Tag: autism

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

Peer pressure is hard-wired into our brains

A new study explains why people take stupid chances when all of their friends are watching that they would never take by themselves. According to the study,the human brain places more value on winning in a social setting than it does on winning when you’re alone. Scientists have identified the part of the brain responsible for controlling whether we conform to expectations and group pressure.

Does a blind person reading Braille process words in the brain differently than a person who reads by sight? Mainstream neuroscience thinking implies that the answer is yes because different senses take in the information. But a recent study in Current Biology finds that the processing is the same, adding to mounting evidence that using sensory inputs as the basis for understanding the brain may paint an incomplete picture.

New research sheds light on how and why we remember dreams–and what purpose they are likely to serve.

Child neurologist and neuroscientist Dr. Tallie Z. Baram has found that maternal care and other sensory input triggers activity in a baby’s developing brain that improves cognitive function and builds resilience to stress.

University of British Columbia scientists may have uncovered a new explanation for how Alzheimer’s disease destroys the brain.

The brains of people who relapse into depression differ from those of people who maintain a recovery, a new study shows. The results may provide insight into why some people relapse and why certain therapies may help, the researchers said.

Researchers using scanning technology say they discovered physical differences in the brains of older children with autism compared to those of kids without autism.

And finally, in an effort to understand what happens in the brain when a person reads or considers such abstract ideas as love or justice, Princeton researchers have for the first time matched images of brain activity with categories of words related to the concepts a person is thinking about. The results could lead to a better understanding of how people consider meaning and context when reading or thinking.

 

Weekly Round Up

Pathways within the brain can be strengthened by reading and language exposure

 Recent research shows that reading  boosts brain pathways and can actually affect understanding in nearly all school subjects – a great reason to encourage the reading habit in your children.

Scientists at the University of Michigan Health System have demonstrated how memory circuits in the brain refine themselves in a living organism through two distinct types of competition between cells. Their results, published  in Neuron, mark a step forward in the search for the causes of neurological disorders associated with abnormal brain circuits, such as Alzheimer’s disease, autism and schizophrenia.

The left and right halves of the brain have separate stores for working memory, the information we actively keep in mind, suggests a study published online yesterday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Over time, and with enough Internet usage, the structure of our brains can actually physically change, according to a new study.

Bringing the real world into the brain scanner, researchers at The University of Western Ontario from The Centre for Brain and Mind can now determine the action a person was planning, mere moments before that action is actually executed.

And finally good news at last for coffee addicts.For years we’ve been told that caffeinated coffee was bad for us. It’s unhealthy and addictive, doctors warned. But as vindication for all who stuck by their energizing elixir, a new study published early online in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease,  shows that guzzling caffeinated coffee may actually be good for our brains. In fact, it may help keep Alzheimer’s at bay.  So enjoy that cuppa joe!

Weekly Round Up

The brain has an inbuilt sense of justice

In this week’s round-up of the latest discoveries in the field of neuroscience,  New Scientist is asking the question of why we remember some dreams but not others? And Live Science takes a look at the top 10 mysteries of the mind, while a new study from the Karolinska Institute and Stockholm School of Economics shows that the brain has a built-in sense of justice.

The Telegraph reports on how brain scans reveal the power of art while researchers in Oslo and Sweden revealed that musicians’ brains are highly developed in a way that makes the musicians alert, interested in learning, disposed to see the whole picture, calm, and playful. The same traits have previously been found among world-class athletes, top-level managers, and individuals who practice transcendental meditation.

How does fear alter memory? A new study reveals that it can literally change our perception, a process that may help researchers better understand post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), other anxiety disorders and possibly conditions like autism. Dr Melanie Greenberg has also been looking at PTSD and the complexity of its mind-body effects and how our brains process trauma.

Weekly Round-Up

Your brain is more responsive to your friends than to strangers

Researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center have described for the first time how the brain’s memory center repairs itself following severe trauma – a process that may explain why it is harder to bounce back after multiple head injuries.

People with autism use their brains differently from other people, which may explain why some have extraordinary abilities to remember and draw objects in detail, according to new research from the University of Montreal.

Five more genes which increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease have been identified, according to research published in Nature Genetics. This takes the number of identified genes linked to Alzheimer’s to 10 – the new genes affect three bodily processes and could become targets for treatment. If the effects of all 10 could be eliminated the risk of developing the disease would be cut by 60%, although new treatments could be 15 years away.

The sudden understanding or grasp of a concept is often described as an “Aha” moment and now researchers from New York University are using a functional MRI (fMRI) scanner to study how these moments of insight are captured and stored in our brain.

Mark Changizi is asking the question how do we have reading areas for a brain that didn’t evolve to read?

In order to develop new medications for alcoholism, researchers need to understand how alcohol acts on the brain’s reward system. A previously unknown mechanism has been shown to block the rewarding effects of alcohol on the brain, reveals a thesis from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Researchers from the University of Valencia (UV)  investigating the brain structures involved with empathy have concluded that the brain circuits responsible are in part the same as those involved with violence.

And finally…your brain is more responsive to your friends than to strangers, even if those strangers have more in common with you, says a new study. Researchers looked at the brain areas associated with social information. The results of the study show that social connections override similar interests.