Weekly Neuroscience Update

November 18, 2023Leave a comment

(A) Brain regions where spectra were measured (yellow box) (B) 1H MR spectrum in the hippocampus: Hippocampal taurine signal shown at 3.4 ppm (arrow). Black line: actual measured spectrum. Red line: LCModel fitting spectrum. Credit: Korea Basic Science Institute (KBSI)

For the first time, a research team in Korea has discovered there is a significant relationship between depression and the taurine concentration in the hippocampus, an area of the brain responsible for memory and learning functions. This discovery provides the opportunity to publicize the role and importance of taurine in future prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of depression.

A recent study reveals that individuals who experienced childhood adversity, such as neglect or abuse, faced higher chances of COVID-19 hospitalization or mortality in adulthood.

Time spent watching television or playing computer games has measurable and long-term effects on children’s brain function, according to a review of 23 years of neuroimaging research, which—while showing negative impacts—also demonstrates some positive effects.

A first-of-its-kind study has identified overactive inflammation and loss of critical protection mechanisms in the brain as potential contributors to suicide risk.

An international team of scientists has uncovered the vital role of microglia, the immune cells in the brain that acts as its dedicated defense team, in early human brain development. By incorporating microglia into lab-grown brain organoids, scientists were able mimic the complex environment within the developing human brain to understand how microglia influence brain cell growth and development.

A novel study finds a link between childhood physical fitness and cerebellar grey matter volume in adolescents.

Mayo Clinic researchers have identified new scoring criteria allowing for the detection of treatable forms of rapidly progressive dementia (RPD) with reasonably high confidence during a patient’s first clinical visit. This scoring criteria may allow physicians to substantially reduce the time it takes to begin treatment. The findings are published in the Annals of Neurology.

A new sudy has identified the top three genes responsible for traumatic brain injury complications.

Researchers have made a discovery that sheds light on how our brain cells manage to efficiently replace older proteins. This process is crucial for maintaining effective neural communication and ensuring optimal cognitive function.

A pair of studies has uncovered novel cellular mechanisms that are involved in two types of genetic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.

In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience Research, psychological assessments indicated that people who regularly use cannabis, or marijuana, tend to have a greater understanding of the emotions of others. Brain imaging tests also revealed that cannabis users’ anterior cingulate—a region generally affected by cannabis use and related to empathy—had stronger connectivity with brain regions related to sensing the emotional states of others within one’s own body.

Finally this week, researchers have unearthed the genetic connection between the heart and brain related to fainting spells.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

November 10, 2023November 10, 2023Leave a comment

Researchers have identified important new methods for accurately identifying possible biomarkers in adolescent brains that can reliably predict cognitive developments and psychiatric issues.

A new study has examined the neural processes underlying odor processing in the human olfactory system and how the brain handles odor information from different nostrils and details the finding that each nostril has its own sense of smell, recording a distinct representation of the odor information it encounters.

A groundbreaking discovery suggests that dendrites could be pivotal in learning processes and may even influence our understanding of brain states and degenerative diseases.

A new study reveals the brain’s swift response to human errors compared to unintended outcomes. The study found that the brain recognizes an error within one second and then engages in a longer process to prevent future errors. This process was absent when the outcome wasn’t a direct result of an action, indicating a specialized error-awareness mechanism in the brain.

Researchers have identified new therapeutic targets for progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), an incurable brain disorder with symptoms mimicking Parkinson’s and dementia.

A speech prosthetic developed by a collaborative team of neuroscientists, neurosurgeons, and engineers can translate a person’s brain signals into what they’re trying to say. The new technology might one day help people unable to talk due to neurological disorders regain the ability to communicate through a brain-computer interface.

It’s been debated for decades, but now researchers have suggested that left-handedness is not linked to better spatial skills.

A new study sheds light on when adolescents start thinking like adults. Researchers found that executive function, critical for task-switching and focus, typically matures around 18 years old. Drawing from over 10,000 participants and multiple datasets, this large-scale study offers a developmental chart for teen cognitive growth. These findings are invaluable for education, psychiatry, and the judicial system.

Emerging research underscores the profound connection between mental health and heart disease, with depression and anxiety hastening the onset of cardiovascular risk factors.

