Cognitive Science News

Block That Chirp: Volume Control in Crickets

2006-01-31T13:54:00.000-08:00

Block That Chirp: Volume Control in Crickets

"You can shout until you're hoarse, but you can't shout until you're deaf. One reason, scientists think, is a phenomenon called corollary discharge signaling. When your brain sends a signal to various muscles to speak, a copy of the signal goes to the auditory system, desensitizing it so it doesn't get overloaded.... That's the idea, anyway. But very little is known about how corollary discharges work. Now James F. A. Poulet and Berthold Hedwig of the University of Cambridge in England have found a key to the puzzle."

World without pain is hell, parent says

2006-01-30T06:52:00.000-08:00

World without pain is hell, parent says

"When you first meet 4-year-old Roberto Salazar, you can't help but notice his unwavering smile and constant laughter. By all accounts, he's a very happy boy.... It is only when he rams his head violently into walls or plays a little too roughly with a schoolmate, all the while smiling, that you are reminded that he suffers from an incredibly rare genetic disorder.... Roberto is one of 17 people in the United States with 'congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis,' referred to as CIPA by the few people who know about it."

Dogs Excel on Smell Test to Find Cancer

2006-01-24T14:41:00.000-08:00

Dogs Excel on Smell Test to Find Cancer

"In the small world of people who train dogs to sniff cancer, a little-known Northern California clinic has made a big claim: that it has trained five dogs -- three Labradors and two Portuguese water dogs -- to detect lung cancer in the breath of cancer sufferers with 99 percent accuracy."

Love at First Sniff

2006-01-24T14:39:00.000-08:00

Love at First Sniff

"For Belding's ground squirrels, it's a smell world, after all. New research reveals at least five sources of body scent that the squirrels, Spermophilus beldingi, use as a symphony of smell to identify one another.... Individual identification is important, said Jill M. Mateo, an assistant professor in the department of comparative human development at the University of Chicago and the author of the study.... The squirrels can live a decade or more and dwell in high density. They develop distinctive personalities, laid back or cantankerous, so "it pays to be able to know who's who," Dr. Mateo said. Other scientists have studied the many ways social animals identify one another, and research by Robert E. Johnston of Cornell has yielded similar results with hamsters."

Owl's Ability to Link Sight and Sound Could Be Key to Treating Attention Disorders

2006-01-24T14:35:00.000-08:00

Owl's Ability to Link Sight and Sound Could Be Key to Treating Attention Disorders

"Sights and sounds fill the world, presenting a panoply of possible foci for the brain. Yet most animals can hone in on whatever sight most demands interest. Then the sounds associated with that sight--be it a loved one talking or a tasty meal skittering through the undergrowth--become all the clearer. This is attention and new research shows how an owl's brain establishes the state. It also provides tantalizing evidence that brains from across the animal kingdom work the same way."

When Bad People Are Punished, Men Smile (but Women Don't)

2006-01-24T14:33:00.000-08:00

When Bad People Are Punished, Men Smile (but Women Don't)

"'Don Juan' Lord Byron wrote, 'Sweet is revenge - especially to women.' But a study released Wednesday, bolstered by magnetic resonance imaging, suggests that men may be the more natural avengers.... In the study, when male subjects witnessed people they perceived as bad guys being zapped by a mild electrical shock, their M.R.I. scans lit up in primitive brain areas associated with reward. Their brains' empathy centers remained dull.... Women watching the punishment, in contrast, showed no response in centers associated with pleasure. Even though they also said they did not like the bad guys, their empathy centers still quietly glowed."

Taste encoding in the brain

2006-01-24T14:28:00.000-08:00

Taste encoding in the brain

"Instantly reacting to the sweet lure of chocolate or the bitter taste of strychnine would seem to demand that such behavioral responses be so innate as to be hard-wired into the brain.... Indeed, in studies with the easily manipulable fruit fly Drosophila, Kristin Scott and colleagues reported in the January 19, 2006, issue of Neuron experiments demonstrating just such a hard-wired circuitry.... Their findings, they said, favor a model for taste encoding in the brain that holds that specific cells are dedicated to detecting specific tastes. Competing models hold that multiple neurons combine information to encode taste, or that the timing of patterns of taste information encodes taste."

