newSleep disorders- In some cases, problems related to sleep can also cause headaches in the morning. The part of the brain that controls sleep also controls pain. If that area remains disturbed then a headache may occur in the morning. — indiatvnews.com, 13h ago
newChen’s laboratory in Weizmann’s Brain Sciences Department focuses on the molecular and behavioral aspects of the response to stress. In previous studies, Chen’s team examined how stress during pregnancy affects mouse offspring when they reach maturity. In the current research, the scientists, led by Dr. Aron Kos, studied how trauma experienced shortly after birth affects mouse pups later in life. To advance the understanding of this topic, the researchers pulled together the strengths of Chen’s lab: its expertise in exploring the brain’s molecular processes at the highest possible resolution, using genetic sequencing on the level of individual cells; the ability to use cameras to track dozens of behavioral variables in a rich social environment intended to recreate natural living conditions; and the ability to process the massive quantities of data generated in this environment, using machine learning and artificial intelligence tools. — Weizmann Wonder Wander - News, Features and Discoveries from the Weizmann Institute of Science, 1d ago
newCognitive reserve is the brain’s ability to withstand damage or neurodegenerative disease. If there is tissue or functional loss in one part of the brain, other brain cells (neurons) work harder to compensate. In theory, this means lifelong experiences and activities create a dam against the damages of disease and aging in the brain. — Scroll.in, 1d ago
newSurprising someone with a thank-you can make it more meaningful and memorable. Research suggests that humans love surprises and that surprises intensify our emotions by about 400% (Luna & Renninger, 2015). In one study, researchers found that the area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, which scientists previously identified as a pleasure center of the brain, recorded a particularly strong response to the unexpectedness of a sequence of stimuli (Emory University Health Sciences Center, 2001). — Psychology Today, 1d ago
newWe revel in the simple plots because we recognize that holiday movies serve a different purpose than cinematic achievement. The genre is well-defined. We don’t watch for intellectual stimulation; our expectations for a feel-good experience increase our motivation to suspend disbelief and emotionally engage. We are reassured by a happy ending. The resolution provides a psychological sigh of relief accompanied by the activation of the brain’s reward center. The movies offer simple, if unrealistic, solutions to all our holiday stressors. In doing so, they also let you know you’re not alone in your struggles. — Psychology Today, 1d ago
newSo, while I have no substitute determined yet for the A-Fib med, replacing the blood thinner is not that difficult as I can always revert back to aspirin. And that takes us to the topic of today’s column; is aspirin really a bad thing or is it yet another victim of woke idiocy or perhaps just marketing for the much higher priced prescription pharmacy products for the benefit of someone’s bank account rather than being a much better medication in and of itself. The primary function of the blood thinner is directly related to the heart rhythm med because the primary problem associated with A-fib is the much higher risk of stroke from blood pooling in the Atrial chamber near the valve and spitting out clots that can then cause problems further on such as in the brain or other places. I can do something about that with aspirin, and if I save some Flecainide for emergency use (it has already proven to stop A-fib a couple times when I slipped back into it by just taking an extra dose once or twice) perhaps I may survive a bit longer after the SHTF. — sgtreport.com, 1d ago
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newHaw you ever contemplated how your brain, the voracious energy consumer within your body, navigates its metabolic journey? Unlike other organs that can tap into various energy sources, the brain exclusively operates on glucose, a unique relationship that fuels its cognitive endeavors. This post delves into the intriguing world of cranial calorie consumption, exploring how different mental tasks impact energy expenditure and shedding light on the intricate relationship between cognitive activity and metabolism. — Psychology Today, 1d ago
newNew ways of studying the brain only meant new ways of trying to find the difference that many remain sure is there, lest it reveal the reason behind supposedly sex-specific behaviors. As Rippon explains, “In looking for sex differences, neurologists cheerily matched their assumptions about which bits of the brain were the most important to their findings about which bits of the brain were largest in males, even if it meant reversing earlier conclusions.”... — IFLScience, 2d ago
newOne interpretation of the neuroscience data is that our experience of conscious choice is all just epiphenomena – with no real causal traction in the world. Whatever is going on in our conscious states, the real, operating causal forces are brain states that we’re not even aware of. I have to confess that I don’t get as excited about these findings and interpretations as many of my colleagues do. Nevertheless, these findings do raise genuinely interesting and important questions about the nature of deliberation and choice. How we understand all this in relation to data about what’s happening in the brain when these activities are going on is both scientifically and philosophically very interesting and challenging. Having said this, too often scientists, and those who follow closely behind them, draw strong philosophical conclusions, with great confidence, which it is not obvious that they are entitled to. The extreme sceptical conclusion, for example, which is now rather fashionable, strikes me as naïve because it generally turns on a particular model of what freedom and responsibility are supposed to involve, namely a spooky metaphysical self that is making conscious choices and in doing so interrupts the course of nature. It may well be that the data provided does debunk or discredit problematic models of this kind. However, for more sophisticated, and in particular naturalistic compatibilist models, it is not clear to me that this data is so problematic at all. For example, it isn’t going to surprise compatibilists, who are committed to naturalism, that our choices and actions have causal antecedents in physical processes that can be traced back prior to those choices and actions. That’s something that compatibilists as far back as Hobbes, if not before him, have long been committed to and acknowledged. — Five Books, 2d ago
Weizmann Wonder Wander - News, Features and Discoveries from the Weizmann Institute of Science, 1d ago
Either way, the mechanism behind contagious yawning between humans and dogs is likely rooted in the mirror neuron system, a part of the brain responsible for empathy and the understanding of others' actions and intentions. When we see someone yawn, our mirror neurons activate the same regions of the brain affected if we were yawning, leading to a yawn response. This system is not unique to humans and has been identified in other species, including dogs. — Psychology Today, 24d ago
One widely disseminated claim surrounding mirror neurons is the “broken mirror theory,” which suggests that dysfunctions in the mirror neuron system are to blame for autism. Deficient mirror neurons, the theory goes, underly the difficulties autistic people have in understanding others’ intentions or empathizing with their emotions. However, some influential research reviews have disputed this claim, for both behavioral and structural reasons; for example, while there are differences between autistic and non-autistic brains, they are not currently apparent in the parts of the brain thought to contain mirror neurons. — Psychology Today, 23d ago
The within-movie and cross-movie CHA predictions generated highly similar topographies (Figure 3). This result raises a fascinating question of whether different movie inputs estimate similar fine-grained connectivity profiles in the brain. Previous studies reported that the coarse-grained connectome (based on coarse parcellations) varies across separate cognitive tasks (Shine et al., 2016; Telesford et al., 2016), and that naturalistic movies yield the most condition-specific functional atlases among other classic cognitive tasks (Salehi et al., 2020). In the Budapest and Sraiders datasets, the same group of participants watched the Grand Budapest Hotel and Raiders of the Lost Ark in different sessions in the same 3 T scanner. We built connectivity profiles for each participant separately for the two movies and correlated the two fine-grained connectomes in each searchlight. Results showed that the two fine-grained connectomes based on different movies were very similar in most of the brain regions (r>0.8, Figure 4—figure supplement 9A, B). We split each movie into two halves (Run 1–3/Run 4–5 for Budapest; Run 1–2/Run 3–4 for Sraiders) and averaged the connectome similarities across split halves over searchlights and participants. We found that the across-movie connectome similarities for split halves were high (r>0.74), and the within-movie similarities were even higher in both datasets (r>0.85, Figure 4—figure supplement 9C). Our analysis showed that although the fine-grained connectome was affected by the input naturalistic stimulus content, it was nonetheless highly stable. This result suggested the brain may undergo shared cognitive processes across different movie free-viewing tasks. It could be because featured movies sample a broad range of real-life statistics, and the rich information elicits overall similar representations and connectivities when the entire time series is considered. Studies comparing movie-viewing and resting-state functional connectivity have shown that both paradigms yield overlapping macroscale cortical organizations (Samara et al., 2023), though naturalistic viewing introduces unique modality-specific hierarchical gradients. However, there remains a gap in research comparing the fine-scaled connectomes of naturalistic and resting-state paradigms. Guntupalli et al., 2018, revealed a shared fine-scale structure that coexists with the coarse-scale structure, and CHA successfully improved intersubject correlations across a wide variety of tasks. Feilong et al., 2021, noted that the fine-scaled connectivity profiles in both resting and task states are highly predictive of general intelligence. This suggests a reliable and biologically relevant fine-scale resting-state connectivity structure among individuals. Therefore, it is plausible that individualized functional topography could be effectively estimated using resting-state functional connectivity, expanding the applicability of our approach. Future studies are needed to explore this direction. — eLife, 11d ago
...“Collectively, Patrick’s contributions to the field have shown how neurons in the postrhinal cortex encode several features of the animal’s spatial orientation in its environment. His findings have important implications for the functional role this part of the brain serves in processing contextual information about the animal’s surrounding space,” says Taube, who anticipates that LaChance’s studies will be widely cited in the years to come. — dartmouth.edu, 17d ago
