Weekly Neuroscience Update

February 1, 2014Leave a comment

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and other brain imaging technologies allow for the study of differences in brain activity in people diagnosed with schizophrenia. The image shows two levels of the brain, with areas that were more active in healthy controls than in schizophrenia patients shown in orange, during an fMRI study of working memory. Credit: Kim J, Matthews NL, Park S./PLoS One.

Researchers from the Broad Institute and several partnering institutions have taken a closer look at the human genome to learn more about the genetic underpinnings of schizophrenia. In two studies published in Nature, scientists analyzed the exomes, or protein-coding regions, of people with schizophrenia and their healthy counterparts, pinpointing the sites of mutations and identifying patterns that reveal clues about the biology underlying the disorder.

A new brain region that appears to help humans identify whether they have made bad decisions has been discovered by researchers.

New research finds that the brains of autistic children generate more information at rest – a 42% increase on average. The study offers a scientific explanation for the most typical characteristic of autism – withdrawal into one’s own inner world. The excess production of information may explain a child’s detachment from their environment.

The brain appears to synchronize the activity of different brain regions to make it possible for a person to pay attention or concentrate on a task, scientists have learned.

Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine are investigating the effects of repeated combat-related blast exposures on the brains of veterans. Mild traumatic brain injuries can cause problems with cognition, concentration, memory and emotional control. Scientists are using advanced MRI technology and psychological tests to investigate the structural and biological impact of repeated head injury and to assess how these injuries affect cognitive functions. Final results of the study have not yet been published, but researchers hope it will lead to more scientifically valid diagnostic techniques that could potentially allow for detection of both the underlying brain injury and its severity.

The Neuroscience of Stress: Two Ways Your Brain Responds to Stress

January 30, 2014Leave a comment

Sometimes it feels like our brain is wired to make stressful situations feel worse than they are. Here Rick Hanson, PhD talks about our three core needs and how these affect the brain.

Understanding ADHD and Learning Disability Part VIII

January 28, 20143 Comments

‘ADHD is an attention difference not an attention disorder.’

This inspiring video reinforces the view that we as a society must embrace cognitive diversity.

Part 2: Understanding ADHD and Learning Disability

Part 3: Understanding ADHD and Learning Disability

Part 4: Understanding ADHD and Learning Disability

Part 5: Understanding ADHD and Learning Disability

Part 6: Understanding ADHD and Learning Disability

Part 7: Understanding ADHD and Learning Disability

Weekly Neuroscience Update

January 25, 2014January 25, 2014Leave a comment

This cross-section of the hippocampus shows island cells (green) projecting to the CA1 region of the hippocampus. (Credit: Takashi Kitamura)

Neuroscientists have discovered how two neural circuits in the brain work together to control the formation of time-linked memories. This is a critical ability that helps the brain to determine when it needs to take action to defend against a potential threat.

Survivors of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are three times more likely to die prematurely, often from suicide or fatal injuries, according to a study from Oxford University.

An international team of researchers has found that the cause of schizophrenia is even more complex than already believed, with rare gene mutations contributing to the disorder. In two studies published in the journal Nature, they show that schizophrenia arises from the combined effects of many genes.

Scientists have found that, to allow us to concentrate, we synchronize different regions of our brains in a process that the researchers describe as “roughly akin to tuning multiple walkie-talkies to the same frequency.”

Researchers have identified a protein in the brain that plays a critical role in the memory loss seen in Alzheimer’s patients, according to a study to be published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Using a simple study of eye movements, scientists report evidence that people who are less patient tend to move their eyes with greater speed. The findings, the researchers say, suggest that the weight people give to the passage of time may be a trait consistently used throughout their brains, affecting the speed with which they make movements, as well as the way they make certain decisions.

Researchers have found that epileptic activity can spread through a part of the brain in a new way, suggesting a possible novel target for seizure-blocking medicines.