Researchers have discovered a potential link between the microbe C. perfringens and the progression of multiple sclerosis (MS). The study hints at the prospect of developing a vaccine or alternative treatments in the near future.

In a new study, researchers use a very large dataset to identify predictive brain imaging-based biomarkers of mental illness in adolescents.

Using advanced brain scanning technology, a research team has revealed insights into what happens in the brain during an advanced form of meditation called jhana. By uncovering distinct patterns of activity in different regions of the brain during jhana, the research suggests exciting possibilities for innovative therapies merging ancient meditation practices with modern neuroscience to improve well-being.

Finally this week, new research suggests your biological age, more than the years you’ve lived, may predict your risk of dementia and stroke in the future.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

November 3, 2023November 3, 2023Leave a comment

Acetylcholine wave traveling from lateral (L) to medial (M) in the striatum Credit: Dr. Joshua Goldberg, Prof. Jeffery Wickens, Dr. Nicolas Tristch

A new study unveils the existence of traveling waves of the neurochemical acetylcholine in the striatum, a region of the brain responsible for motivating actions and habitual behaviors.

Researchers have conducted a study aimed at better understanding the patterns in neural network communication associated with ‘bad’ decisions made while gambling. Their paper, published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, shows that different types of ‘bad’ decisions made while gambling, namely avoidant and approach decisions, are associated with distinct neural communication patterns.

What determines how a teenager’s brain is structured and how it evolves? Researchers have established a close link between brain activity and a maturation process called cortical thinning.

Researchers have found COVID-19 does not appear to cause direct brain damage or viral invasion. In blood or cerebrospinal fluid samples, no abnormal biomarkers were found. The findings thus suggest that post-COVID condition is not the result of ongoing infection, immune activation, or brain damage.

A recent study finds differences in functional brain connectivity in people with and without psychosis and schizophrenia that could help researchers understand the neural underpinnings of this disease.

Brain health in people over age 50 deteriorated more rapidly during the pandemic, even if they didn’t have COVID-19, according to major new research linking the pandemic to sustained cognitive decline. The cognitive decline seems to have been exacerbated by several factors during the pandemic, including an increase in loneliness and depression, a decrease in exercise, and higher alcohol consumption.

Prenatal lead exposure is associated with an increased risk for cognitive developmental delay in children, according to a new study.

Children who are too short for their age can suffer reduced cognitive ability arising from differences in brain function as early as six months of age, according to new research. Stunted growth had previously been linked with poor cognitive outcomes later in life, but this is the first time that this association has been found in infancy. It is also the first time stunted growth has been linked to functional differences in how the brain works in early development.

Finally this week, researchers have developed a new method for mapping how the parts of the brain “speak” to each other, critical to understanding behavior changes in patients with neurological disease.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

October 28, 2023October 28, 2023Leave a comment

An international team of researchers has published a digital atlas showing how the normative maturation of the fetal brain occurs between 14 – 31 weeks’ gestation, a critical developmental period.

New findings suggest that measuring changes in how pupils react to light could help predict recovery from depression and personalize transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) treatment of major depressive disorder.

A new study has found the influence of language on human thinking could be stronger than previously assumed.

Scientists at Imperial College London are leading the development and testing of a new method of stimulating the brain, which could provide an alternative treatment for brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, and its associated memory loss.

Researchers report neural signaling during online exchanges is considerably reduced compared to face-to-face conversation.

Two different regions of the brain are critical to integrating semantic information while reading, which could shed more light on why people with aphasia have difficulty with semantics, according to new research.

Finally this week, researchers in Canada have examined what type of music helps to dampen pain perception.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

October 20, 2023Leave a comment

*Study summary graphic. Credit: Mount Sinai Health System*

A team of researchers has created the first “multiome” atlas of brain cell development in the human cerebral cortex across six broad developmental time points from fetal development into adulthood, shedding new light on their roles during brain development and disease.

A new study links rhythmic oscillations in ovarian hormone levels in women during the menstrual cycle to changes in brain structure.

Researchers at Monash University have identified a new way of mapping ‘phosphenes’—the visual perception of the bright flashes we see when no light is entering the eye—to improve the outcome of surgery for patients receiving a cortical visual prosthesis (‘bionic eye’).