The evolution of higher cognitive functions in human beings has so far mostly been linked to the expansion of the neocortex—a region of the brain that is responsible, inter alia, for conscious thought, movement and sensory perception. Researchers are increasingly realizing, however, that the "little brain" or cerebellum also expanded during evolution and probably contributes to the capacities unique to humans, explains Prof. Dr. Henrik Kaessmann from the Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University. — medicalxpress.com, 4d ago
Through evaluating the structural and functional connectivity properties of shared and unique peaks, we observed that shared peaks exhibit larger connectivity attributes, such as degree, strength, clustering coefficient, betweeness and efficiency, compared to unique peaks. Higher degree and strength values suggest that shared peaks are connected to more vertices in the brain network. Additionally, we found that clustering coefficient and efficiency, which measure local information transmission capacity and resilience to random attacks in a network, were higher in shared peaks. Betweeness, a centrality measure that quantifies the importance of a node in the network, also showed higher values for shared peaks, indicating greater importance of these peaks in the brain network. These results suggest that shared peaks may play a role as network hubs in contrast to unique peaks. Gyral peaks exhibit a high degree of connectivity within local neighborhoods, creating a “small world” structure within the network, and may behave as hubs in the structural/functional network, as suggested by previous studies (Sporns and Zwi (2004); Bassett and Bullmore (2006); Bullmore and Sporns (2009); He and Evans (2010)). In many studies, higher-order brain regions like the DMN are recognized as the global network hubs and the communication centers of the brain’s global network. These regions typically exhibit higher node degree and strength. However, there is an interesting finding in our study. That is, most of the shared peaks, mainly distributed in lower-order brain regions, have larger network properties compared to the unique peaks, mainly distributed in higher-order brain regions. There are two possible explanations for this. Firstly, peaks is defined at a much more local scale, in contrast to the definition of brain functional regions, such as DMN. This seemingly contradictory findings could be reconciled by their definitions of “network hubs” at respective coarse and fine scales. Specifically, while higher-order brain regions such as DMN serve as the information exchange centers for large-scale brain network, the information transfer within each region at a finer scale could be primarily facilitated by loci, such as the shared peak. These findings suggest that, peaks that are in larger-scale DMN while exhibiting lower hub-like attributes at a vertex-level, could be referred to as provincial hubs (Guimera and Nunes Amaral (2005); Hwang et al. (2017)). This can be understood as the preservation of the most fundamental and mainstream topological structure and communication patterns during the evolutionary process of species, while species-specific peaks that appear later in the evolutionary process may serve higher-order and more specific functions (Goulas et al. (2014); Rilling (2006)). Another issue worth discussing is the relationship between degree and clustering coefficient. Some studies focusing on social networks and random intersection graph models have found that clustering coefficient correlates negatively with degree Foudalis et al. (2011); Bloznelis (2013). While in our study, when comparing the functional network characteristics of shared and unique peaks, we found that the patterns of degree and clustering coefficient were similar (3). The differences in network characteristics between brain networks and social networks or random networks may reflect distinct organizational patterns in the brain compared to other networks. Furthermore, due to our focus on the internal properties of peaks in our study, the patterns observed may not align entirely with the principles followed by the entire brain network. — elifesciences.org, 12d ago
newGLP-1 receptors are found dotted around the body, including in the brain structures that control our reward pathways. These receptors control the release of the hormone GLP-1, which has a multitude of roles to play in the body, including how we respond to alcohol. — WIRED UK, 2d ago
newWhile working on social connection, positivity, and resilience may help us become happier, our overall disposition is also partially governed by genetic factors that can’t be changed. For instance, one study found that a single genetic variant controls the way in which the brain’s emotional centers respond to positive stimuli, leading the authors to conclude that heritable factors may account for up to two-thirds of our ability to experience happiness. — IFLScience, 2d ago
newDr. Durrance has an interdisciplinary research and education program in long-term human space exploration. The hazards associated with long-term exposure to the space environment, such as radiation damage and the loss of bone mass, are not sufficiently understood to determine whether they pose acceptable risks or not. Research focused on these hazards is critical to sustained human presence outside the protective environment of the Earth ’s atmosphere and magnetosphere. This program uses the Space Life Sciences Laboratory (SLS Lab) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC); as well as labs at Florida Tech.Lunar dust physics: Enabling technologies must be developed, including systems to mitigate the damaging effects of dust contamination; technologies that use the local planetary resources to produce consumables such as oxygen, water and rocket propellant; food production systems; innovative range technologies and many more. We are currently studying the induction charging characteristics of lunar dust.Bone Loss: The objectives of the bone project are (1) to provide a dynamic model of the structure and function of bone in response to loading with sufficient precision to predict the effect of any arbitrary loading history and (2) to develop and refine new countermeasures against bone loss.Radiation damage: Solar and galactic radiation is a major hazard to space crews during long-duration flights and planetary bases beyond the Earth ’s magnetic field. Intense solar flares can induce acute radiation sickness, galactic cosmic rays can kill brain cells that the body cannot replace, and all forms of radiation can induce cancer. The only known safety measure is shielding to prevent the high-speed particles from reaching the crew.Dr. Durrance is has an interdisciplinary research and education program in astrobiology addressing three fundamental questions: How does life begin and evolve? Does life exist elsewhere in the Universe? What is the future of life on Earth and beyond? Research addressing these questions is highly interdisciplinary involving fields such as physics, biology, chemistry, geology, and planetary science.Extrasolar Planets: Most of the newly discovered planets have been found using indirect techniques, where the planet ’s effect on light emitted from the parent star is detected, not the light emitted by the planet itself. The most likely technique for detecting life on these planets is a detailed analysis of their spectra; therefore, we are developing a system that may be able to detect IR emissions from exoplanets using large, ground-based telescopes along with Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) techniques developed for radio astronomy.Amyloid Fiber Formation: We are pursuing research that may shed light on a fundamental question regarding the origin of life: how did the transition from non-living to living matter occur? We are investigating the spontaneous formation of long linear fibers from a weak solution of proteins using dielectric spectroscopy. This phenomenon may be important in neurodegenerative diseases and it may help to understand the emergence of ordered biological structures that are far from thermodynamic equilibrium.Dr. Durrance Director of the Sub-Orbital Research and Training Center that utilizes flights of high performance F-104 jets from the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at KSC. In addition to the testing of prototype spaceflight hardware for NASA and commercial companies, we are developing an imaging system designed specifically for imaging Earth ’s coastal regions. The coastal zone is not only the most significant ocean area in terms of productivity, economics, recreation, and natural resources but it is also the most difficult to image. — fit.edu, 2d ago
newChronic exposure to alcohol has been shown to produce profound neuroadaptations in specific brain regions, including the recruitment of key stress neurotransmitters, ultimately causing changes in the body that sustain excessive drinking. The area of the brain known as the "bed nucleus of the stria terminalis" (BNST) is critically involved in the behavioral response to stress as well as in chronic, pathological alcohol use. — medicalxpress.com, 2d ago
newChronic exposure to alcohol has been shown to produce profound neuroadaptations in specific brain regions, including the recruitment of key stress neurotransmitters, ultimately causing changes in the body that sustain excessive drinking. The area of the brain known as the “bed nucleus of the stria terminalis” (BNST) is critically involved in the behavioral response to stress as well as in chronic, pathological alcohol use. — Neuroscience News, 2d ago
newA new study revealed that people with tinnitus have damage to specific fibers within their auditory nerve that is not detected by standard hearing tests. In addition, neurons in the brainstem — a region at the bottom of the brain that connects to the spinal cord — are more active in response to noise in people with tinnitus than in those who have never experienced it. — livescience.com, 2d ago
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To understand addiction, researchers typically look at neurons firing or molecular signatures across the brain, but these tools cannot nail down specific addiction-related molecules in different cell types. To get a more detailed understanding of addiction’s molecular underpinnings, in a study recently published in Nature Genetics Telese and her collaborators used single cell resolution technologies to better understand cocaine addiction in a diverse pool of rats.2 Focusing on the amygdala, the part of the brain involved in emotions and memories, they found that many molecular markers of addiction relate to how cells generate and use energy, which may point to a treatment for addiction-related behaviors. — The Scientist Magazine®, 3d ago
The preBötzinger Complex, which is a key region of brainstem circuits that generate and control breathing, contains neurons that also project widely, connecting to other regions of the brain. This helps to modulate the sense of smell, emotional state, heart rate, and even blood pressure. Understanding how the preBötzinger Complex is organized can untangle how breathing can influence these other processes. — eLife, 18d ago
When we mapped the brain regions onto their assigned intrinsic functional network architecture 68, we confirmed that PCs 1 and 2 jointly differentiate visual, DMN and somatomotor regions, replicating the tripartite structure of the brain’s intrinsic functional architecture 19,41(Fig. 3D). Others have argued that this tripartite structure is a fundamental feature of functional brain organization, whereby the transition from unimodal cortex (visual and somatomotor networks) to transmodal cortex (the DMN) reflects a global processing hierarchy from lower-to higher-order brain systems 17,19,41. — elifesciences.org, 25d ago
