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 ...

Researchers have found an association between physical fitness and the brain in 9- and 10-year-old children: Those who are more fit tend to have a bigger hippocampus and perform better on a test of memory than their less-fit peers. The new study, which used magnetic resonance imaging to measure the relative size of specific structures in the brains of 49 child subjects, appears in the journal Brain Research ...

People are more likely to remember specific information such as faces or words if the pattern of activity in their brain is similar each time they study that information, according to new research from a University of Texas at Austin psychologist and his colleagues. The findings by Russell Poldrack, published online today in the journal Science, challenge psychologists' long-held belief that people retain i ...

In an early step toward letting severely paralyzed people speak with their thoughts, University of Utah researchers translated brain signals into words using two grids of 16 microelectrodes implanted beneath the skull but atop the brain. The Journal of Neural Engineering's September issue is publishing Greger's study showing the feasibility of translating brain signals into computer-spoken words. ...

UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have identified a chemical system in the brain that reacts differently in cocaine addicts, findings that could result in new treatment options for individuals addicted to the drug. The findings were published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. ...

I heard a story once about a Native American elder who was asked how she had become so wise, so happy, and so respected. She answered: “In my heart, there are two wolves: a wolf of love and a wolf of hate. It all depends on which one I feed each day.” ...

It is unavoidable: breakdowns in brain connections slow down our physical response times as we age, a new study suggests. This slower reactivity is associated with an age-related breakdown in the corpus callosum, a part of the brain that acts as a dam during one-sided motor activities to prevent unwanted connectivity, or cross-talk, between the two halves of the brain, said Rachael Seidler, associate profes ...

A new discovery about selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) suggests that these drugs, which are used to treat mental health disorders like depression and anxiety, have multiple effects on our cells. In a research report published in the August 2010 issue of Genetics, researchers used yeast cells to identify secondary drug targets or pathways affected by SSRIs. Such secondary pathways could help e ...

In one of the first efforts of its kind, UCLA researchers have taken mammalian genome maps, including human maps, one step further by showing not just the order in which genes fall in the genome but which genes actually interact. The findings, published in the August issue of the journal Genome Research, will help researchers better understand which genes work together and shed light on how they collaborate ...

Scientists from the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) at King's College London have developed a pioneering new method of diagnosing autism in adults. For the first time, a quick brain scan that takes just 15 minutes can identify adults with autism with over 90 per cent accuracy. The method could lead to the screening for autism spectrum disorders in children in the future. The paper, 'Describing the brain in au ...