A newly published atlas offers the most detailed maps yet of the location, structure, and, in some cases, function of more than 3,000 types of brain cells.

Researchers have analyzed more than a million human brain cells to produce detailed maps of gene switches in brain cell types and revealed the links between specific types of cells and various common neuropsychiatric disorders.

A new study shows that teenagers with OCD experience deficits in decision-making and behavioral control. This is linked to abnormal activity in an area of the brain called the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC).

Severe inflammation in early childhood is a clinically known risk factor for developing autism and schizophrenia. Now, for the first time, scientists have discovered that inflammation alters the development of vulnerable brain cells, and this could have mechanistic links to neurodevelopmental disorders. This finding could lead to treatments for many different childhood-onset neurodevelopmental disorders.

Scientists have discovered widespread differences in metal levels in the brains of patients with Huntington’s disease, a type of dementia, compared to a control group with healthy tissue.

In two parallel projects, researchers have been involved in creating the most comprehensive atlases of human brain cells to date. The two studies provide clues on different brain diseases and give hope for medical advancements in the future, such as new cancer drugs.

In a suite of new studies, a large consortium of researchers shares new knowledge about the cells that make up our brains and the brains of other primates.

The brains of people who reduce their drinking, as well as of people who quit drinking entirely, have greater volume in certain regions than people who drink more heavily, according to a new study of adults treated for alcohol use disorder.

Sleeping patterns and stress hormones could be the key to understanding how and when people with epilepsy are likely to experience seizures, a new study reveals.

New research has found molecular evidence highlighting important sex differences in the brains of people with major depressive disorder, with evidence of changes occurring specifically in the female brain, but not in males.

Finally this week, new research has found that MRI scans can reveal the parts of the brain that are involved in responding to fatty foods.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

September 13, 2019Leave a comment

A team of neuroscientists from Göttingen and Tehran has shown. how our brain combines visual features to achieve a unified percept.

Research published in the journal Cerebral Cortex has shown that stronger functional connectivity—that is, communication among neurons in various networks of the brain—is linked to youthful memory in older adults. Those with superior memories—called superagers—have the strongest connectivity.

Scientists have found a link between brain’s emotion circuit and movement.

High-fat diets are not only bad for your waistline, they are also bad for your brain health. A new study reveals high-fat diets contribute to hypothalamic inflammation which occurs long before symptoms of obesity arise.

Patients with schizophrenia show increased brain activity in central areas of the brain, but lower activity in the temporal sulcus when hearing metaphors.

Researchers have developed a system that measures a patient’s pain level by analyzing brain activity from a portable neuroimaging device. The system could help doctors diagnose and treat pain in unconscious and noncommunicative patients, which could reduce the risk of chronic pain that can occur after surgery.

Finally this week, a new study reports maternal marijuana use may be detrimental to the brain development of children.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

July 7, 2017Leave a comment

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Practicing paying attention can boost performance on a new task, and change the way the brain processes information, a new study says. This might explain why learning a new skill can start out feeling grueling, but eventually feels more natural — although right now, the study’s findings are limited to a simple pattern-recognition game.

A new study reports traumatic brain injury is associated with a higher risk of developing dementia in people of working age.

According to researchers, the ability to assess memory quality appears in children, and metamemory continues to improve beyond childhood into adolescence. The findings could provide new insights into effective learning methods and assist teachers to devise new educational strategies.

Researchers report harmful plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease may build up in the brain as a result of high blood pressure and decreased cerebral blood flow.

A new paper may help answer some questions as to why some infants die suddenly. Looking at blood samples from infants who had died of SIDS, researchers discover 31% of the children had elevated levels of serotonin. The researchers concluded that abnormal serotonin metabolism could indicate an underlying vulnerability that increases SIDS risk.

Using musical cues to learn a physical task significantly develops an important part of the brain, according to a new study.

Poor sleep may be a sign that people who are otherwise healthy may be more at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease later in life than people who do not have sleep problems, according to a study published in Neurology. Researchers have found a link between sleep disturbances and biological markers for Alzheimer’s disease found in the spinal fluid.

A new study reports that listening to something while looking in a different direction may slow reaction times and increase the effort for auditory attention.