newResearchers discovered that using signals from both motor and sensory areas of the brain produced the best results. Areas related to the movement of the lips, tongue and jaw had the most influence and stayed consistent over three months. — Medical Design and Outsourcing, 2d ago
Many people around the world, including those in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, Israel, Romania, Brazil, Kenya, Guam, Nigeria, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, France, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Spain, Austria, Colombia, and Germany, believe Silencil.How well does Silenci work? If not, is it just another over-the-top noise supplement? For more information on Silencil, read this study.Silencil ReviewsSilencil is a new hope in the long and winding road of tinnitus treatments in Australia and NZ. This groundbreaking method may induce a paradigm change in our understanding and management of tinnitus since it gets to the heart of the matter. This Supplement is leading the charge as people look for ways to alleviate their symptoms, encouraging them to stop keeping quiet and instead welcome a future when their ears are not only made to ring less, but completely hushed.To combat tinnitus at its source, Silencil UK employs a proprietary combination of 28 all-natural ingredients. Inflammation and the health of the auditory nerves are both addressed by the various ingredients, including hawthorn berry, skullcap, and GABA. Supplemental relief isn't the only goal here; long-term health is the ultimate goal.Rather than relying on short-term remedies like drugs, Silencil promotes a holistic approach to tinnitus treatment. In order to combat tinnitus for good, the supplement promotes brain health and provides continuous protection, making it an ally in the long run.The believe that Silencil can be a game-changer for tinnitus sufferers inspires optimism and enthusiasm. As scientists get closer to unraveling the mysteries of the illness, Silencil emerges as a promising candidate to revolutionize the field.How Does Silencil Work?The main goal of Silencil is to improve mental health by reducing inflammation in the brain. Its efficacy is based on the fact that it gets to the root of tinnitus.According to research, tinnitus ringing could be caused by inflammation in the brain, which can cause abnormal electrical impulses and vibrations that were previously unnoticed. To eliminate tinnitus, Silencil focuses on reducing inflammation, which is thought to be its origin.To alleviate tinnitus symptoms, Silencil works by progressively lowering brain inflammation. There may be hope for those who suffer from chronic tinnitus thanks to this systematic approach, which demonstrates a dedication to getting to the bottom of things and enhancing brain health in general.👉 𝐂𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐊 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 𝟓𝟎% - "𝐎𝐅𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋 𝐖𝐄𝐁𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐄": - https://bestprice24x7.com/silencil-official-websiteSilencil Ingredients ListSilencil USA is made up of about 28 different ingredients. Each one was carefully chosen based on how well it works and how safe it is. Another great thing about Silencil is that it is all natural. It doesn't use strong chemicals or extraneous bits to do its job. So, most people can take it without any problems.Here are some of the formula's most important parts.Hawthorn Berry... — openPR.com, 3d ago
For the study, the team used an existing dataset comprising tens of thousands of natural images, with corresponding fMRI responses from human subjects, to train an AI-type system called an artificial neural network (ANN) to model the human brain's visual processing system.They then used this model to predict which images, across the dataset, should maximally activate several targeted vision areas of the brain. They also coupled the model with an AI-based image generator to generate synthetic images to accomplish the same task."Our general idea here has been to map and model the visual system in a systematic, unbiased way, in principle even using images that a person normally wouldn't encounter," Kuceyeski said.The researchers enrolled six volunteers and recorded their fMRI responses to these images, focusing on the responses in several visual processing areas.The results showed that, for both the natural images and the synthetic images, the predicted maximal activator images, on average across the subjects, did activate the targeted brain regions significantly more than a set of images that were selected or generated to be only average activators. — Business Insider, 3d ago
Newswise — Researchers have succeeded in restoring lost brain function in mouse models of stroke using small molecules that in the future could potentially be developed into a stroke recovery therapy. “Communication between nerve cells in large parts of the brain changes after a stroke and we show that it can be partially restored with the treatment”, says Tadeusz Wieloch, senior professor of neurobiology at Lund University in Sweden.“Concomitantly, the rodents regain lost somatosensory functions, something that around 60 per cent of all stroke patients experience today. The most remarkable result is that the treatment began several days after a stroke,” Wieloch continues.In an ischemic stroke, lack of blood flow to the brain causes damage, which rapidly leads to nerve cell loss that affects large parts of the the vast network of nerve cells in the brain. This may lead to loss of function such as paralysis, sensorimotor impairment and vision and speech difficulties, but also to pain and depression. There are currently no approved drugs that improve or restore the functions after a stroke, apart from clot-dissolving treatment in the acute phase (within 4.5 hours of the stroke). Some spontaneous improvements occur, but many stroke patients suffer chronic loss of function. For example, about 60 per cent of stroke sufferers, experience lost somatosensori functions such as touch and position sense.An international study published recently in the journal Brain and led by a research team from Lund University in collaboration with University of Rome La Sapeinza and Washington University at St. Louis, shows promising results in mice and rats that were treated with a class of substances that inhibit the metabotropic glutamate receptor (mGluR5), a receptor that regulates communication in the brain’s nerve cell network.“Rodents treated with the GluR5 inhibitor regained their somatosensori functions,” says Tadeusz Wieloch, who led the study published in BRAIN.Two days after the stroke, i.e. when the damage had developed and function impairment was most prominent, the researchers started treating the rodents that exhibited the greatest impaired function.“A temporary treatment effect was seen after just 30 minutes, but treatment for several weeks is needed to achieve a permanent recovery effect. Some function improvement was observed even when the treatment started 10 days after a stroke,” says Tadeusz Wieloch.Importantly, sensorimotor functions improved, even though the extent of the brain damage was not diminished. This, explains Tadeusz Wieloch, is due to the intricate network of nerve cells in the brain, known as the connectome, i.e. how various areas of the brain are connected and communicate with each to form the basis for various brain functions.“Impaired function after a stroke is due to cell loss, but also because of reduced activity in large parts of the connectome in the undamaged brain. The receptor mGluR5 is apparently an important factor in the reduced activity in the connectome, which is prevented by the inhibitor which therefore restores the lost brain function,” says Tadeusz Wieloch.The results also showed that sensorimotor function was further improved if treatment with the mGluR5 inhibitor is combined with somatosensory training by housing several rodents in cages enriched with toys, chains, grids, and plastic tubes.The researchers hope that in the future their results could lead to a clinical treatment that could be initiated a few days after an ischemic stroke.“Combined with rehabilitation training, it could eventually be a new promising treatment. However, more studies are needed. The study was conducted on mice and rats, and of course needs to be repeated in humans. This should be possible since several mGluR5 inhibitors have been studied in humans for the treatment of neurological diseases other than stroke, and shown to be tolerated by humans,” says Tadeusz Wieloch.The research is conducted with support from the Swedish Research Council, Alborada Trust, Hans-Gabriel and Alice Wachtmeister Foundation, and Multipark Strategic Research Area. — newswise.com, 3d ago
New research reveals that the face can affect the shape of the brain through a complex "cross-talk" between the two structures. — Big Think, 3d ago
Many individuals with hearing loss report a buzzing, humming, ringing, or even roaring sound in their ears. It’s been a longstanding idea that these symptoms, known as tinnitus, arise as a result of a maladaptive plasticity of the brain. In other words, the brain tries to compensate for the loss of hearing by increasing its activity, resulting in the perception of a phantom sound, tinnitus. Until recently though, this idea was disputed as some tinnitus sufferers have normal hearing tests. — SciTechDaily, 3d ago
Because of the overlap within the brain, Santarnecchi and his team believe that the placebo effect could have bigger implications for depression treatments. “We think this is an important starting point for understanding the placebo effect in general, and learning how to modulate and harness it, including using it as a potential therapeutic tool by intentionally activating brain regions of the placebo network to elicit positive effects on symptoms.” Because depression affects around 14.8 million Americans every year, harnessing the power of this process could help millions of individuals be no longer dependent on medications or intense therapies, but heal themselves in a more natural way by tricking their own brains. — The Debrief, 8d ago
Early on, I was most well known for advances in MRI, where we could begin to look at the function of the brain noninvasively. I used that technology to ask questions about how we become who we are, really looking at the behaving brain in action and to understand that and how that changes across development. We published some of the first studies using this methodology, and I think that helped to facilitate a field that was beginning to emerge in developmental cognitive neuroscience. — Barnard College, 21d ago
The truth is in the details, as he elaborates. When we talk to someone, there is an “intense” scanning that is taking place by our neurons. “As the visual information gets more details, the stimulation of the neurons is more intense, and corresponds to different areas of the brain,” he says. — gulfnews.com, 20d ago
This approach provides a unique window into the complexities of the brain, particularly in understanding conditions that affect cognitive and mental health. Professor John Duncan from the MRC CBSU adds, “These artificial brains give us a way to understand the rich and bewildering data we see when the activity of real neurons is recorded in real brains.”... — unite.ai, 9d ago
