpredictable circumstances as relatively harmless? (Scientific American)

Baxter International Inc. officials said its Phase III clinical study of immunoglobulin did not reduce cognitive decline in those with moderate Alzheimer’s. (UPI)

The expert, Dr. Thomas R. Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, said in an interview Monday that his goal was to reshape the direction of psychiatric research to focus on biology, genetics and neuroscience so that scientists can define disorders by their causes, rather than their symptoms. (New York Times)

What is science revealing about the nature of the criminal mind? Adrian Raine, a professor at the university of Pennsylvania, is an expert in the expanding field of “neurocriminology.” He has written The Anatomy of Violence, a sweeping account of crime’s biological roots, including genetics, neuro-anatomy and environmental toxins like lead. He spoke with Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook. (The New Scientist)

The killings we’ve seen at a Connecticut elementary school, and more recently at the Boston Marathon, are fortunately rare events. Mass killings have remained at a stable level for the past two decades. But they are just the tip of a chilling violence iceberg that has titanic financial and social costs to society. (CNN)

A brain implant may be able to predict epilepsy seizures by picking up the early warning signs, a small study suggests. (BBC)

Scientists have discovered the first gene involved in typical migraines, which could lead to new and better treatments for the millions afflicted by pounding headaches. (The Telegraph)

Everyone’s got brains on the brain these days. With Obama’s $100M brain initiative, new cerebral transparency and further investigations into neurology-determined behavior, it’s easy to forget how little we knew about the human central computer just a short time ago. (Wired)

Fresno State is one of dozens of colleges tightening the rules on the diagnosis of A.D.H.D. and the subsequent prescription of amphetamine-based medications like Vyvanse and Adderall. Some schools are reconsidering how their student health offices handle A.D.H.D., and even if they should at all. (New York Times)

Some boys may be labeled incorrectly with the condition, but undertreatment may be the bigger problem (Scientific American)

Two pioneering researchers of brain disease among athletes in violent sports recommended Saturday that investigators conduct special autopsy tests on amateur boxer Tamerlan Tsarnaev to determine whether the Boston Marathon bombing suspect could have been affected by boxing-related brain damage. (Boston.com)

Movies of early development show that neural cells decide what fate to adopt while rapidly traveling from place to place, making it hard to see how the textbook model can be true. Megason and colleagues propose that instead of the location telling a cell what identity to adopt, the cell’s identity is fixed first and then determines the location. (Phys.org)

Children at an increased risk of autism may have abnormal structures in the placenta that can be detected at birth, a new study finds. (Scientific American)

The stem cell transplant regimen that was commonly used in the United States to treat advanced neuroblastoma in children appears to be more toxic than the equally effective regimen employed in Europe and Egypt, according to a new study to be presented at the 26th annual meeting of the American Society of Pediatric Hematology Oncology in Miami April 24-27. The U.S. regimen was associated with more acute toxicity to the kidneys and liver. (News-Medical)

Research suggests that mental illnesses lie along a spectrum — but the field’s latest diagnostic manual still splits them apart. (Nature)