Category: Lifestyle

Weekly Round-Up

Blogging may have psychological benefits for teens suffering from social anxiety, improving their self-esteem and helping them relate better to their friends, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have discovered that DNA stays too tightly wound in certain brain cells of schizophrenic subjects. The findings suggest that drugs already in development for other diseases might eventually offer hope as a treatment for schizophrenia and related conditions in the elderly.

Deep depression that fails to respond to any other form of therapy can be moderated or reversed by stimulation of areas deep inside the brain.

Radiology researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) have found evidence that multiple sclerosis affects an area of the brain that controls cognitive, sensory and motor functioning apart from the disabling damage caused by the disease’s visible lesions.

People with diets high in several vitamins or in omega 3 fatty acids are less likely to have the brain shrinkage associated with Alzheimer’s disease than people whose diets are not high in those nutrients, according to a new study published in the December 28, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

When you experience a new event, your brain encodes a memory of it by altering the connections between neurons. This requires turning on many genes in those neurons. Now, MIT neuroscientists have identified what may be a master gene that controls this complex process. The findings, described in the Dec. 23 issue of Science, not only reveal some of the molecular underpinnings of memory formation — they may also help neuroscientists pinpoint the exact locations of memories in the brain.

Weekly Round Up

Image Source: The Dana Foundation

Our senses of sight and hearing work closely together, perhaps more than people realize, a new UCLA psychology study shows.

A team of neurobiologists  has shown for the first time that cortex, the largest area of the brain that is typically associated with higher functions such as perception and cognition, is also a prominent site of emotional learning.

Tiny electric currents applied across regions of the brain can improve hand movements in recovering stroke patients for a short period, an Oxford University study has demonstrated.

For the first time, scientists have proven that cannabis harms the brain. But the same study challenges previously-held assumptions about use of the drug, showing that some brain irregularities predate drug use.

How might keeping patients awake during surgery lead to the more successful removal of brain tumours? James Keidel, in his shortlisted entry for the 2011 Wellcome Trust Science Writing Prize, explains.

Researchers from the University of Bristol have discovered that a chemical compound in the brain can weaken the synaptic connections between neurons in a region of the brain important for the formation of long-term memories. The findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, may also provide a potential explanation for the loss of memory associated with Alzheimer’s.

Weekly Round Up

Finnish researchers have developed a groundbreaking new method that allows them to study how the brain processes different aspects of music, such as rhythm, tonality and timbre (sound color) in a realistic listening situation. The study is pioneering in that it for the first time reveals how wide networks in the brain, including areas responsible for motor actions, emotions, and creativity, are activated during music listening. The new method helps us understand better the complex dynamics of brain networks and the way music affects us.

Dreaming may act like a type of overnight therapy, taking the edge off painful memories, a new study says.

Connectivity is a hot topic in neuroscience these days. Instead of trying to figure out what individual brain regions do, researchers are focusing more on how regions work together as a network to enable memory, language, and decision-making. Now, a study of more than 100 children finds that interconnected brain regions develop in concert through childhood and adolescence. The researchers say their work could have implications for understanding various puzzles in neuroscience, such as what goes wrong in autism or why adolescent boys are prone to risky behavior.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers have identified abnormalities in the brains of children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) that may serve as a biomarker for the disorder.

People who meditate seem to be able ‘switch off’ areas of the brain associated with daydreaming as well as psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, according to a new brain imaging study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Sustained changes in the region of the brain associated with cognitive function and emotional control were found in young adult men after one week of playing violent video games, according to study results presented by Indiana University School of Medicine researchers at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

Weekly Round Up

The secret world of dreams could soon be cracked open. Innovative neuroscientists have already begun to figure out the thoughts of awake people– now, a team reckon they can use similar methods to tap into dreams.

We already know that “mirror therapy” – visual feedback from mirrors – has been shown to reduce some kinds of chronic pain, notably the pain felt in  “phantom limbs” of amputees. Preliminary results from a new study, described November 12 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, suggests mirror therapy may offer a  may offer a powerful and inexpensive way to fight persistent arthritis pain.

Brain scans have revealed the workings of the brain’s GPS that underpin our decisions as we navigate towards a destination.

A team of researchers co-led by the University of Pennsylvania has developed and tested a new high-resolution, ultra-thin device capable of recording brain activity from the cortical surface without having to use penetrating electrodes. The device could make possible a whole new generation of brain-computer interfaces for treating neurological and psychiatric illness and research.

How you think about pain can have a major impact on how it feels. That’s the intriguing conclusion neuroscientists are reaching as scanning technologies let them see how the brain processes pain.