Our results further demonstrate that the antennae of monarchs act as peripheral multimodal sensory structures (Guerra and Reppert, 2015). In addition to playing a role in sensing gravity, the antennae have previously been shown to be sensitive to light cues (light-entrained antennal clocks for proper time-compensated sun compass use – Merlin et al., 2009; Guerra et al., 2012), are the location of wavelength-dependent, light-activated magnetosensors relevant for inclination-based magnetic compass use (Guerra et al., 2014), and are involved in both contact (Haribal and Renwick, 1998) and volatile (Bergström et al., 1994) chemoreception. Given their location, anatomy and ability to move (whether by the monarch or by external forces), the antennae of monarchs might also play a role in sensing other cues such as temperature, barometric pressure, wind or acoustic cues as in other insects (Guerra and Reppert, 2015). How information from these different sensory cues is sent downstream from the antennae to the central complex region of the brain (Heinze et al., 2013; Heinze and Homberg, 2007; Heinze and Reppert, 2011, 2012) for producing specific behaviors remains unknown. Previous work, however, has demonstrated that the paired antennae of monarchs can function independently of each other. During the sensing of environmental cues, there appears to be no crosstalk between antennae, with each antenna providing separate and distinct information derived from sensory conditions that are then sent downstream (e.g. independent circadian clock information – Guerra et al., 2012). — The Company of Biologists, 3d ago
By removing a tiny part of a fly’s exoskeleton on top of its head to expose the brain, the researchers were able to observe the activity of these forgetting neurons in real time. This window into the fly brain revealed that the forgetting neurons were chronically active, said Davis. Perhaps, he hypothesized, forgetting might be the default fate for information, and things are only remembered if another part of the brain judges them to be worthy of keeping and overrides the forgetting mechanism. He acknowledged that this hypothesis may be a bit extreme, and it’s unclear what this judging part of the brain would be, but he hopes to explore this concept in future experiments. — Drug Discovery News, 5d ago
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A. We don’t know. Memories are consolidated by sleeping and neuronal morphology is modified with sleep. All that happens, but I think it is not the deep purpose of sleep. We do not know what there is in common, for example, between the fly’s dream and the human dream. My guess is that it is related to metabolism, like ATP recharging [adenosín trifosfato, molécula clave para la obtención de energía en las células]. The brain is the largest consumer of ATP, perhaps there is a metabolic need for recharging. — Archyde, 3d ago
In addition to providing evidence that traumatic memories have distinct pathways in the brain, the findings highlight the involvement of the PCC, an area normally associated with internally directed thoughts, such as introspection or daydreaming. They also suggest that reactivating a traumatic memory may be critical to PSTD treatment as it helps transform it into an ‘ordinary’ sad memory that can be organized and consolidated into the hippocampus. — New Atlas, 3d ago
Lead author Dr. Laurent Sheybani (UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology) said, "The parallel between the function of slow waves during sleep and, here, their beneficial impact in a pathological condition, is particularly interesting. Our study suggests that a naturally occurring activity is employed by the brain to offset pathological activities; however, this comes with a price, since 'wake' slow waves are shown to impact on memory performance. From a purely neurobiological perspective, the research also reinforces the idea that sleep activity can happen in specific areas of the brain, rather than occurring evenly throughout the brain."... — medicalxpress.com, 3d ago
Zebrafish larvae are a wide-spread modeling system in developmental biology and neurobiology, as they are only a few millimeters long and transparent, and the activity in their neurons can in principle be measured at high resolution in all areas of the brain. Their brains are of relatively limited complexity: Similar to the brain of fruit flies, zebrafish larvae only have 100,000–200,000 neurons. At the same time, the structure of their nervous system is similar to that of other vertebrates, and as a result basic brain functions can be studied in a simple modeling system. — medicalxpress.com, 3d ago
Like a collection of 'Pick Up Sticks', the self-arranged network of nanowires mimics the synapse function of the brain. In this experiment, a network was trained to access dynamic online data that it learnt and memorised. — The University of Sydney, 3d ago
The Raji study is based on an analysis of 10,001 participants. What the authors found was a clear correlation between increased body fat composition during middle age (one’s 40s and 50s) and reduced volumes of key areas in the brain: the hippocampus, posterior cingulate, and the precuneus, among others. The team focused on these three areas of the brain because they are affected early in the pathological progression of Alzheimer’s disease. They are primarily responsible for the creation and storage of short-term memory, as well as the regulation of mood and emotion. They are also part of the default mode network, which is active when an individual becomes more introspective and less focused on the exterior world. — Psychology Today, 3d ago
..."Those two pieces of work led our team to develop tools that would extract additional meaning from images of MODEL-AD mouse models, with the goal of not only providing similar whole brain metrics observed in the previous clinical studies but to also dive deeper and possibly understand how subnetworks within the brain of these models might shed light on the mechanisms of the underlying biology," Territo said. — medicalxpress.com, 3d ago
..."Those two pieces of work led our team to develop tools that would extract additional meaning from images of MODEL-AD mouse models, with the goal of not only providing similar whole brain metrics observed in the previous clinical studies, but to also dive deeper and possibly understand how subnetworks within the brain of these models might shed light on the mechanisms of the underlying biology," Territo said. — ScienceDaily, 3d ago
The 18th century Swedish scientist and spiritualist Emanuel Swedenborg was a renaissance man with a bewildering array of skills and interests, who anticipated many of the key inventions and ideas of the modern age. During the first part of his life, Swedenborg wrote scientific treatises on astronomy, chemistry, geology and anatomy. In the area of anatomy, his insights and discoveries included the existence of cerebro-spinal fluid and its circulation through the body, the existence of brain cells and the connection between the motion of the brain and respiration. As an inventor, Swedenborg put forward plans for early versions of a submarine, aircraft, a car and even a machine gun. In addition, he wrote many philosophical works, in which he was similarly prescient and prophetic. — Psychology Today, 3d ago
..."From a purely neurobiological perspective, the research also reinforces the idea that sleep activity can happen in specific areas of the brain, rather than occurring evenly throughout the brain."... — ScienceDaily, 3d ago
Making an accurate model of the human visual system, in part by mapping brain responses to specific images, is one of the more ambitious goals of modern neuroscience. Researchers have found for example, that one visual processing region may activate strongly in response to an image of a face whereas another may respond to a landscape. Scientists must rely mainly on non-invasive methods in pursuit of this goal, given the risk and difficulty of recording brain activity directly with implanted electrodes. The preferred non-invasive method is fMRI, which essentially records changes in blood flow in small vessels of the brain -- an indirect measure of brain activity -- as subjects are exposed to sensory stimuli or otherwise perform cognitive or physical tasks. An fMRI machine can read out these tiny changes in three dimensions across the brain, at a resolution on the order of cubic millimeters. — ScienceDaily, 3d ago
Making an accurate model of the human visual system, in part by mapping brain responses to specific images, is one of the more ambitious goals of modern neuroscience. Researchers have found for example, that one visual processing region may activate strongly in response to an image of a face whereas another may respond to a landscape. Scientists must rely mainly on non-invasive methods in pursuit of this goal, given the risk and difficulty of recording brain activity directly with implanted electrodes. The preferred non-invasive method is fMRI, which essentially records changes in blood flow in small vessels of the brain—an indirect measure of brain activity—as subjects are exposed to sensory stimuli or otherwise perform cognitive or physical tasks. An fMRI machine can read out these tiny changes in three dimensions across the brain, at a resolution on the order of cubic millimeters. — Technology Networks, 3d ago
..."As neurons' activity changes, so does their use of metabolic resources like oxygen," says Norman. "Those resources are resupplied through the blood stream, which is the key to functional ultrasound." In this study, the researchers used ultrasound to measure changes in blood flow to specific brain regions. In the same way that the sound of an ambulance siren changes in pitch as it moves closer and then farther away from you, red blood cells will increase the pitch of the reflected ultrasound waves as they approach the source and decrease the pitch as they flow away. Measuring this Doppler-effect phenomenon allowed the researchers to record tiny changes in the brain's blood flow down to spatial regions just 100 micrometers wide, about the width of a human hair. This enabled them to simultaneously measure the activity of tiny neural populations, some as small as just 60 neurons, widely throughout the brain. — Technology Networks, 3d ago
Figure 1b shows the entire domestic chick egg (Gallus gallus domesticus), we have used the frame of reference of the brain coordinates (front-post-left-right) with respect to the sagittal axis of the brain inside the egg. We have now clarified this point in the caption to avoid any confusion (ll. 84-85). We have also modified the image adding “F” for frontal and “P” for posterior to better exemplify the reference coordinates. Regarding the question about the size of the manganese-positive area relative to the brain size, we would like to provide clarification. MnCl2 diffuses throughout the entire brain tissue, resulting in regional differences primarily influenced by activity-dependent uptake. This uptake is proportional to the time integral of sustained activity within each specific region. Consequently, it is not possible to define a distinct "manganese-positive" area, as the MnCl2 permeates the entire parenchyma of the brain. — eLife, 3d ago