How the brain recognizes objects

2006-01-24T14:26:00.000-08:00

How the brain recognizes objects

"When a human looks at a number, letter or other shape, neurons in various areas of the brain's visual center respond to different components of that shape, almost instantaneously fitting them together like a puzzle to create an image that the individual then 'sees' and understands, researchers at The Johns Hopkins University report."

Half-Brained Schemes: What's all that gray matter good for, anyway?

2006-01-24T14:24:00.000-08:00

Half-Brained Schemes: What's all that gray matter good for, anyway?

"New findings in neurology always seem to come with the caveat that there are subtleties that need to be explained. It is therefore refreshing to consider a big, fat unsubtlety: the size of our brains. At first glance, a big brain's function seems simple: to think big thoughts. And indeed, brain size does loosely correlate with intelligence, between species and, as recent MRI studies confirm, within our own. Yet some people who are missing brain parts remain just fine with what little they've got. The cases have multiplied since brain scans became routine.... Take the 50-something lawyer who, fearing Alzheimer's, came in for an MRI and got good news and bad news. He was fine, but his brain lacked a corpus callosum, the wrist-thick stalk that normally connects the brain's hemispheres. Still, he enjoyed a successful practice and had a verbal IQ of around 130 and a nonverbal IQ above 90."

A Shocker: Partisan Thought Is Unconscious

2006-01-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

A Shocker: Partisan Thought Is Unconscious

"Liberals and conservatives can become equally bug-eyed and irrational when talking politics, especially when they are on the defensive.... Using M.R.I. scanners, neuroscientists have now tracked what happens in the politically partisan brain when it tries to digest damning facts about favored candidates or criticisms of them. The process is almost entirely emotional and unconscious, the researchers report, and there are flares of activity in the brain's pleasure centers when unwelcome information is being rejected."

Learned motor programs directly influence the visual perception of movements

2006-01-16T13:54:00.000-08:00

Learned motor programs directly influence the visual perception of movements

"When novel movements are learned--for example, in sports--visual and motor learning take place simultaneously. A karate master not only executes a kick better than a beginner, but he also perceives karate movements much more accurately. A variety of recent studies suggest that motor programs may influence the visual recognition of movements. However, this idea is difficult to test because--as for the karate expert--visual and motor experience are typically highly correlated. The fact that the karate expert is better in the perception of karate movements could be explained just by the fact that he has much more visual experience with these patterns. In findings reported this week, researchers present an experiment that separates the influences of visual and motor learning during the acquisition of a new motor behavior and demonstrate that motor learning imparts a direct influence on visual perception, independently of visual familiarity with learned movements."

Autism linked to mirror neuron dysfunction

2006-01-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

Autism linked to mirror neuron dysfunction

"Seeing is doing - at least it is when mirror neurons are working normally. But in autistic individuals, say researchers from the University of California, San Diego, the brain circuits that enable people to perceive and understand the actions of others do not behave in the usual way.... According to the new study, currently in press at the journal Cognitive Brain Research, electroencephalograph (EEG) recordings of 10 individuals with autism show a dysfunctional mirror neuron system: Their mirror neurons respond only to what they do and not to the doings of others."

Learning Retinal Implant System

2006-01-16T13:49:00.000-08:00

Learning Retinal Implant System

"Intelligent Medical Implants AG (IMI), a Zug, Switzerland based company announced that its first-generation Learning Retinal Implant System, containing a 50-electrode device, was successfully implanted in two patients in December 2005. Clinical testing of the device with these two patients is scheduled this month (January) at the University of Hamburg Medical School, Germany."