Finally, this week, higher intelligence (IQ) in childhood is associated with a lower lifetime risk of major causes of death, including heart disease, stroke, smoking-related cancers, respiratory disease and dementia, finds a study published by The BMJ.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

May 26, 2017May 26, 2017Leave a comment

Scientists have unpicked the regions of the brain involved in dreaming, in a study with significant implications for our understanding of the purpose of dreams and of consciousness itself. What’s more, changes in brain activity have been found to offer clues as to what the dream is about.

A machine learning algorithm shows that during sleep, the brain actively reprocesses information learned the previous day, strengthening the memory.

A new study of obese people suggests that changes in their brains’ reward regions make them more prone to overeating, and that women and men exhibit different brain activity related to overeating.

A plasma membrane protein affects the generation of new neurons in the adult hippocampus, a new study reports.

The brains of youth experiencing elevated depressive symptoms early in adolescence appear to develop differently from those experiencing depression in late adolescence, reports a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Specifically, the MRI study found that cortical surface area was lower in youth with early depressive symptoms compared with those in the other groups.

While some researchers believe oxytocin is released to enhance a romantic relationship, this might not always be the case, a new study reveals.

Researchers have developed a new method to induce visual hallucinations in healthy people. The study could help to develop new treatments to control hallucinations in people with Parkinson’s and other disorders.

Exercise may bolster the brain function and thinking skills of people with dementia, according to a new report.

When prompted to use verbal thinking, people create visual images to accompany their speech, implying visual thinking could be hardwired into our brains, a new study reports.

Researchers report brain network organization changes can influence executive function in young adults.

What happens in the brain when we see other people experiencing a trauma or being subjected to pain? It seems the same regions that are involved when we feel pain ourselves are also activated when we observe other people who appear to be going through some painful experience. This is shown in a study from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden published in Nature Communications.

A new study reports EEG could accurately predict which newborn babies will have neurodevelopmental disorders.

Finally this week, new research, published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience makes the case against fixed starting times, i.e. a fixed one-size-fits-all approach for students and employees.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

September 2, 2016Leave a comment

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Getting some sleep in between study sessions may make it easier to recall what you studied and relearn what you’ve forgotten, even 6 months later, according to new findings.

Metabolic syndrome, a cluster of cardiometabolic conditions, may be a biological mechanism linking posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to structural brain abnormalities, according to a new study in Biological Psychiatry. The findings highlight the need to develop effective interventions for PTSD to treat not only the symptoms associated with the disorder, but also potential ensuing metabolic and neurodegenerative consequences, which may be suggestive of premature aging.

A new study strengthens previous research that claims performing cognitive tasks later in life may reduce the risk of developing dementia.

Your brain activity differs depending on whether you’re working on a task, or at rest — and just how much that activity differs may be linked to how smart you are, a new study finds.

Researchers have developed a new, non-invasive technique that could be used to treat patients with consciousness disorders.

New research published in the New Journal of Physics tries to decompose the structural layers of the cortical network to different hierarchies enabling to identify the network’s nucleus, from which our consciousness could emerge.

A new neuroimaging study links alcohol cravings to the right ventral striatum.

According to researchers, age related changes in the organisation of neural networks when performing short term memory tasks may help to compensate for other aspects of brain ageing.

Researchers have identified a circuit that seems to be related to serotonin-driven anxiety.

A test of how sticky a protein molecule is could help diagnose the early stages of Parkinson’s disease, a study from the University of Edinburgh suggests.

Finally, this week a new study reports dogs have the ability to understand human speech intonation and vocabulary by using similar brain areas to humans.

How Your Brain Sees Things You Don’t

March 3, 2014March 3, 20141 Comment

What do you see in this image? (Credit: Jay Sanguinetti)

A new study indicates that our brains perceive objects in everyday life that we may not be consciously aware of.

The finding by University of Arizona doctoral student Jay Sanguinetti challenges currently accepted models, in place for a century, about how the brain processes visual information.

Sanguinetti showed study participants a series of black silhouettes, some of which contained meaningful, real-world objects hidden in the white spaces on the outsides. He monitored subjects’ brainwaves with an electroencephalogram, or EEG, while they viewed the objects.