Karam, McInnis and Arms along with Michael Kaller (Louisiana State University) then scrutinised the fish's brains to see whether they could identify differences between the two groups of fish and discovered several brain regions – involved in making social decisions – that were activated differently in the confident and bullied males. These included a region that processes sensory information – which could help a male to assess the social circumstances – and triggers a second brain area, a part of the social decision-making network, which controls the fish's behaviour. Wayne says, ‘The unique pattern of brain activation in the social decision-making network of susceptible males suggests an important role in regulating vulnerability to repeated social defeat stress’. The team adds that understanding the simpler brain circuits that underpin how fish struggle with difficult social situations could also help us to unravel the mysteries of some human mental health conditions, which share many of the same basic brain circuits. — The Company of Biologists, 3d ago
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Through careful study of humans and their relationships with drugs over time, researchers know today that a person's addiction stems not from personal failures, but from inherent genetic and socioeconomic factors that are often beyond the control of the individual who develops a substance use disorder. Once they've developed the disorder, the brain's chemical makeup can change, creating a dependence on the substance. — Stacker, 3d ago
...“Finding this ability was one of the first things we looked at,” Levin says. “That tells me there are probably many other things that are possible, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. This opens up the possibility of using these constructs to affect other cells [in living organisms or in a lab dish] in many other ways.” Gumuskaya hopes to look for similar “healing” behavior in models of human neurodegenerative disease, such as neuronal organoids that mimic the brain; Levin suggests that anthrobots might be used to help repair damaged retinas or spinal cords. But such ideas remain wholly speculative for now. — Scientific American, 3d ago
The preferred non-invasive method is fMRI, which essentially records changes in blood flow in small vessels of the brain—an indirect measure of brain activity—as subjects are exposed to sensory stimuli or otherwise perform cognitive or physical tasks. An fMRI machine can read out these tiny changes in three dimensions across the brain at a resolution on the order of cubic millimeters. — medicalxpress.com, 3d ago
When most people talk about brain imaging, they think about functional magnetic resonance imaging, which involves looking at blobs of activity in the brain. We, however, use a technique called MEG, which allows us to image the communication flow from one brain region to another. When different neuronal populations in the brain fire together, they generate electrical currents. Going back to Faraday’s Law from high school physics class, electrical currents generate magnetic fields. The great thing about those magnetic fields is that they can penetrate through the layers of the brain and the skull like cutting through butter. This means that we can put a sensor just outside the head and record those magnetic fields noninvasively. It's very quiet, and we can image the brain quickly. We get a very accurate and high-resolution idea of where and when information flows in the brain. We can look at activities in one part and then 10 milliseconds later in another part, and we can see neurons switching from high frequency to low frequency oscillations in different parts of the brain. — Drug Discovery News, 19d ago
The meme above represents my favorite way to teach about a foundational concept in social psychology: the dual process model of cognition. As Daniel Kahneman explains, there are two modes of thinking: fast and slow. Sometimes this is called system 1, or automatic processing, and system 2, or controlled processing, respectively. System 1, or automatic processing, is an evolutionarily old pathway that responds to stimuli quickly and automatically, based on instinct or intuition. On the other hand, system 2, or controlled processing, engages functions of the brain that we consider uniquely human—our prefrontal cortex for logic and reasoning. System 2 thinking is less efficient. It takes more time and energy to do, but it allows us to make well-reasoned decisions and behave in intentional ways. We respond with system 1 or automatic processes first, and system 2 or controlled thinking kicks in later, if we have the time and mental resources. — Psychology Today, 4d ago
The team hope that future studies will be able to increase such activity as a potential novel treatment for people with epilepsy.“The parallel between the function of slow waves during sleep and, here, their beneficial impact in a pathological condition, is particularly interesting. Our study suggests that a naturally occurring activity is employed by the brain to offset pathological activities; however, this comes with a price, since ‘wake’ slow waves are shown to impact on memory performance,” says lead author, Laurent Sheybani, MD, PhD, University College London Queen Square Institute of Neurology, in a release. “From a purely neurobiological perspective, the research also reinforces the idea that sleep activity can happen in specific areas of the brain, rather than occurring evenly throughout the brain.”... — Sleep Review, 3d ago
Yes, visual puzzles can raise your intelligence by stimulating various cognitive skills such as observation, logical reasoning, and problem solving. These challenges activate key areas of the brain, promoting neural connections and maintaining brain plasticity. Successful resolution improves the ability to deal with complex situations, while attention to details and concentration strengthen critical thinking. Regularly taking on these challenges not only improves your mental acuity and problem-solving abilities, but also offers an entertaining way to keep your mind active. — Bullfrag, 14d ago
Specifically, the study revealed that prolonged use of screens causes alterations in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, the part associated with various complex cognitive functions such as personality expression, decision-making, and social behavior. — interestingengineering.com, 16d ago
Focal seizures, on the other hand, happen only in part of the cerebral cortex. Symptoms will depend on the function of the brain area affected by the seizure. If it's a motor region, some muscle twitches might be observed. — medicalxpress.com, 27d ago
The main research focus of the lab is to understand the development of the hypothalamus in the ventral forebrain. The hypothalamus mediates homeostasis. It is crucial for the survival of the individual and the survival of the species, yet very few labs in the world focus on hypothalamic development. Arguably, amongst the different regions of the brain, we understand its development the least. The reason for this is that the developing hypothalamus is relatively tiny, morphologically complex and develops deep down in the brain in a region that is difficult to access and visualise. For these reasons, we use the chick as a model organism, where the developing hypothalamus is relatively large in comparison to mouse and zebrafish. A main finding from our research is that the hypothalamus develops through a mechanism in which growth and patterning are intrinsically linked, that the ventral forebrain in sculpted in a very different manner to the dorsal forebrain and that hypothalamus development is closely linked to eye development. This work will have wide implications for our understanding of how particular cell types in the hypothalamus develop, where they originate and who their neighbours are at any particular point in time in development. — The Company of Biologists, 3d ago
Earlier studies showed that a brain region called the hippocampus governs both the formation and retrieval of episode memories. PTSD is associated with structural abnormalities of the hippocampus, mostly a reduction of its volume. Impairments to the processes of the hippocampus are a focal point in studying how PTSD affects the brain. — Popular Science, 3d ago
Many individuals with hearing loss report a buzzing, humming, ringing or even roaring sound in their ears. It’s been a longstanding idea that these symptoms, known as tinnitus, arise as a result of a maladaptive plasticity of the brain. In other words, the brain tries to compensate for the loss of hearing by increasing its activity, resulting in the perception of a phantom sound, tinnitus. Until recently though, this idea was disputed as some tinnitus sufferers have normal hearing tests. — The Hearing Review, 3d ago
Because the researchers ultimately plan to make Anthrobots with therapeutic applications, they created a lab test to see how the bots might heal wounds. The model involved growing a two-dimensional layer of human neurons, the cells that transmit signals in the brain and the spinal cord, and creating an open ‘wound’ devoid of cells by scratching the layer with a thin metal rod. — interestingengineering.com, 3d ago
...“Those two pieces of work led our team to develop tools that would extract additional meaning from images of MODEL-AD mouse models, with the goal of not only providing similar whole brain metrics observed in the previous clinical studies, but to also dive deeper and possibly understand how subnetworks within the brain of these models might shed light on the mechanisms of the underlying biology,” Territo said. — SCIENMAG: Latest Science and Health News, 4d ago
First, the visual regions of the brain are activated by seeing the action, followed by the activation of parietal and premotor regions involved in performing similar actions ourselves. — Earth.com, 3d ago
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The discovery opens the possibility that some astrocytes form an essential part of the brain’s circuitry. “More and more we come to the idea that there is a participation of all the cell types to the function of the brain,” Volterra said. “It’s much more integrated than it was thought before.”... — Nautilus, 20d ago
...“What I find so exciting about Life of a Neuron is that it is the first of its kind to use data like this to bring key neuroscience principles to life,” said John Morrison, Ph.D., lead neuroscientist of Life of a Neuron and Director of the California National Primate Research Center. “Through the work of an incredible group of scientists and artists, we’re able to bring the world artistic interpretations of the scientific data and principles to allow the audience to experience neuroscience in an entirely different way. It is my hope that this exhibition adaptation will spark more curiosity in those who see it and inspire them to learn more about the universe between their ears.” The 20-minute cinematic story offers visitors a chance to walk into artistic renditions of a brain at the cellular level — encountering a larger-than-life human neuron, the “thinking cells” of the brain. Depicting the life stages of a human neuron from neural migration to aging, guests are surrounded by a highly immersive sound design that tells a universal life story, beginning with a baby crying and including sounds of laughter, children playing in a playground, people singing happy birthday, an ambulance siren, and finally a flatline. — SCIENMAG: Latest Science and Health News, 27d ago