Old brain, new tricks

2006-01-16T13:45:00.000-08:00

Old brain, new tricks

"ESREF ARMAGAN is a 52-year-old Turkish painter who has been blind in both eyes since the day he was born. He has never seen a coffee cup, a toothbrush, an elephant, or a tree-lined street, but he can draw them each, from any perspective, with or without shadows depending on the time of day. His portrait of President Clinton, which he painted from an embossed photograph, looks, well, like Clinton-complete with grey hair and bulbous nose-and though Armagan has never had an art lesson, the streets he paints stretch into the distance as converging parallel lines.... For years, Armagan has been a phenomenon in the art world, displaying his work in museums around the globe. But it was not until two summers ago, when he traveled to Boston, that scientists were able to study precisely how he generates such images. Their hope was that he might teach them something about neural ''plasticity"--the brain's ability to reorganize its functions based on new information and experiences. If Armagan had never seen with his eyes, how had his brain adapted to give him visual representations of the world, and more importantly, what could it reveal about brain adaptation in general?"

Face Perception Is Modulated By Sexual Orientation

2006-01-16T11:17:00.000-08:00

Face Perception Is Modulated By Sexual Orientation

"New research indicates that an area of the brain thought to act in reward circuitry may represent a phase in visual processing during which sexual orientation modulates how we perceive individual faces. The findings are reported by Felicitas Kranz and Alumit Ishai of the University of Zurich.... Social communication requires the accurate analysis of the intentions of other individuals. To this end, men and women likely adopt strategies of "face reading" in order to successfully interact with potential sexual partners. Thus, it is reasonable to assume differential patterns of activation in the hetero- and homosexual brains in response to faces of the same or opposite sex. In their new work, the researchers hypothesized that hetero- and homosexual subjects would exhibit a greater response to faces they deem sexually preferable. Specifically, the researchers predicted similar responses to male and female faces in the visual cortex, where facial identity is processed, but differential responses in the amygdala and the reward circuitry, where a "value" is assigned to faces. The researchers postulated that heterosexual women and homosexual men would show a greater response in these areas to male than to female faces, whereas heterosexual men and homosexual women would respond more to female than to male faces."

Long-term memory controlled by molecular pathway at synapses

2006-01-16T11:11:00.000-08:00

Long-term memory controlled by molecular pathway at synapses

"Harvard University biologists have identified a molecular pathway active in neurons that interacts with RNA to regulate the formation of long-term memory in fruit flies. The same pathway is also found at mammalian synapses, and could eventually present a target for new therapeutics to treat human memory loss."

Rockefeller researchers discover a biological clock within a clock

2006-01-16T11:10:00.000-08:00

Rockefeller researchers discover a biological clock within a clock

"Just as a pocket watch requires a complex system of gears and springs to keep it ticking precisely, individual cells have a network of proteins and genes that maintain their own internal clock -- a 24-hour rhythm that, in humans, regulates metabolism, cell division, and hormone production, as well as the wake-sleep cycle. Studying this 'circadian' rhythm in fruit flies, which have genes that are similar to our own, scientists have constructed a basic model of how the cellular timekeeper works. But now, a new report in this week's issue of the journal Science turns the old model on its head: By providing a glimpse into living cells, Rockefeller University researchers have uncovered a previously undetected clock inside the circadian clock. The scientists made the finding with a rarely used technique called FRET, which enabled them to follow circadian proteins over an extended period of time and watch the clock as it ticks away in a living cell."

Big brains are not crucial to teaching

2006-01-16T11:08:00.000-08:00

Big brains are not crucial to teaching

"Animals do not need a big brain to be able to teach each other, a new study suggests.... Animal behaviourists in the UK believe they have found the first evidence of two-way teacher-pupil communication between ants, suggesting that teaching behaviour may have evolved according to the value of information rather than brain size."

