UCI Researchers Find That Learning Keeps The Brain Healthy
UC Irvine neurobiologists are providing the first visual evidence that learning promotes brain health – and, therefore, that mental stimulation could limit the debilitating effects of aging on memory and the mind. Using a novel visualization technique they devised to study memory, a research team led by Lulu Chen and Christine Gall found that everyday forms of learning animate neuron receptors that help keep brain cells functioning at optimum levels. (read the full story)
EEG Study Finds That A Neural Mechanism May Underlie An Enhanced Memory For The Unexpected
The human brain excels at using past experiences to make predictions about the future. However, the world around us is constantly changing, and new events often violate our logical expectations. “We know these unexpected events are more likely to be remembered than predictable events, but the underlying neural mechanisms for these effects remain unclear,” says lead researcher, Dr. Nikolai Axmacher, from the University of Bonn in Germany. (read the full story)
The Role Of Sleep In Brain Development
Marcos Frank, PhD, associate professor of Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, presented information on early brain development and the importance of sleep during early life when the brain is rapidly maturing and highly changeable, at the 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in San Diego this week. (continue reading)
Caltech Neuroscientists Find Brain System Behind General Intelligence
A collaborative team of neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), the University of Iowa, the University of Southern California (USC), and the Autonomous University of Madrid have mapped the brain structures that affect general intelligence. The study, to be published the week of February 22 in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds new insight to a highly controversial question: What is intelligence, and how can we measure it? (continue reading)
A Midday Nap Markedly Boosts The Learning Capacity Of The Brain
If you see a student dozing in the library or a co-worker catching 40 winks in her cubicle, don’t roll your eyes. New research from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that an hour’s nap can dramatically boost and restore your brain power. Indeed, the findings suggest that a biphasic sleep schedule not only refreshes the mind, but can make you smarter. (continue reading)
Moms Can Influence How Children Develop Advanced Cognitive Functions
Executive functioning is a set of advanced cognitive functions – such as the ability to control impulses, remember things, and show mental flexibility – that help us plan and monitor what we do to reach goals. Although executive functioning develops speedily between ages 1 and 6, children vary widely in their skills in this area. Now a new longitudinal study tells us that moms play a role in how their children develop these abilities. (continue reading)
Duke Scientists Image A Songbird’s Brain At The Point When Vocal Learning Begins
Duke University Medical Center scientists crowded around a laser-powered microscope in a darkened room to peer into the brain of an anesthetized juvenile songbird right after he heard an adult tutors’ song for the first time. Specifically, they wanted to see what happened to the connections between nerve cells, or synapses, in a part of the brain where the motor commands for song are thought to originate. In the first experiment of its kind, they employed high resolution imaging to track changes to individual dendritic spines, important points of contact between nerve cells. (continued reading)
fMRIs Reveal Brain’s Handling Of Low-Priority Ideas
When we put an idea on the back burner, it goes into a processing area of the brain called the default-mode network. This network enables us to hold the low-priority idea in abeyance until a time when we are not busy with something else. “The default-mode network appears to be the brain’s back burner for social decision making,” said Peter T. Fox, M.D., director of the Research Imaging Institute at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. “Usually these back-burner ideas relate to interpersonal interactions and decisions that can’t readily be quantified and shouldn’t be rushed.” Dr. Fox likened this to putting a computer batch job into background processing to wait until the system is less busy. (continue reading)
Research Identifies Gene With Likely Role In Premenstrual Disorder
Scientists have identified a gene they say is a strong candidate for involvement in premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) and other maladies associated with the natural flux in hormones during the menstrual cycle. In a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Rockefeller University researchers detail experiments in mice showing that a common human variant of the gene increases anxiety, dampens curiosity, and tweaks the effects of estrogen on the brain that impairs memory. The researchers say that if applied in the clinic, the work could help diagnose and treat cognitive and mood disorders related to the menstrual cycle and inform treatments during menopause, such as hormone replacement therapy. (continued reading)
Mind Reading, Brain Fingerprinting, And The Law – Interesting (And Potentially Worrisome) Uses Of EEG And Other Brain Imaging Techniques
What if a jury could decide a man’s guilt through mind reading? What if reading a defendant’s memory could betray their guilt? And what constitutes ‘intent’ to commit murder? These are just some of the issues debated and reviewed in the inaugural issue of WIREs Cognitive Science, the latest interdisciplinary project from Wiley-Blackwell, which for registered institutions will be free for the first two years. (continue reading)
UCLA Researchers Image Earliest Signs Of Alzheimer’s Disease – Even Before Symptoms Appear
Estimates are that some 10 percent of people over the age of 65 will develop Alzheimer’s disease, the scourge that robs people of their memories and, ultimately, their lives. While researchers race to find both the cause and the cure, others are moving just as fast to find the earliest signs that will predict an eventual onset of the disease, well before any outward symptoms. The reason is simple: The earlier the diagnosis, the earlier treatments can be applied. Now, through the use of sophisticated brain-imaging techniques, researchers at UCLA have been able to predict a brain’s progression to Alzheimer’s by measuring subtle changes in brain structure over time, changes that occur long before symptoms can be seen. (continue reading)
Alcohol Use And Cognitive Decline Among The Elderly
Studies of alcohol use and cognition among the elderly are rare and have mixed results. A study of drinking among the elderly in Brazil has found that heavy alcohol use is associated with more memory and cognitive problems than mild-to-moderate alcohol use, especially among women. Mild-to-moderate alcohol use was associated with lower cognitive disorder rates than no alcohol use, also among women. Results will be published in the April 2010 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. (continue reading)
Brain Scientists Extend Map Of Fear Memory Formation
Draw a map of the brain when fear and anxiety are involved, and the amygdala -the brain’s almond-shaped center for panic and fight-or-flight responses – looms large. But the amygdala doesn’t do its job alone. Scientists at Emory University have recently built upon work from others, extending the fear map to part of the brain known as the prelimbic cortex. Researchers led by Kerry Ressler, MD, PhD, found that mice lacking a critical growth factor in the prelimbic cortex have trouble remembering to fear electric shocks. The discovery could help improve diagnosis and treatment for anxiety disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and phobias. (continue reading)
Got Cognitive Activity? It Does A Mind Good
Cognitively stimulating activities are beneficial, but evidence suggests mental exercises help some more than others. If you don’t have a college degree, you’re at greater risk of developing memory problems or even Alzheimer’s. Education plays a key role in lifelong memory performance and risk for dementia, and it’s well documented that those with a college degree possess a cognitive advantage over their less educated counterparts in middle and old age. Now, a large national study from Brandeis University published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry shows that those with less schooling can significantly compensate for poorer education by frequently engaging in mental exercises such as word games, puzzles, reading, and lectures. (continue reading)
From Neurons To Thought: Coherent Electrical Patterns Observed Across the Brain
Amidst the background hum of electrical signaling generated by neurons in the brain, scientists have found that local groups of neurons, firing in coordination, sometimes create a signal that is mirrored instantaneously and precisely by other groups of neurons across the brain. These transient episodes of coherence across different parts of the brain may be an electrical signature of thought and actions. (continue reading)
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