Another pioneering study by Lorsch et al. (2019) investigated the role of prefrontal cortex (PFC) in resilience. The researchers discovered that individuals with higher resilience exhibited greater activity in the PFC during stress. This activity facilitates adaptive responses such as problem-solving and emotion regulation, further underscoring the role of the brain in resilience. — Psychology Today, 7d ago
The preferred non-invasive method is fMRI, which essentially records changes in blood flow in small vessels of the brain—an indirect measure of brain activity—as subjects are exposed to sensory stimuli or otherwise perform cognitive or physical tasks. An fMRI machine can read out these tiny changes in three dimensions across the brain, at a resolution on the order of cubic millimeters. — Neuroscience News, 3d ago
The VLPFC is an area of the brain that is enlarged in primates, including humans and macaques. In this study, the Romanski Lab showed rhesus macaques short videos of other macaques engaging in vocalizations/expressions that were friendly, aggressive, or neutral. They recorded the activity of more than 400 neurons in the VLPFC and found that individually, the cells did not exhibit strong categorical responses to the expressions or the identities of the macaques in the videos. However, when the researchers combined the neurons as a population a machine learning model could be trained to decode the expression and identity in the videos based only on the patterns of neural activity, suggesting that neurons were collectively responding to these variables. — Futurity, 4d ago
Alzheimer’s is a progressive illness that often begins with mild loss of memory and confusion. This type of dementia involves parts of the brain that control memory, thought and language. Patients in very severe decline often have difficulty carrying out daily activities, which may include holding a conversation or responding to the environment. — BioMedWire (BMW), 4d ago
Finite element head models link the motion of the head to the response of the brain’s soft tissue and compare it to the cellular injury threshold to predict injury. PANTHER has several head models for different applications. During helmet testing, a generic head model of a 50th percentile male head is commonly used to simulate impacts to dummy headforms in the lab. Sophisticated individualized head models are generated from MRI scans and used to learn how the head and brain features of an individual influence susceptibility to injury. The final input to a finite element head model is an accurate measure of head motion. — Open Access Government, 4d ago
Cell death also occurs in specific areas of the brain, including the hippocampus, that are critical for areas of cognition like memory and spatial navigation. Therapeutic interventions that can preserve cognitive function in AD are therefore of substantial importance, particularly because the incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease diagnoses is expected to grow as a function of the increase in elderly populations. — Open Access Government, 4d ago
This is not kundalini yoga or breath work. It is a life force energy transmission that opens and clears your channels, accelerating your Kundalini awakening process. KA is part of a process that builds exponentially as you engage with it. Kundalini can be thought of as the Divine and powerful energetic potential that exists within every human. This process of tapping into your full energetic potential catalyzes profound rewiring of the brain structure and central nervous system, leading to deep emotional and spiritual healing. — Eventbrite, 4d ago
Another consequence of an over-emphasis on maps with sharp borders is the wrongful interpretation of their expansion into adjacent areas as evidence for reorganisation. This is often described as ‘remapping’, ‘remodelling’, ‘expansion’, ‘rewiring’, ‘take-over’, ‘invasion’, ‘reoccupation’, and even ‘capture’ (Merzenich et al., 1983a; Merzenich et al., 1983b). As we discuss throughout the piece, it is essential that we do not turn the result of a mode of analysis – remapping – into a true phenomenon (reorganisation). Instead, as we have seen, a change to map boundaries can be the consequence of learning-related strengthening of pre-existing dedicated architecture. More importantly, this ‘remapping’, regardless of the neural process it reflects, is often not causally related to behavioural recovery at all. Thus, de-emphasising brain maps with sharp borders can lead the field away from positing a special form of plasticity predicated on qualitative changes in the computational capacity of an area. Instead, a given brain area may have the capacity to receive information from more diverse sources than is suggested from the derivation of discrete maps. How these more diverse inputs are processed will of course be constrained by the brain area’s local and global connectivity. This connectivity fingerprint pre-determines to a large degree what the local computational capacities of a given brain area are, and how these computations are read out by downstream areas to inform behaviour. Even when inputs are engineered by scientists and detoured into a different brain area, as discussed in the section ‘Experimentally induced rewiring of retinal input in newborn ferrets’, successful processing of this rewired input depends on the recipient architecture already being compatible with the novel input. — eLife, 13d ago
Before SmartEM, scientists used regular microscopes, but it took a long time to capture the details of the brain. SmartEM, developed by researchers from MIT and Harvard, combines powerful electron microscopes with artificial intelligence (AI). SmartEM learns about the brain while taking images. It acts like an assistant that helps quickly examine and understand the brain’s tiny parts, such as synapses and neurons. — MarkTechPost, 21d ago
This approach is most apparent if we look at where money for psychiatric research flows. In the past two decades, the US National Institute of Mental Health, the largest funder of mental health research in the world, has introduced a new framework for research, the Research Domain Criteria, or RDoC. This framework is composed of domains and units of analysis. The domains include psychological phenomena like perception or a sense of acute threat, similar to symptoms, but including both positive and negative aspects. The units of analysis focus on things like genes, cells and circuits, directing researchers where to look to explain psychological phenomena like a sense of acute threat, in order to better understand both a well-functioning and a disordered response. The framework aims to do away with the issues and problems that the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) is known for, including the way that many of the psychiatric categories within it include overlapping symptoms, or the many possible symptom profiles that can lead to a single diagnosis. These issues suggest that research relying on the DSM categories may not reflect real categories, which makes room for a lot more noise in the research process. The hope is that RDoC will provide more promising paths for research, particularly at the level of the brain and genes. Given this focus, it is no surprise that, within psychiatry today, experiences of hearing voices or of hallucinations are largely seen as symptoms to be managed, or ideally removed, rather than experiences that can be both challenging and meaningful. — Aeon, 17d ago
The improved resolution will help neuroscientists probe the neuronal circuits in different regions of the brain’s neocortex and allow researchers to track signals propagating from one area of the cortex to another as we think and reason, and perhaps discover underlying causes of developmental disorders. This could lead to better ways of diagnosing brain disorders, perhaps by identifying new biomarkers that would allow diagnosis of mental disorders earlier or, more specifically, in order to choose the best therapy. — SciTechDaily, 7d ago
The vestibular apparatus is located in the inner ear; its sensory neurons transmit signals to one of the parts of the brain. If this signal conflicts with signals from other sensory perception systems, motion sickness may develop. — Archyde, 26d ago
During development, the brains of most mammals (including humans) will fold into a unique pattern of grooves and ridges. Understanding how these wrinkles emerge can provide important insights into how the brain works. Most research in this area has focused on the structure of the cerebrum, the two large lobes that make up most of the brain. However, much less is known about the structure of the cerebellum – the ‘little brain’ that sits beneath the cerebrum. — eLife, 25d ago
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All of us can. It's so important for us to understand this. This book that we put together, it's an ordinary language. This is not for scientists, but it's based on the best plan such that it's kind of the owner's manual for your emotions. There's a neuropeptide in the brain called oxytocin. That's the molecule of human connection. You get it from eye contact and touch in person. You don't get it from social media. And so the result is all the time we're spending on our phones when we're with other people, we're depriving ourselves from that hormone that our brain needs to actually give us the love that we seek. And we have the protocols, the hygiene that people can use to manage their own emotions, to feel much, much better. — NPR, 4d ago
People cannot be categorized as being right- or left-brained as both hemispheres have differences in terms of functions. For one, when it comes to emotion, the right side of the brain is more dominant in such processes, while the left side is more active when it comes to the production of speech. — Science Times, 4d ago
As she explains, neuroscientists have found the brains of people who studied music look different from those who did not have music lessons: "music education works three areas of the brain at once: the motor, visual and auditory cortices. If we think about it, it's like a full-brain workout; it's like our legs, our arms and our torso doing an exercise at the same time. Music education is exercise for the brain."... — phys.org, 4d ago
Cognitive reserve is the brain's ability to withstand damage or neurodegenerative disease. If there is tissue or functional loss in one part of the brain, other brain cells (neurons) work harder to compensate. In theory, this means lifelong experiences and activities create a dam against the damages of disease and aging in the brain. — medicalxpress.com, 4d ago
The researchers found that activity in the hippocampus -- the area of the brain that forms memories of our experiences -- followed similar patterns of activity among all subjects when they were reminded of sad or relaxing experiences from their lives, suggesting typical normal memory formation. — ScienceDaily, 4d ago
The evolution of higher cognitive functions in human beings has so far mostly been linked to the expansion of the neocortex – a region of the brain that is responsible, inter alia, for conscious thought, movement and sensory perception. — Neuroscience News, 4d ago
The device works by scanning the back of the eye where the optic nerve sits. Because the optic nerve is so closely linked to the brain, it carries the same biological information in the form of protein and lipid biomarkers. These biomarkers exist in a very tightly regulated balance, meaning even the slightest change may have serious effects on the "brain-health." TBI causes these biomarkers to change, indicating that something is wrong. — medicalxpress.com, 4d ago