Cells That Read Minds

2006-01-11T05:51:00.000-08:00

Cells That Read Minds

"On a hot summer day 15 years ago in Parma, Italy, a monkey sat in a special laboratory chair waiting for researchers to return from lunch. Thin wires had been implanted in the region of its brain involved in planning and carrying out movements.... Every time the monkey grasped and moved an object, some cells in that brain region would fire, and a monitor would register a sound: brrrrrip, brrrrrip, brrrrrip.... A graduate student entered the lab with an ice cream cone in his hand. The monkey stared at him. Then, something amazing happened: when the student raised the cone to his lips, the monitor sounded - brrrrrip, brrrrrip, brrrrrip - even though the monkey had not moved but had simply observed the student grasping the cone and moving it to his mouth.... The researchers, led by Giacomo Rizzolatti, a neuroscientist at the University of Parma, had earlier noticed the same strange phenomenon with peanuts. The same brain cells fired when the monkey watched humans or other monkeys bring peanuts to their mouths as when the monkey itself brought a peanut to its mouth.... Later, the scientists found cells that fired when the monkey broke open a peanut or heard someone break a peanut. The same thing happened with bananas, raisins and all kinds of other objects.... 'It took us several years to believe what we were seeing,' Dr. Rizzolatti said in a recent interview. The monkey brain contains a special class of cells, called mirror neurons, that fire when the animal sees or hears an action and when the animal carries out the same action on its own."

Zebra finches remember songs dad sang

2006-01-11T05:45:00.000-08:00

Zebra finches remember songs dad sang

"Researchers at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, believe they have located a place in the brain where songbirds store the memories of their parents' songs. The discovery has implications for humans, because humans and songbirds are among the few animals that learn to vocalize by imitating their caregivers.... In a paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, David Vicario and Mimi Phan of Rutgers, and Carolyn Pytte of Wesleyan University, report that songbirds store the memory of caregivers' songs in a part of the brain involved in hearing. This suggests the auditory version of the caregiver's song is stored first, and that it may serve to guide the vocal learning process. The paper is titled 'Early Auditory Experience Generates Long-Lasting Memories That May Subserve Vocal Learning in Songbirds.'"

Recording the formation of a memory trace

2006-01-09T09:18:00.000-08:00

Recording the formation of a memory trace

"Memory formation follows a dynamic pattern, allowing for retrieval from different areas of the brain, depending on when an organism needs to remember, said a researcher at Baylor College of Medicine.... That is what Dr. Ron L. Davis, professor of molecular and cellular biology at BCM, theorizes, based on his most recent report on the topic that finds a memory trace in Drosophila or fruit flies is formed in a pair of neurons called the dorsal pair medial neurons, but only 30 minutes after the fact and only through the mediation of a gene called, ironically, amnesiac. (A memory trace is a chemical change in tissue that represents the formation of a memory.) The study appears in the current issue of the journal Cell.... Davis and his colleagues were one of the first to actually record a memory trace being formed. That one was first stored in the insect's antennal lobe (where odors are processed). The flies are trained to associate an odor with an electric shock. The change in these neurons was immediate, but lasted only five to seven minutes.... In the more recent report involving the DPM neurons, the change can be seen 30 minutes after the formation of the memory, but it lasts about two hours."

Violent video games alter brain's response to violence

2006-01-09T09:15:00.000-08:00

Violent video games alter brain's response to violence

"A brain mechanism that may link violent computer games with aggression has been discovered by researchers in the US. The work goes some way towards demonstrating a causal link between the two - rather than a simple association....Many studies have concluded that people who play violent video games are more aggressive, more likely to commit violent crimes, and less likely to help others. But critics argue these correlations merely prove that violent people gravitate towards violent games, not that games can change behaviour.... Now psychologist Bruce Bartholow from the University of Missouri-Columbia and colleagues have found that people who play violent video games show diminished brain responses to images of real-life violence, such as gun attacks, but not to other emotionally disturbing pictures, such as those of dead animals, or sick children. And the reduction in response is correlated with aggressive behaviour."

In the brains of mice grow the cells of man

2006-01-09T09:13:00.000-08:00

In the brains of mice grow the cells of man

"Researchers in San Diego have designed mice containing fully functional human nerve cells as a novel way to study and potentially treat neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.... The neurons were formed in the brains of mice that had been injected with human embryonic stem cells as 2-week-old embryos.... Studies at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences in La Jolla showed that the human cells migrated throughout the mouse brain and took on the traits of their mouse-cell neighbors. The results present direct evidence that primitive human stem cells can be cultured in the lab, be injected into an animal, and then develop into a particular type of desired cell."

