Institutionalization of children has profound consequences for brain development and functioning. Researchers investigated the impact of foster care placement on the quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) activity of children who experienced severe psychosocial neglect in Romania, including a long-term (4.5 years) follow-up. The results were published in the journal, PLoS ONE. Check the end of this repo ...

Witnessing a person from our own group or an outsider suffer pain causes neural responses in two very different regions of the brain. And, the specific region activated reveals whether or not we will help the person in need. Researchers at the University of Zurich studied the brain responses of soccer fans and now have neurobiological evidence for why we are most willing to help members of our own group. ...

A team of physicists, physicians, and neuroscientists at the Bernstein Center of the University Freiburg completed a step forward toward the ambitious goal of predicting epileptic seizures. The findings were published in the latest issue of the journal “Epilepsia.” ...

Each time we perform a simple task, like pushing an elevator button or reaching for a cup of coffee, the brain races to decide whether the left or right hand will do the job. But the left hand is more likely to win if a certain region of the brain receives magnetic stimulation, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley. ...

Playing video games for hours on end may prepare your child to become a laparoscopic surgeon one day, a new study has shown. Reorganisation of the brain’s cortical network in young men with significant experience playing video games gives them an advantage not only in playing the games but also in performing other tasks requiring visuomotor skills. The findings are published in the October 2010 issue of Els ...

Antisocial boys who abuse drugs, break laws, and act recklessly are not just “bad” kids. Many of these boys may have malfunctioning brains, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The results are published in the open access journal PloS ONE. Check the end of this report for a link to download the full-text article. ...

Understanding how the brain recognizes objects is a central challenge for understanding human vision, and for designing artificial vision systems. (No computer system comes close to human vision.) A new study by MIT neuroscientists suggests that the brain learns to solve the problem of object recognition through its vast experience in the natural world. The results appears in the Sept. 23 issue of Neuron. ...

A star golfer misses a critical putt; a brilliant student fails to ace a test; a savvy salesperson blows a key presentation. Each of these people has suffered the same bump in mental processing: They have just choked under pressure. It is tempting to dismiss such failures as "just nerves." But to University of Chicago psychologist Sian Beilock, they are preventable results of information log-jams in the bra ...

Simply getting older is not the cause of mild memory lapses often called senior moments, according to a new study by researchers at the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center. The study, published in the September 15, 2010, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, found that even the very early mild changes in memory that are much more common in old age than dementia are ...

A specific region of the brain appears to be larger in individuals who are good at turning their thoughts inward and reflecting upon their decisions, according to new research published in the journal Science. This act of introspection - or "thinking about your thinking" - is a key aspect of human consciousness, though scientists have noted plenty of variation in peoples' abilities to introspect. The new st ...