The neocortex is the largest and youngest part of the mammalian brain. Human beings’ higher cognitive abilities have long been attributed to the evolution of the neocortex, but a new study suggests we shouldn’t neglect the role of the “little brain” – the cerebellum. — Technology Networks, 4d ago
We know sedentary behavior is bad for our health, especially for those of us who sit at a desk all day or in front of the TV each night. It has even been linked to mild cognitive impairment. Previous research has suggested that executive function—the processes in the brain that enable people to plan, focus, remember and multitask—may suffer when we sit for long periods without moving our bodies. — medicalxpress.com, 4d ago
For example, it is conceivable that the changes in brain water associated with obesity could represent an effect of obesity on the brain, that is WHR→ISOVF, whereas the obesity-related changes in neurite density could represent an effect of the brain on obesity, that is ICVF→WHR. Such a bi-directional mechanistic model of the relationships between obesity and the brain seems somewhat plausible. Obesity is usually caused by changes in eating behaviour and physical activity, which are controlled by brain systems enriched for opioid, dopamine and cannabinoid receptor-mediated signalling. So changes in the brain, indexed by neurite density, could conceivably cause adipogenic eating behaviours and thus obesity. Obesity in turn causes a pro-inflammatory state systemically and blood concentrations of CRP, IL-6 and other cytokines have previously been associated with changed (increased) micro-structural MRI metrics of free water (Kitzbichler et al., 2021). So inflammation could potentially mediate effects of obesity on the brain tissue water content (see also Turkheimer et al., 2022). Our finding that the CRP-WHR map correlation is significantly stronger for the ISOVF maps than the ICVF maps would be consistent with this hypothesis. — eLife, 4d ago
Only, that’s not the creepiest thing it does. It also infects your brain and hunkers down in the amygdala, the part of the brain involved in regulating emotions. From that perch, it has the ability to change your behavior in ways that benefit it. — The Colorado Sun, 4d ago
The researchers were focusing on brain activity in the ventral hippocampus (the underside of the hippocampus), a decision-making part of the brain that is understood to help us form and use memories to guide our behavior. — SciTechDaily, 5d ago
But for people with ADHD, the brain's executive functioning can be impaired, perhaps because that area of the brain is less active or has difficulty suppressing various incoming stimuli and signals. In turn, Savul says this can affect time perception, orientation, and management. Time blindness, a popular term to describe the phenomenon of losing an awareness of time, can happen to anyone, but it is often pronounced in people with ADHD. — Mashable, 5d ago
The device works by scanning the back of the eye where the optic nerve sits. Because the optic nerve is so closely linked to the brain, it carries the same biological information in the form of protein and lipid biomarkers. These biomarkers exist in a very tightly regulated balance, meaning even the slightest change may have serious effects on the ‘brain-health’. TBI causes these biomarkers to change, indicating that something is wrong. — Med-Tech Innovation, 5d ago
Newswise — Philadelphia, November 29, 2023 – A first-line therapy for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) reshapes connectivity of the brain, according to a new study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier.OCD is an anxiety disorder characterized by repetitive thoughts and behaviors that can be disruptive and even disabling. The first-line treatment for OCD, a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy called exposure and response prevention (EX/RP), is effective for many people with OCD, but how it works has remained unclear. This new study shows that EX/RP training reshapes brain activity for better cognitive control.In people with OCD, functional brain activity is affected in three neural networks that participate in cognitive control. The networks are the frontoparietal network (FPN), the cingulo-opercular network (CON), and the default mode network (DMN). For the new study, 111 adolescents and adults with OCD received either EX/RP, which is designed to build coping skills for a patient through gradual exposure, or stress management training as a control treatment. Then, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) while performing a cognitive task. After treatment, OCD participants who received EX/RP displayed strengthened connectivity between the cognitive control networks that was not seen in participants who had stress management.Senior author Kate Fitzgerald, MD, at Columbia University, said the study “is important because it shows how EX/RP improves brain function to treat OCD. Specifically, EX/RP improved connectivity of brain circuits underlying cognitive control, the ability to adjust the repetitive thoughts and behaviors.”Leveraging the expertise of co-author Adriene Beltz, PhD, at the University of Michigan, the researchers used a sophisticated new analysis technique. Dr. Fitzgerald explained, “This allowed us to ‘see’ patient-specific brain changes with EX/RP that we were not able to uncover previously when using an older type of analysis that averages out brain differences between patients.”In an upcoming study, Dr. Fitzgerald is using a cognitive training video game to exercise brain circuits for cognitive control before patients even begin EX/RP therapy. “We hope this pre-therapy training will exercise the brain to help children respond more fully to EX/RP so they can overcome OCD.”Cameron Carter, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, said of the work, “This study provides an important and clear example of how our increasing understanding of the functional organization of brain circuits can be harnessed to develop highly targeted therapies and to measure their impact both on the distressing symptoms of having OCD as well as the underlying brain circuits affected by the disorder.”... — newswise.com, 5d ago
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With mGluR5 receptors so widely distributed throughout many regions of the brain, the team also hopes that these drugs may be able to treat a variety of other post-stroke problems such as fatigue, depression, and loss of language and memory. — Drug Discovery News, 5d ago
Where the drug had its effect was also a factor, monitored in this study using fMRI imaging. These scans showed that the salience network was only activated by intravenous injection of the drug; oral administration did not activate this system. So, the fast rise of DA levels seen after injection of the drug was associated with increased activity in a different part of the brain. This effect was consistently seen in all 20 participants in the study. The increased risk of addiction that accompanies injection directly into the bloodstream may have to do with activation of this salience network and how we direct our attention. The authors suggest that finding a way to inhibit the salience network might lead to new therapies against drug addiction. — Psychology Today, 5d ago
Let's delve into the genesis of our enigmatic brain, beginning with a singular structure, the neural tube composed of neuroepithelium. From this humble start, an intricate choreography unfolds, guiding cells to form the diverse regions of the brain. — synbiobeta.com, 5d ago
We know that these pathways have to function for our brains to work, but scientists are still far from understanding the circuitry for memory, pain, emotions, attention and decision-making. Though some of these functions are traditionally tied to specific areas of the brain, recent evidence suggests it’s not that straightforward – the brain’s duties can’t be so neatly divided. — sciencefocus.com, 15d ago
The participants had their brains scanned with a structural MRI to look for any underlying differences in brain anatomy between the groups, specifically looking at gray matter volumes and the thickness of the cortex. They also had a functional MRI to map brain activity detected by changes in blood flow, which indicates areas of the brain that are more active during specific tasks or at rest. — Inverse, 25d ago
The study shows how disease-causing variants of SYNGAP1, thought primarily to affect synapses between mature neurons, could disrupt early development in a key region of the brain known as the cortex. — Neuroscience News, 24d ago
Traditional neural networks lack the elegance of the brain’s processing mechanisms. Spiking neural networks emulate the brain by activating neurons only when there’s input, in contrast to conventional networks that continually process data. Eshraghian aims to infuse AI with the efficiency observed in biological systems, providing a tangible solution to environmental concerns arising from the energy-intensive nature of current neural networks. — MarkTechPost, 8d ago
Fitzgerald has nothing against nature — he enjoys a trek in the wilderness about as much as anyone. He just believes that it is not a panacea for the most serious problems that the modern city encounters. “From the most avant-garde science fiction to the most banal planning documents,” he writes, “a shared agenda has emerged: for the good of humanity, the future of the city must be woody and green. … It’s as if, all of a sudden, there is no problem of the built or physical or social environment that cannot be fixed by leaning into a sturdy yew or beech.” In Fitzgerald’s view, this is a fantasy without hard evidence to back it up.THE NOTION THAT CITIES ARE INEVITABLY CHAOTIC, STRESSFUL PLACES goes back to the early years of the American republic, to Thomas Jefferson and Henry David Thoreau, and to Frederick Law Olmsted, who in the mid-1800s designed Manhattan’s Central Park as a green refuge where overburdened, overstressed urban workers could escape for refreshment and renewal.Urban disrespect reached a sort of peak in the 1920s. The prominent financier Simon Straus declared that “in our great cities, people break down in health or reach premature senility because of late hours, loss of sleep, fast pleasures, and headlong, nerve-racking methods of existence.” A popular advertisement portrayed urban life as “24 hours of noisy crowded streets. Of dust and gas-ridden air. Of machine-made speed. Of strain. Of nervous tension.”But the urban pessimism that Fitzgerald chronicles is largely a product of the 1970s, when big cities were in the midst of a crisis of rising crime, dirty streets and annoying congestion. Neuroscientists began connecting crowded cities to actual human depression and anxiety. They are still doing it. “Today,” Fitzgerald writes, “a lot of urban thinking derives from this notion that the city is a space that produces mental illness, not only because of its hectic or worrisome social life but because of its actual physical structure.”A study conducted in Mannheim, Germany, for example, concluded that growing up in an urban environment changes the human brain, generating fearfulness in the stress-driven amygdala and areas of the cerebral cortex. Research from the city of Aarhus, in Denmark, found that the more vegetation one experiences as a child, the smaller the risk of mental problems in adulthood. And a study at Stanford University reported that excessive walking in a crowded urban corridor increases dangerous rumination and activates a part of the