MIT researcher finds neuron growth in adult brain

2006-01-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

MIT researcher finds neuron growth in adult brain

"Despite the prevailing belief that adult brain cells don't grow, a researcher at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory reports in the Dec. 27 issue of Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biology that structural remodeling of neurons does in fact occur in mature brains.... This finding means that it may one day be possible to grow new cells to replace ones damaged by disease or spinal cord injury, such as the one that paralyzed the late actor Christopher Reeve.... 'Knowing that neurons are able to grow in the adult brain gives us a chance to enhance the process and explore under what conditions -- genetic, sensory or other -- we can make that happen,' said study co-author Elly Nedivi, the Fred and Carole Middleton Assistant Professor of Neurobiology."

Monkeys Have Accents

2006-01-09T09:08:00.000-08:00

Monkeys Have Accents

"Now primate researchers have discovered that Japanese macaques can acquire different accents based on where they live - just like humans.... The red-faced monkeys frequently utter what researchers have dubbed coo calls to maintain vocal contact with one another.... Recordings of these calls taken over an eight-year period show that macaques living hundreds of miles apart 'speak' at different frequencies."

Unified physics theory explains animals' running, flying and swimming

2006-01-09T09:06:00.000-08:00

Unified physics theory explains animals' running, flying and swimming

"A single unifying physics theory can essentially describe how animals of every ilk, from flying insects to fish, get around, researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering and Pennsylvania State University have found. The team reports that all animals bear the same stamp of physics in their design.... The researchers show that so-called 'constructal theory' can explain basic characteristics of locomotion for every creature -- how fast they get from one place to another and how rapidly and forcefully they step, flap or paddle in relation to their mass. Constructal theory is a powerful analytical approach to describing movement, or flows, in nature.... They said their findings have important implications for understanding factors that guide evolution by suggesting that many important functional characteristics of animal shape and locomotion are predictable from physics."

Chemical signaling helps regulate sensory map formation in the brain

2006-01-09T08:14:00.000-08:00

Chemical signaling helps regulate sensory map formation in the brain

"Researchers from the University of Chicago have uncovered an important mechanism used by the developing brain to pattern nerve connections in the part of the brain that interprets visual signals. In the process, they have provided the first experimental evidence for a decades-old model of how nerve cells establish distant connections in a way that can consistently relay spatial information.... In the January 5, 2006, issue of the journal Nature, the researchers show that a gradient of a molecule known as Wnt3 counterbalances another force provided by the EphrinB1-EphB signaling system. The balance between these two signaling systems, they show, is necessary to establish the carefully controlled pattern of nerve connections required to convey spatial information in the correct order from the eye to the brain.... 'This is the first biological validation of a computational model developed in the early 1980s that suggested that two such forces would be necessary to guide axons as they establish the connections that relay spatial information from one part of the nervous system to another,' said study author Yimin Zou, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurobiology at the University of Chicago."

How brands get wired into the brain

2006-01-09T08:12:00.000-08:00

How brands get wired into the brain

"A person's liking for a particular brand name is wired into a specific part of the brain, a new study reveals. The research may provide an insight into the brain mechanisms that underlie the behavioural preferences that advertisers attempt to hijack.... It has long been known that humans and animals can learn to associate an irrelevant stimulus with a positive experience, for example the ringing of a bell with food, as in the case of Pavlov's dogs. And neuroimaging studies have recently implicated two regions buried deep in the brain - the ventral striatum and the ventral midbrain - as having an important role in this learning.... But now work led by John O'Doherty, currently at Caltech in Pasadena, US, shows that the actual level of preference is encoded in these brain regions, and that people access this information to guide their decisions."

Wasp Hound

2006-01-09T08:09:00.000-08:00

Wasp Hound

"A new device for detecting suspicious odors has an unusual component. Its brain consists of five tiny trained wasps. Their trainer, agricultural engineer Glen Rains, admits the idea may sound far-fetched at first.... 'I initially thought some people would kind of look at it like uh some kind of like a flea circus type thing,' says Rains, associate professor at the University of Georgia. But as he wrote in the journal Biotechnology Progress, the sensor is cheaper to use than trained dogs and more sensitive than some electronic noses."