Study participants’ brainwaves indicated that even if a person never consciously recognized the shapes on the outside of the image, their brains still processed those shapes to the level of understanding their meaning.

A brainwave that indicates recognition of an object

“There’s a brain signature for meaningful processing,” Sanguinetti said. A peak in the averaged brainwaves called N400 indicates that the brain has recognized an object and associated it with a particular meaning.

“It happens about 400 milliseconds after the image is shown, less than a half a second,” said Peterson. “As one looks at brainwaves, they’re undulating above a baseline axis and below that axis.

The negative ones below the axis are called N and positive ones above the axis are called P, so N400 means it’s a negative waveform that happens approximately 400 milliseconds after the image is shown.”

The presence of the N400 negative peak indicates that subjects’ brains recognize the meaning of the shapes on the outside of the figure.

“The participants in our experiments [in some cases] don’t see those shapes on the outside; nonetheless, the brain signature tells us that they have processed the meaning of those shapes,” said said Sanguinetti adviser Mary Peterson, a professor of psychology and director of the UA’s Cognitive Science Program.

“But the brain rejects them as interpretations, and if it rejects the shapes from conscious perception, then you won’t have any awareness of them.”

“We also have novel silhouettes as experimental controls,” Sanguinetti said. “These are novel black shapes in the middle and nothing meaningful on the outside.”

The N400 waveform does not appear on the EEG of subjects when they are seeing these truly novel silhouettes, without images of any real-world objects, indicating that the brain does not recognize a meaningful object in the image.

“This is huge,” Peterson said. “We have neural evidence that the brain is processing the shape and its meaning of the hidden images in the silhouettes we showed to participants in our study.”

So why does the brain process images that are not perceived?

The finding leads to the question: why would the brain process the meaning of a shape when a person is ultimately not going to perceive it?

“Many, many theorists assume that because it takes a lot of energy for brain processing, that the brain is only going to spend time processing what you’re ultimately going to perceive,” said Peterson.

“But in fact the brain is deciding what you’re going to perceive, and it’s processing all of the information and then it’s determining what’s the best interpretation.

“This is a window into what the brain is doing all the time. It’s always sifting through a variety of possibilities and finding the best interpretation for what’s out there. And the best interpretation may vary with the situation.”

Our brains may have evolved to sift through the barrage of visual input in our eyes and identify those things that are most important for us to consciously perceive, such as a threat or resources such as food, Peterson suggested.

Finding where the processing of meaning occurs

In the future, Peterson and Sanguinetti plan to look for the specific regions in the brain where the processing of meaning occurs to understand where and how this meaning is processed,” said Peterson.

Images were shown to Sanguinetti’s study participants for only 170 milliseconds, yet their brains were able to complete the complex processes necessary to interpret the meaning of the hidden objects.

“There are a lot of processes that happen in the brain to help us interpret all the complexity that hits our eyeballs,” Sanguinetti said. “The brain is able to process and interpret this information very quickly.”

How this relates to the real world

Sanguinetti’s study indicates that in our everyday life, as we walk down the street, for example, our brains may recognize many meaningful objects in the visual scene, but ultimately we are aware of only a handful of those objects, said Sanguinetti.

The brain is working to provide us with the best, most useful possible interpretation of the visual world — an interpretation that does not necessarily include all the information in the visual input.

“The findings in the research also show that our brains are processing potential objects in a visual scene to much higher levels of processing than once thought,” he explained to KurzweilAI. “Our models assume that potential objects compete for visual representation. The one that wins the competition is perceived as the object, the loser is perceived as the shapeless background.

“Since we’ve shown that shapeless backgrounds are processed to the level of semantics (meaning), there might be a way to bias this processing such that hidden objects in a scene might be perceived, by tweaking the image in ways to enunciate certain objects over others. This could be useful in many applications like radiology, product design, and even art.”

Notes:

Silhouette Image: Sanguinetti showed study participants images of what appeared to be an abstract black object. Sometimes, however, there were real-world objects hidden at the borders of the black silhouette. In this image, the outlines of two seahorses can be seen in the white spaces surrounding the black object.

Original source of article http://www.kurzweilai.net/does-your-brain-see-things-you-dont