Studies explore how human brain remembers

In a pair of studies, scientists at the National Institutes of Health highlighted the ways the human brain stores and retrieves memories. One study suggests that the brain etches each memory into unique firing patterns of individual neurons, while the other study suggests that the brain replays memories faster than they are stored.
For both studies, the researchers monitored brains’ electrical activity while testing the patients’ memories.

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and the Texas Heart Institute studied pathways involved in heart cell functions to discover a previously unknown connection between processes that keep the heart from self-repairing. 
Published in the journal Nature, the finding opens possibilities to promote heart cell renewal. Scientists focused on two pathways of cardiomyocytes or heart cells: the Hippo pathway, involved in stopping renewal of adult cardiomyocytes, and dystrophin glycoprotein complex (DGC) pathway, essential for cardiomyocyte normal functions.

Early childhood exposures to specific phthalates were associated with depressed thyroid function in girls at age 3, according to scientists at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Phthalates, a class of chemicals thought to disrupt the endocrine system, are widely used in consumer products. 
The study, published in Environment International, is the first to assess the link between phthalate exposure and thyroid function in children over time.