Bats Use Touch Receptors on Wings to Fly, Catch Prey

2005-12-23T12:56:00.000-08:00

Bats Use Touch Receptors on Wings to Fly, Catch Prey

"Bats have an 'ear' for flying in the dark because of a remarkable auditory talent that allows them to determine their physical environment by listening to echoes. But an Ohio University neurobiology professor says bats have a 'feel' for it, too.... John Zook's studies of bat flight suggest that touch-sensitive receptors on bats' wings help them maintain altitude and catch insects in midair. His preliminary findings, presented at the recent Society for Neuroscience meeting, revive part of a long-forgotten theory that bats use their sense of touch for nighttime navigation and hunting."

Brandeis Researchers Propose Model of Neural Circuit Underlying Working Memory

2005-12-23T12:48:00.000-08:00

Brandeis Researchers Propose Model of Neural Circuit Underlying Working Memory

"Our ability to understand speech or decide which fruit in the store is freshest depends on the brain's dexterity in integrating information over time. The prefrontal cortex, where working memory resides, plays a critical role in helping us make these countless everyday decisions. A novel computational study by Brandeis researchers in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences proposes for the first time a neuronal model for the mechanisms underlying a time-related task in this complex decision-making process.... Essentially, the study shows that neurons in the prefrontal cortex fire with greater or lesser intensity to finely control, or inhibit behavior, based on a neuronal feedback signal, or circuit mechanism. Such integral feedback control is probably at work in many regulatory areas of the body, such as temperature control and feelings of satiety to prevent overeating, but this is the first time this mechanism has been suggested as a role of neuronal firing."

Everyone's Eyes Are Wired Differently

2005-12-11T07:53:00.000-08:00

Everyone's Eyes Are Wired Differently

"The first images ever made of retinas in living people reveal surprising variation from one person to the next. Yet somehow our perceptions don't vary as might be expected.... As they took pictures of the thousands of cells responsible for detecting color in the deepest layer of the eye, scientists found that our eyes are wired differently. Yet we all - with the exception of the colorblind - identify colors similarly.... The results suggest that the brain plays an even more significant role than thought in deciding what we see."

Creativity Determines Sexual Success

2005-12-11T07:51:00.000-08:00

Creativity Determines Sexual Success

"The more creative a person is, the more sexual partners they are likely to have, according to a pioneering study which could explain the behaviour of notorious womanisers such as poets Lord Byron and Dylan Thomas.... The research, by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Open University in the UK, found that professional artists and poets have around twice as many sexual partners as those who do not indulge in these creative activities.... The authors also delved into the personalities of artists and poets and found they shared certain traits with mentally ill patients. These traits were linked with an increased sexual activity and are thought to have evolved because they contribute to the survival of the human species."

Researchers Use Brain Scans to Predict Behavior

2005-12-11T07:49:00.000-08:00

Researchers Use Brain Scans to Predict Behavior

"By peering into the minds of volunteers preparing to play a brief visual game, neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found they can predict whether the volunteers will succeed or fail at the game."

Brainpower the Best Medicine?

2005-12-11T07:46:00.000-08:00

Brainpower the Best Medicine?

"Your medicine really could work better if your doctor talks it up before handing over the prescription.... Research is showing the power of expectations, that they have physical - not just psychological - effects on your health. Scientists can measure the resulting changes in the brain, from the release of natural painkilling chemicals to alterations in how neurons fire."

