04.03.2013 Parkinson’s Disease Brain Rhythms Detected
Researchers have discovered how to detect abnormal brain rhythms associated with Parkinson’s disease by implanting electrodes into the brains of patients with this neurodegenerative disorder
04.03.2013 How the Brain Loses and Regains Consciousness
Since the mid-1800s, doctors have used drugs to induce general anesthesia in patients undergoing surgery. Despite their widespread use, little is known about how these drugs create such a profound loss of consciousness
28.02.2013 Identification of risk loci with shared effects on five major psychiatric disorders
Single-nucleotide polymorphisms at four loci surpassed the cutoff for genome-wide significance (p<5×10−8) in the primary analysis: regions on chromosomes 3p21 and 10q24, and SNPs within two L-type voltage-gated calcium channel subunits, CACNA1C and CACNB2s
22.02.2013 Has Evolution Given Humans Unique Brain Structures?
Our ancestors evolutionarily split from those of rhesus monkeys about 25 million years ago. Since then, brain areas have been added, have disappeared or have changed in function.
21.02.2013 Where Does Our Head Come From?
In a study published in PLoS Biology, they show that in a simple, brainless sea anemone, the same genes that control head development in higher animals regulate the development of the front end of the swimming larvae
21.02.2013 How Human Language Could Have Evolved from Birdsong
The sounds uttered by birds offer in several respects the nearest analogy to language,” Charles Darwin wrote in “The Descent of Man” (1871), while contemplating how humans learned to speak. Language, he speculated, might have had its origins in singing, which “might have given rise to words expressive of various complex emotions.”
20.02.2013 Secrets of Human Speech Uncovered
A team of researchers at UC San Francisco has uncovered the neurological basis of speech motor control, the complex coordinated activity of tiny brain regions that controls our lips, jaw, tongue and larynx as we speak
19.02.2013 Reading the Minds of Mice
Stanford scientists have developed a system for observing real-time brain activity in a live mouse
19.02.2013 Engineering Control Theory Helps Create Dynamic Brain Models
Models of the human brain, patterned on engineering control theory, may some day help researchers control such neurological diseases as epilepsy, Parkinson’s and migraines, according to a Penn State researcher who is using mathematical models of neuron networks from which more complex brain models emerge
17.02.2013 Brain Differences Seen at 6 Months in Infants Who Develop Autism
Researchers have found significant differences in brain development in infants as young as six months old who later develop autism, compared with babies who don’t develop the disorder
15.02.2013 Nanomachines for Bionic Proteins
Physicists of the University of Vienna together with researchers from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna developed nano-machines which recreate principal activities of proteins
13.02.2013 Turn Off the Ability to Feel Cold
USC neuroscientists have isolated chills at a cellular level, identifying the sensory network of neurons in the skin that relays the sensation of cold
31.01.2013 Brain Activity Study Lends Insight Into Schizophrenia
Magnetic fields produced by the naturally occurring electrical currents in the brain could potentially be used as an objective test for schizophrenia and help to better understand the disease, according to new research published today
30.01.2013 Engineers Solve a Biological Mystery and Boost Artificial Intelligence
By simulating 25,000 generations of evolution within computers, Cornell University engineering and robotics researchers have discovered why biological networks tend to be organized as modules, a finding that will lead to a deeper understanding of the evolution of complexity
30.01.2013 Mom’s Love Good for Child’s Brain
School-age children whose mothers nurtured them early in life have brains with a larger hippocampus, a key structure important to learning, memory and response to stress
30.01.2013 Previously Unknown Mechanism of Memory Formation Discovered
It takes a lot to make a memory. New proteins have to be synthesized, neuron structures altered. While some of these memory-building mechanisms are known, many are not. Some recent studies have indicated that a unique group of molecules called microRNAs, known to control production of proteins in cells, may play a far more important role in memory formation than previously thought
29.01.2013 In-Brain Monitoring Shows Memory Network
Working with patients with electrodes implanted in their brains, researchers at the University of California, Davis, and The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) have shown for the first time that areas of the brain work together at the same time to recall memories. The unique approach promises new insights into how we remember details of time and place
