The Global Syndicator - brain

Brain plays key role in appetite by regulating free radicals

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:17:11 +0000

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found the brain’s appetite center uses fat for fuel by involving oxygen free radicals—molecules associated with aging and neurodegeneration. The findings, reported in the journal Nature, suggest that antioxidants could play a role in weight control.

Brain’s reaction to self-administered cocaine differs

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:10:03 +0000

New research has uncovered a fundamental cellular mechanism that may drive pathological drug-seeking behavior. The study, published by Cell Press in the July 31 issue of the journal Neuron, examines the brain’s reward circuitry and details strikingly distinct influences of self-administered cocaine compared to natural rewards or passive cocaine injection.

When neurons fire up: Study sheds light on rhythms of the brain

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 19:08:02 +0000

In our brains, groups of neurons fire up simultaneously for just milliseconds at a time, in random rhythms, similar to twinkling lightning bugs in our backyards. New research from neuroscientists at Indiana University and the University of Montreal provides a model — a rhyme and reason — for this random synchronization.

Green tea compounds beat obstructive sleep apnea related brain deficits

Thu, 15 May 2008 12:13:50 +0000

Chemicals found in green tea may be able to stave off the cognitive deficits that occur with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), according to a new study published in the second issue for May of the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Major Step Forward In Understanding How Memory Works

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:43:15 +0000

Our ability to remember the objects, places and people within our environment is essential for everyday life, although the importance of this is only fully appreciated when recognition memory beings to fail, as in Alzheimer’s disease.

Groups of neurons in the brain rewire by changing images

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:56:18 +0000

Neuroscientists studying the mind’s ability to process images have completed the first empirical study to demonstrate, using animal models, how populations of nerve cells in visual cortex adapt to changing images.

Fascinating split brain behavioral experiments

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:16:24 +0000

To reduce the severity of his seizures, Joe had the bridge between his left and right cerebral hemisphers (the corpus callosum) severed. As a result, his left and right brains no longer communicate through that pathway.

Creative and noncreative problem solvers exhibit different patterns of brain activity

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:19:08 +0000

Why do some people solve problems more creatively than others? Are people who think creatively somehow different from those who tend to think in a more methodical fashion? These questions are part of a long-standing debate, with some researchers arguing that what we call “creative thought” and “noncreative thought” are not basically different.

New MIT tool probes brain circuits

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 03:21:21 +0000

Researchers at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT report in the Jan. 24 online edition of Science that they have created a way to see, for the first time, the effect of blocking and unblocking a single neural circuit in a living animal.

Scientists find that culture influences brain function

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 01:20:07 +0000

People from different cultures use their brains differently to solve the same visual perceptual tasks, MIT researchers and colleagues report in the first brain imaging study of its kind. Psychological

Monkeys can perform mental addition

Sun, 13 Jan 2008 18:15:04 +0000

Researchers at Duke University have demonstrated that monkeys have the ability to perform mental addition. In fact, monkeys performed about as well as college students given the same test. The findings shed light on the shared evolutionary origins of arithmetic ability in humans and non-human animals, according to Assistant Professor Elizabeth Brannon, Ph.D.

Drug that targets cannabinoid receptors cuts appetite, burns more energy

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:32:36 +0000

The first clinical studies of an experimental drug have revealed that obese people who take it for 12 weeks lose weight, even at very low doses. Short-term studies also suggest that the drug, called t

Novel mechanism for long-term learning identified

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 04:21:06 +0000

Practice makes perfect — or at least that’s what we’re told as we struggle through endless rounds of multiplication tables, goal kicks and piano scales — and it seems, based on the personal experience of many, to be true.

Cognitive ‘fog’ of normal aging linked to brain system disruption

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 03:28:25 +0000

Comparisons of the brains of young and old people have revealed that normal aging may cause cognitive decline due to deterioration of the connections among large-scale brain systems. The researchers linked the deterioration to a decrease in the integrity of the brain’s “white matter,” the tissue containing nerve cells that carry information.

Scientists uncover how the brain controls what the eyes see

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:56:39 +0000

Vase or face” When presented with the well known optical illusion in which we see either a vase or the faces of two people, what we observe depends on the patterns of neural activity going on in our brains.