Our behavior is often guided by the desire to obtain positive outcomes and avoid negative consequences, and neuroscientists have put a great deal of effort into looking for reward and punishment "centers" in the brain. Now, new research published by Cell Press in the October 6 issue of the journal Neuron reveals that neural signals related to reinforcement and punishment are far more broadly distributed thr ...

A new study using MRI scans, led by Professor Jianfeng Feng, from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science, has found that depression frequently seems to uncouple the brain's "Hate Circuit". The study entitled "Depression Uncouples Brain Hate Circuit" is published (Tuesday 4th October 2011) in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. ...

Recent PET-measurements in Turku, Finland, show that the GSM mobile phone electromagnetic field suppresses glucose metabolism in temporoparietal and anterior temporal areas of the hemisphere next to the antenna. Thirteen young healthy males were exposed to the GSM signal for 33 minutes. ...

During sleep, our perception of the environment decreases. However the extent to which the human brain responds to surrounding noises during sleep remains unclear. In a study published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers from University of Liège (Belgium) used brain imaging to study responses to sounds during sleep. In this study, the research team led by Dr Than ...

Imagine tapping into the mind of a coma patient, or watching one's own dream on YouTube. With a cutting-edge blend of brain imaging and computer simulation, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are bringing these futuristic scenarios within reach. Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational models, UC Berkeley researchers have succeeded in decoding and reconstructin ...

The human brain does not stop developing at adolescence, but continues well into our 20s, demonstrates recent research from the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta. It has been a long-held belief in medical communities that the human brain stopped developing in adolescence. But now there is evidence that this is in fact not the case, thanks to medical research conducted in the Depar ...

New research from MIT suggests that there are parts of our brain dedicated to language and only language, a finding that marks a major advance in the search for brain regions specialized for sophisticated mental functions. Functional specificity, as it's known to cognitive scientists, refers to the idea that discrete parts of the brain handle distinct tasks. ...

All of us, at times, ruminate or brood on a problem in order to make the best possible decision in a complex situation. But sometimes, rumination becomes unproductive or even detrimental to making good life choices. Such is the case in depression, where non-productive ruminations are a common and distressing symptom of the disorder. In fact, individuals suffering from depression often ruminate about being d ...

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. ...

Depression is increasingly recognized as an illness that strikes repeatedly over the lifespan, creating cycles of relapse and recovery. This sobering knowledge has prompted researchers to search for markers of relapse risk in people who have recovered from depression. A new paper published in Elsevier's Biological Psychiatry suggests that when formerly depressed people experience mild states of sadness, the ...