Interactive 3-D Atlas of Mouse Brain Now Available on Web

2005-12-11T07:43:00.000-08:00

Interactive 3-D Atlas of Mouse Brain Now Available on Web

"Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have just launched a web-based 3-D digital atlas browser and database of the brain of a popular laboratory mouse (see http://www.bnl.gov/CTN/mouse/).... 'Neuroscientists around the world can now download these extremely accurate anatomical templates and use them to map other data -- such as which parts of the brain are metabolically active and where particular genes are expressed -- and for making quantitative anatomical comparisons with other, genetically engineered mouse strains,' said project leader Helene Benveniste, who is a researcher in Brookhaven's medical department and a professor of anesthesiology at Stony Brook University.... The database was created using high-resolution magnetic resonance (MR) microscopy at the University of Florida in collaboration with researchers from Brookhaven Lab's Center for Translational Neuroimaging. The work was done in parallel with an international collaboration, the Mouse Phenome Database (MPD) project, which was created to establish a collection of baseline phenotypic data from commonly used inbred mice."

Specialized Neurons Allow the Brain to Focus on Novel Sounds

2005-12-11T07:41:00.000-08:00

Specialized Neurons Allow the Brain to Focus on Novel Sounds

"A team of Spanish and American neuroscientists has discovered neurons in the mammalian brainstem that focus exclusively on new, novel sounds, helping humans and other animals ignore ongoing, predictable sounds.... These 'novelty detector neurons' quickly stop firing if a sound or sound pattern is repeated, but will briefly resume firing whenever some aspect of the sound changes, according to Ellen Covey, one of the authors of the study and a psychology professor at the University of Washington. The neurons can detect changes in the pitch, loudness or duration of a single sound and can even detect changes in the pattern of a complex series of sounds, she said."

Men and Women Differ in Brain Use during Same Tasks

2005-12-11T07:39:00.000-08:00

Men and Women Differ in Brain Use during Same Tasks

"The comedians are right. The science proves it. A man's brain and a woman's brain really do work differently.... New research from the University of Alberta shows that men and women utilize different parts of their brains while they perform the same tasks. The results of the research are reported this month in the journal NeuroImage."

Attention Training

2005-12-11T07:37:00.000-08:00

Attention Training

"Playing too many video games has been reported to increase violent tendencies in some people or make some kids slow learners, but they may also create skilled surgeons and have also been used as a virtual distraction helping some kids get through painful medical treatments.... Now it seems that playing certain special computer games could help prepare some kids for school. Psychologists at the University of Oregon designed the games to train the network of brain areas involved in attention, which undergoes important development between ages three and seven."

Trust-Building Hormone Short-circuits Fear in Humans

2005-12-11T07:35:00.000-08:00

Trust-Building Hormone Short-circuits Fear in Humans

"A brain chemical recently found to boost trust appears to work by reducing activity and weakening connections in fear-processing circuitry, a brain imaging study at the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has discovered. Scans of the hormone oxytocin's effect on human brain function reveal that it quells the brain's fear hub, the amygdala, and its brainstem relay stations in response to fearful stimuli. The work at NIMH and a collaborating site in Germany suggests new approaches to treating diseases thought to involve amygdala dysfunction and social fear, such as social phobia, autism, and possibly schizophrenia, report Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, M.D., Ph.D., NIMH Genes Cognition and Psychosis Program, and colleagues, in the December 7, 2005 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience."

Psychiatry Ponders Whether Extreme Bias Can Be an Illness

2005-12-11T07:08:00.000-08:00

Psychiatry Ponders Whether Extreme Bias Can Be an Illness

"Mental health practitioners say they regularly confront extreme forms of racism, homophobia and other prejudice in the course of therapy, and that some patients are disabled by these beliefs. As doctors increasingly weigh the effects of race and culture on mental illness, some are asking whether pathological bias ought to be an official psychiatric diagnosis."

Bees Recognize Human Faces

2005-12-07T08:36:00.000-08:00

Bees Recognize Human Faces

"Think all bees look alike? Well we don't all look alike to them, according to a new study that shows honeybees, who have 0.01% of the neurons that humans do, can recognize and remember individual human faces.... For humans, identifying faces is critical to functioning in everyday life. When we look at another person's face, a special brain region, the fusiform gyrus, lights up (ScienceNOW 14 February, 2004). But can animals without such a specialized region also tell one face from another? ... Knowing honeybees' unusual propensity for distinguishing between different flowers, visual scientist Adrian Dyer of Cambridge University in Cambridge, England, wondered whether that talent stretched to other contexts. So he and his colleagues pinned photographs of four different people's faces onto a board. By rewarding the bees with a sucrose solution, the team repeatedly coaxed the insects to buzz up to a target face, sometimes varying its location."

