Tag: Brains

Every high-school physics student learns that sound and light travel at very different speeds. If the brain did not account for this difference, it would be much harder for us to tell where sounds came from, and how they are related to what we see. Instead, the brain allows us to make better sense of

Jack hammers. Buzz saws. Screaming toddlers. Barking dogs. Horns blaring from incessant traffic jams. Any of these can set nerves on edge, especially if you are subjected to the noise for hours, days or weeks on end. It’s more than aggravating. Studies show noise-generated stress is bad for the heart and brain. But pandemic-induced shutdowns

A research team led by Michael Fox, a professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, has identified the type of brain cell that produces collagen 19, a protein that is crucial for the formation of inhibitory circuits in the brain. The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, depicts a previously unknown molecular

When it comes to mental health, there are quite a number of times when silence is gold and speech silver. Indeed, contemporary life is now littered with too many noisy distractions that we seem to have accepted it as the norm in society. To truly appreciate silence, one needs to have an understanding of the

UCLA researchers have found that it is possible to assess a person’s ability to feel empathy by studying their brain activity while they are resting rather than while they are engaged in specific tasks. Traditionally, empathy is assessed through the use of questionnaires and psychological assessments. The findings of this study offer an alternative to

When it comes to memory, immune cells are known as the “bad cops” of the brain. But new research shows they could also be turned into “good cops” to power memory and learning. Inflammation can send the brain’s immune cells into damaging hyperdrive, and this has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases that affect memory, like

Cardiorespiratory exercise—walking briskly, running, biking and just about any other exercise that gets your heart pumping—is good for your body, but can it also slow cognitive changes in your brain? A study in Mayo Clinic Proceedings from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases provides new evidence of an association between cardiorespiratory fitness and brain health,

We are an aging population. Demographic projections predict the largest population growth will be in the oldest age group—one study predicted a doubling of people age 65 and over between 2012 and 2050. Understanding aging and prolonging healthy years is thus becoming increasingly important. For Michele Diaz, Ph.D., of Pennsylvania State University, understanding aging is

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor subjects’ brain activity as they were shown images of art, architecture or natural landscapes, the team found that in the visual parts of the brain, these different types of images led to very different patterns of activity, even across images all judged by subjects to be aesthetically

Children can keep full visual perception—the ability to process and understand visual information—after brain surgery for severe epilepsy, according to a study funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health. While brain surgery can halt seizures, it carries significant risks, including an impairment in visual perception. However, a new

Like instruments in an orchestra, different parts of the human brain work together to help us perform the functions of daily life, ranging from breathing and sleeping to reading, walking and learning. But which areas of the brain work in harmony to accomplish certain types of tasks? And how does this coordination vary from person

A new UNSW study suggests we have less control over our personal choices than we think, and that unconscious brain activity determines our choices well before we are aware of them. Published in Scientific Reports today, an experiment carried out in the Future Minds Lab at UNSW School of Psychology showed that free choices about

When we’re in pain, we have a hard time sleeping. But how does poor sleep affect pain? For the first time, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have answered that question by identifying neural glitches in the sleep-deprived brain that can intensify and prolong the agony of sickness and injury. Their findings, to be

The neurological disorder Huntington’s disease causes behavioural and motor changes, which among other things are a result of dysfunctional maturation or formation of glial cells, the brain’s support cells, researchers from the University of Copenhagen demonstrate in a new study based on mouse trials. The researchers’ long-term goal is to be able to use the

The relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and brain anatomy is mostly stable from childhood to early adulthood, according to a longitudinal neuroimaging study of more than 600 healthy young people published in JNeurosci. This finding draws attention to the importance of preschool life as a period when associations between SES and brain organization may first

Think of the brain as a complex transportation hub, a place where neural traffic heads off in any number of directions to make connections while processing something as simple as a mother’s smile. Now consider the same center in a child with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). At a time different parts of the brain

Two decades ago, Clifford B. Saper, MD/Ph.D., Chairman of the Department of Neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), and colleagues discovered a set of nerve cells they thought might be the switch that turns the brain off, allowing it to sleep. In a new study published in Nature Communications today, Saper and colleagues

Is there a link between differences in IQ test performance and the activity of certain genes? Researchers from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin have shown that modifications in the structure of a specific gene have a negative impact on individual test performance. This suggests that environmentally induced epigenetic changes to our genetic material have a greater

As the eye tracks a bird flying past, the muscles that pan the eyeballs to keep the target in focus set their pace not only on the speed they see, but also on a reasonable estimate of the speed they expect from having watched birds before. A team of Duke University neuroscientists has found the

The brains of professional beatboxers and guitarists respond to music differently when compared to each other and non-musicians, finds a new UCL-led study. The study, published in Cerebral Cortex and funded by Wellcome, sheds light on how learning and making music can affect mental processes. The researchers found that the area of the brain that