Swarms of bees and brain neurons make decisions using strikingly similar mechanisms, reports a new study in the Dec. 9 issue of Science. In previous work, Cornell University biologist Thomas Seeley clarified how scout bees in a honeybee swarm perform “waggle dances” to prompt other scout bees to inspect a promising site that has been found.
In a novel imaging study of sleeping toddlers, scientists at the University of California, San Diego Autism Center of Excellence report that a diminished ability of a young brain’s hemispheres to “sync” with one another could be a powerful, new biological marker of autism, one that might enable an autism diagnosis at a very young […]
University of Pittsburgh researchers have reproduced the brain’s complex electrical impulses onto models made of living brain cells that provide an unprecedented view of the neuron activity behind memory formation. The team fashioned ring-shaped networks of brain cells that were not only capable of transmitting an electrical impulse, but also remained in a state of […]
Computer networks that cannot forget fast enough can show symptoms of a kind of virtual schizophrenia, giving researchers further clues to the inner workings of schizophrenic brains, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Yale University have found. The researchers used a virtual computer model, or “neural network,” to simulate the excessive release […]
It is well known that music arouses emotions. But why do some musical performances move us, while others leave us flat? Why do musicians spend years perfecting the subtle nuances that bring us to tears? Scientists at Florida Atlantic University have now identified key aspects of musical performance that cause emotion-related brain activity, and they […]
Whether it is sports, poker, or the high-stakes world of business, there are those who always find a way to win when there is money on the table. Now, for the first time, psychology researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are unraveling the workings of a novel brain network that may explain how these […]
Have you ever seen a real brain? I remember the first time I saw one, in a neuropsych class: the instructor put on rubber gloves to protect against the formaldehyde preservative, popped the lid off of a lab bucket, and then pulled out a brain. It didn’t look like much, a nondescript waxy yellowish-white blob […]
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