Fourteen-year-olds who were frequent video gamers had more gray matter in the rewards center of the brain than peers who didn’t play video games as much – suggesting that gaming may be correlated to changes in the brain, much as addictions are.

Weekly Round Up

Researchers have identified the group of neurons that mediates whether light arouses us or not.

Providing support to a loved one offers benefits to the giver, not just the recipient, a new brain-imaging study by UCLA life scientists reveals.

There’s growing evidence that the brains of autistic children are very different from the brains of other youngsters. Now a new study that found an excess of brain cells in children with autism comes closer to pinpointing the origins of the condition: in utero versus in toddlerhood.

Finally this week, scientists have found a direct link between the number of ‘Facebook friends’ a person has and the size of particular brain regions. Commenting on the study, Dr John Williams, Head of Neuroscience and Mental Health at the Wellcome Trust, said: “We cannot escape the ubiquity of the internet and its impact on our lives, yet we understand little of its impact on the brain, which we know is plastic and can change over time. This new study illustrates how well-designed investigations can help us begin to understand whether or not our brains are evolving as they adapt to the challenges posed by social media.”

Inside the gaming brain

In this recent lecture, I translate cutting-edge neuroscience to answer such questions as how a gamers brain is ‘formed’ and illuminate the brain processes involved in generating creative games and using them to get the best from the brain.

How social and emotional learning can affect the brain

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson‘s research is focused on cortical and subcortical substrates of emotion and affective disorders, including depression and anxiety.

Using quantitative electrophysiology, positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging to make inferences about patterns of regional brain function, his lab studies normal adults and young children, and those with, or at risk for, affective and anxiety disorders.

A major focus of his current work is on interactions between prefrontal cortex and the amygdala in the regulation of emotion in both normal subjects and patients with affective and anxiety disorders.

In this video Professor Davidson presents his research on how social and emotional learning can affect the brain.

Weekly Round Up

In an attempt to put matter over mind, researchers are beginning to decipher what exactly is happening in our brains when we are making decisions. 

Historically, the dyslexia label has been assigned to children who whose high IQs mismatch their low reading scores, but a new brain-imaging study challenges this understanding of dyslexia.

Twin studies have shown that people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have changes in gene activity caused by their environment. The finding provides the strongest evidence yet that such gene changes might cause the conditions.

The famous dictum of Henry Ford “Whether you think you can or think you can’t – you’re right,” has been put to the test in new study, which finds that people who think they can learn from their mistakes have a different brain reaction to mistakes than people who think intelligence is fixed.

Everybody has experienced a sense of “losing oneself” in an activity and now researchers have caught the brain in the act.

The brains of autistic children have a distinctive topography that a team of Stanford University scientists was able to capture using new imaging techniques, with the hope of someday creating a template for the autistic brain that could be used to diagnose children at an early age.

Finally, modern society’s increasing dependency on online tools for both work and recreation opens up unique opportunities for the study of social interactions. With this in mind, scientists at Indiana University  have put Dunbar’s Number (a theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships) to the test by analyzing the Twitter activity of 1.7 million individuals. Their research offers support to Dunbar’s hypothesis of a biological limit to the number of relationships than can be simultaneously maintained by a single individual.

What is dopamine?

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that helps control the brain’s reward and pleasure centers. Dopamine also helps regulate movement and emotional responses, and it enables us not only to see rewards, but to take action to move toward them.

Dopamine deficiency results in Parkinson’s Disease, and people with low dopamine activity may be more prone to addiction. Most abused drugs cause the release of dopamine and this is thought to contribute to their addictive properties.

This video describes some of the cognitive functions of dopamine in your brain.

Weekly Round Up

The Guardian newspaper reports on a new study on how video games can persist in our perception as fleeting hallucinations in an effect labelled ‘game transfer phenomena’.

Responding to faces is a critical tool for social interactions between humans. Without the ability to read faces and their expressions, it would be hard to tell friends from strangers upon first glance, let alone a sad person from a happy one. Now, neuroscientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), with the help of collaborators at Huntington Memorial Hospital and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, have discovered a novel response to human faces by looking at recordings from brain cells in neurosurgical patients.

New medical research tends to confirm that the human brain does not stop developing in adolescence, but continues well into our 20s, according to investigators at the University of Alberta.

A review of the evidence to date suggests that music therapy can help patients recover their movements after experiencing brain damage.

Frontotemporal dementia—triggered by cell death in the front and sides of the brain—accounts for about one-fourth of all cases of early-onset dementia. Now, scientists at UCLA have discovered that a certain signaling pathway plays a key role in the brain disorder and may offer a potential target for treatment.

Finally, the latest research shows that your learning can continue even while you sleep, so those adverts for products that help you learn while you sleep may be true after all!