brain linked to emotional problems.The conclusions drawn from these studies have led to a neurological idea called “attention restoration theory,” which posits, essentially, that simply looking upon nature boosts human concentration powers in a positive way.IT’S QUITE A MOUND OF DATA. How seriously should we take it? Fitzgerald believes that there is a placebo effect at work here, that we are told so often as young people that nature gives us a lasting sense of well-being that we are programmed to tell researchers that it does that. In truth, placebos aren’t worthless. If we are trained to believe that cities make us depressed but that nature makes us permanently and biologically happy, and we continue to feel that way, perhaps something good has been accomplished.But are these feelings permanent or transitory? I am no scientist, but I live across the street from a very nice park, and I walk through it a couple of times a week. It’s a pleasant experience. Does it make me a happier person over a significant length of time? I have trouble accepting that notion, as does Fitzgerald. “We’re overinvesting in nature,” he writes, “as a panacea for what are actually fairly mundane urban problems — that we have mistaken what is really … a sideshow to the wider sense of melancholy that has often accompanied the modern world.”If cities were as toxic as much of modern neuroscience is telling us, then we ought to be seeing some bad numbers in our biggest places. But they are not that easy to find. The opioid addiction crisis is a more serious problem in many depressed small towns than it is in the largest cities. In 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic reached us, life expectancy in New York City was 82.6 years, compared to the national average of 78.9. Once COVID-19 took hold, rural residents were more than 35 percent more likely than urban residents to die within 90 days after hospitalization for the virus. Urban death rates were higher for minorities and lower-income people, but this, however regrettable, is a different issue.Moreover, as Fitzgerald argues, to portray cities as totally deprived of greenery is a bit of an overstatement. “The truth,” he writes, “is that urban spaces are festooned with vegetation. Wanted and unwanted, useful and annoying, pretty and ugly. Once you start looking there’s green stuff everywhere in cities.”IN ANY CASE, THERE IS NO SIGN the urban greenery onslaught is slowing down, in the United States or overseas. New York’s Nature Conservancy wants to classify the city’s 7 million trees as a single forest system, “to sustain New York City for decades to come.” Madrid has plans to construct a “green wall” around the city featuring 500,000 new trees. And perhaps most consequentially, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has declared her intention to make half the city’s surface area “vegetative” by the year 2050.Fitzgerald seems rather dismissive of these efforts. I wouldn’t go that far. I think a major tree-planting campaign in Paris would add to the iconic beauty the city has long possessed. What I agree with is his skepticism that thousands of acres of new vegetation would make the inhabitants permanently calmer, saner or healthier. “I just wasn’t at all convinced,” Fitzgerald explains, “that the simple presence of grass and trees could truly have what sounds like, in all truth, a quasi-religious, even transcendental effect on nearby humans.”Fitzgerald’s amiable contrarianism will earn him his fair share of detractors, but that is what Jane Jacobs faced when she blew the whistle on city planners in the 1960s. In challenging the conventional wisdom of nature-based urban panaceas, while confessing to his “resolutely affirmative view of city life,” Fitzgerald has placed himself quite firmly in the Jacobs tradition. — Governing, 14d ago
There is some variability regarding optimal dosing, but generally, around five grams seems to be the consensus, and this does seem to generalize to many of the brain-specific studies. Some exercise research suggests that it should be taken after exercise and with food for maximum performance effects. — Psychology Today, 18d ago
This work showed that the thalamus, involved in processing sensitivity and sensory data, was the first structure to be impacted by multiple sclerosis. The putamen, which plays a role in regulating movement and learning, generally starts to deteriorate some four years later. As for the brain stem, which notably regulates heart rate and respiration, it was affected around nine years after the thalamus. In other words, the results obtained by Coupé and his colleagues have shown that several brain structures clearly suffered damage well before the appearance of the first symptoms of multiple sclerosis, which on average were detected more than a decade after the initial signs of neurodegeneration. — CNRS News, 5d ago
Craig Chepke, MD, DFAPA: With ion channels, as soon as you open that ion channel, ions are flowing, unlike the metabotropic receptors, [where] you’ve got second messengers, third messengers, fourth messengers, so on and so forth. Theoretically, that could be one of the reasons why you see such a long time to have the clinical effect, because it takes a while for those changes to be affected. That’s just one of the reasons. There are many reasons potentially, but I think that’s one key part. I’m glad that GABA has come up here because you really can’t talk about glutamate without talking about GABA. I think of it like the Fred [Astaire] and Ginger [Rogers] of the brain. Wherever one goes, so goes the other, and they do a beautiful dance together, always in harmony and synchrony to make sure that everything’s in the perfect synchrony. — Psychiatric Times, 5d ago
The formation of the human brain starts with a single structure, called the neural tube, which is composed of a specific tissue, called the neuroepithelium. The cells in this structure are then slowly 'instructed' to generate all the different cells that are present in the various parts of the brain. — medicalxpress.com, 5d ago
We know far less—and have seldom asked—how the nature of cues generated by collectives of conspecifics may shape sensory system evolution. Such as, how does the grouping behaviour of social primates facilitate or hinder the detection and selection of skin signals? How does aggregation of many individuals of carnivore species into the same den influence olfactory assessment of potential mates? Important exceptions to the rule further demonstrate the promise of such an approach. For example, ornithologists, mammalogists, and entomologists have asked how parents find and identify their own offspring in massive breeding colonies. Their results point to a keen ability for individual recognition via odour (Caspers et al., 2013; Leedale et al., 2021; Liang et al., 2021; Loughry and McCracken, 1991), vocalisations (Knörnschild et al., 2020; Lefevre et al., 1998; Lengagne et al., 2001; Wilkinson, 2003), or colour/pattern (Quach et al., 2021; Stoddard et al., 2014; Tibbetts and Dale, 2007). The selective pressures of discriminating among hundreds to thousands of relatively similar stimuli generate testable hypotheses about the mechanisms and limitations of sensory tuning. These pressures might impose constraints on the evolvability of other sensory dimensions. For example, a trade-off between olfactory sensitivity to a small number of similar odorants versus the ability to detect a breadth of odorant types might occur as the number of olfactory neurons, and the size of cognitive regions devoted to olfactory processing in the brain, are likely limiting factors (Healy and Guilford, 1990). Similarly, pheromones and their dedicated olfactory receptors coevolve within a species (see above). A better understanding of the types of sensory stimuli generated in collective contexts, and their relative importance, will add to comprehensive frameworks for studying sensory system evolution. — eLife, 5d ago
..."Although the cerebellum, a structure at the back of the skull, contains about 80 percent of all neurons in the whole human brain, this was long considered a brain region with a rather simple cellular architecture," explains Prof. Kaessmann. In recent times, however, evidence suggesting a pronounced heterogeneity within this structure has been growing, says the molecular biologist. The Heidelberg researchers have now systematically classified all cell types in the developing cerebellum of human, mouse and opossum. To do so they first collected molecular profiles from almost 400,000 individual cells using single-cell sequencing technologies. They also employed procedures enabling spatial mapping of the cell types. — ScienceDaily, 5d ago
In a second study, Lipton’s team analysed heading among 353 amateur football players (age 18–53; 27% female) before DTI and verbal learning tests. Instead of focusing on white matter regions of the brain, the study tested the interface between grey and white matter closer to the skull. — Cosmos, 5d ago
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First, when you convey a concept with metaphor, which you normally construct with specifics, you fire up both the language circuits in the brain’s left hemisphere and sensory and motor circuits atop the brain. [iii] As an example, Simon Lacey and others at Emory University showed that texture metaphors—a “bubbly” personality versus a “lively” personality—activate sensory neurons. [iv] When people read specifics like that, they mentally reenact the experience in the part of the brain they would use in reality. — Psychology Today, 28d ago
For one, Moss noted, our brains love the “chemical feedback loop.” In one study, researchers used fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to measure the brain activity of participants experiencing different emotions and found that gratitude lit up parts of the brain’s reward pathways and the hypothalamus, boosting serotonin and activating the brain stem to produce dopamine — “all the feel-good chemicals our bodies and brains love,” Moss said. — WorkLife, 12d ago
In my work with addiction, I was struck by the self-harm aspect of the condition. This led to my wondering in more detail why humans are the only species that self-harms. While I could comprehend a part of the brain being addicted to nicotine, alcohol, or an opiate, I could not comprehend the concept of being addicted to self-harm. This then led me to research the evolution of the part of the brain called the amygdala, the fight or flight area of the brain that exists in all mammals. This in turn lead me to examine the way the human amygdala (seat of aggression) differs from the amygdala of other mammals. Noteworthy, is that it directs aggression both inwardly and outwardly. Inner directed aggression is at the core of a huge percentage of our human psychic suffering. The study of the amygdala then led me to the pre-frontal cortex, the seat of inner self-awareness, and the realization that the pre-frontal cortex could be educated and trained to be aware of the inner-directed aggression. This then led me to the development of a brain education-based mindfulness training program that is outlined in my book, Me Myself & My Amygdala: A Mindfulness Guide to Sobriety & Recovery. Inviting our patients to learn and have conversations about the human brain is a creative, nonthreatening approach to concretely help our patients in the development of insight. While looking into the brain is a rather literal form of insight, it is a starting point and a glimpse into our shared humanity. — Psychiatric Times, 20d ago