Inside The Sleeping Brain

January 19, 2014January 19, 2014Leave a comment

Russell Foster, Professor of Circadian Neuroscience, studies sleep and its role in our lives, examining how our perception of light influences our sleep-wake rhythms. The research on light perception hits home as we age — faced with fading vision, we also risk disrupted sleep cycles, which have very serious consequences, including lack of concentration, depression and cognitive decline. The more we learn about how our eyes and bodies create our sleep cycles, the more seriously we can begin to take sleep as a therapy.

Weekly Neuroscience Update

January 18, 2014Leave a comment

The problem with diagnosing and treating pain is that it’s so subjective. But a new paper in Pain says that brain structure may hold some answers.

Adding cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) to the treatment of migraines in children and adolescents resulted in greater reductions in headache frequency and migraine-related disability compared with headache education, according to a new study.

Scientists have discovered how salt acts as a key regulator for drugs used to treat a variety of brain diseases including chronic pain, Parkinson’s disease, and depression.

Research focused on the amygdala can help identify children at risk for anxiety disorders and depression.

Whales, bats, and even praying mantises use ultrasound as a sensory guidance system – and now a new study has found that ultrasound can modulate brain activity to heighten sensory perception in humans.

Scientists have shown that there are widespread differences in how genes, the basic building blocks of the human body, are expressed in men and women’s brains.

A new study shows a leftward asymmetry of the choroid plexus in two-thirds of first-trimester human fetuses. This is the earliest brain asymmetry so far identified and may be a precursor to other asymmetries, including that of the temporal planum, which is evident from the 31st week of gestation.

Researchers have discovered the mechanism in the brain responsible for the motor and vocal tics found in Tourette Syndrome. The study, published in the British Psychological Society’s Journal of Neuropsychology, could at some point lead to new non-drug therapies.

A new study by neuroscientists is the first to directly compare brain responses to faces and objects with responses to colors.

A study begun in Mexico with the collaboration of university students has analysed the effect of weekend alcohol consumption on the lipids comprising cell membrane and its genetic material, i.e. DNA.

Study reveals senses of sight and sound separated in children with autism

January 15, 20141 Comment

Like watching a foreign movie that was badly dubbed, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have trouble integrating simultaneous information from their eyes and their ears, according to a Vanderbilt study. The study, led by Mark Wallace, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, is the first to illustrate the link and strongly suggests that deficits in the sensory building blocks for language and communication can ultimately hamper social and communication skills in children with autism.

To learn more about this research visit:

http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/01/senses-of-sight-and-sound-separated-in-children-with-autism/

Understanding how your brain works helps you learn better

January 13, 2014January 13, 2014Leave a comment

Evidence is accumulating that knowledge about the brain empowers learning. This is because understanding how your brain learns and remembers fosters a sense of autonomy (i.e. making your learning independent of someone/something else) and autonomy is recognised as a key factor in effective learning.

This 10 minute video can provide you with insights into how to prime your brain for effective learning and it may help if you are worried about exams and feel that you are not learning optimally.

Comments are welcome.

Inside The Plastic Brain

January 10, 2014Leave a comment

Inside The Emotional Brain

January 8, 2014

brain activity emotions

Scientists have found a way to determine what emotions you’re feeling by looking at brain activity measured by imaging technology.

The findings, published in the journal PLOS ONE, are important to emotion research because they bring “a new method with potential to identify emotions without relying on people’s ability to self-report,” study researcher Karim Kassam, an assistant professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, said in a statement.

“It could be used to assess an individual’s emotional response to almost any kind of stimulus, for example, a flag, a brand name or a political candidate.”

For the study, researchers used a combination of brain imaging — functional magnetic resonance imaging — and machine learning. They recruited 10 actors from the university’s drama school to act out different emotions, such as anger, happiness, pride and shame, while inside an fMRI scanner, for multiple times in random order.

To make sure that researchers were able to measure the actual emotions and not just the acting out of emotions, they had the study participants also look at emotion-eliciting images while undergoing FMRI brain scans.

“Despite manifest differences between people’s psychology, different people tend to neurally encode emotions in remarkably similar ways,” study researcher Amanda Markey, a graduate student in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences at the university, said in a statement.

Source: Huffington Post