Monkeys Have Accents Too

2005-12-07T08:34:00.000-08:00

Monkeys Have Accents Too

"To the untrained ear monkeys of a certain species may all sound the same, but Japanese researchers have found that, like human beings, they actually have an accent depending on where they live.... The finding, the first of its kind, will be published Monday in the December edition of a German scientific journal Ethology, the primate researchers said Tuesday.... 'Differences between chattering by monkeys are like dialects of human beings,' said Nobuo Masataka, professor of ethology at Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute.... The research team analyzed voice tones of two groups of the same species of primates, the Japanese Yakushima macaque also known as Macaca fuscata yakui, between 1990 and 2000."

UCLA Imaging Study of Children with Autism Finds Broken Mirror Neuron System

2005-12-07T08:29:00.000-08:00

UCLA Imaging Study of Children with Autism Finds Broken Mirror Neuron System

"New imaging research at UCLA detailed Dec. 4 as an advance online publication of the journal Nature Neuroscience shows children with autism have virtually no activity in a key part of the brain's mirror neuron system while imitating and observing emotions.... Mirror neurons fire when a person performs a goal-directed action and while he or she observes the same action performed by others. Neuroscientists believe this observation-execution matching system provides a neural mechanism by which others' actions, intentions and emotions can be understood automatically.... Symptoms of autism include difficulties with social interaction -- including verbal and nonverbal communication -- imitation and empathy. The new findings dramatically bolster a growing body of evidence pointing to a breakdown of the brain's mirror neuron system as the mechanism behind these autism symptoms."

NIDCD-funded Researchers Find Missing "Piece of the Pie" in Understanding Taste

2005-12-07T08:26:00.000-08:00

NIDCD-funded Researchers Find Missing "Piece of the Pie" in Understanding Taste

"Scientists funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), one of the National Institutes of Health, are a step closer to unraveling the mystery of taste. In a study published in the December 2, 2005, issue of Science, researchers have pinpointed the chemical responsible for transmitting signals from the taste buds - small sensory bumps on the tongue, throat, and roof of the mouth - to the taste nerves leading to the brain. Today's findings provide scientists with a more complete picture of this complicated process, helping advance the study of taste and taste disorders.... 'People with taste disorders might not be able to enjoy the fun of eating and are at risk for other health problems, such as poorly balanced nutrition, so researchers are working to understand more fully how our sense of taste works,' says James F. Battey, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., director of the NIDCD. 'Until now, there has always been a missing link between the detection of chemicals in the taste buds and the transmission of chemical signals from the taste nerves to the brain. Through an ingenious use of genetic engineering, these researchers have finally been able to solve the puzzle.'"

Colour Blindness May Have Hidden Advantages

2005-12-07T08:24:00.000-08:00

Colour Blindness May Have Hidden Advantages

"The most common form of colour blindness makes it difficult for those with the condition to distinguish between red and green. But scientists have found that it also helps these people to discern subtle shades of khaki that look identical to those with normal vision.... About six percent of men, and a much smaller fraction of women, have deuteranomaly, commonly known as red-green colour blindness. It is caused by a genetic mutation that affects one of the three pigments found in the cone-shaped cells in the retina that respond to different colours of light.... This mutation alters the pigment that responds to green light so that it behaves more like the red-sensitive pigment. Therefore, the two colours produce almost identical responses in the eye. This means that people with deuteranomaly often cannot see differences between shades of red and green on test cards used by scientists to investigate the disorder.... Now researchers based at the University of Cambridge, UK, and the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, have turned the tables. They designed test cards that deliberately favoured people with deuteranomaly to show that these individuals can spot differences between shades of khaki that look identical to those with normal vision. Their work is published in the journal Current Biology."

Why this Brain Flies on Rat Cunning

2005-12-07T08:21:00.000-08:00

Why this Brain Flies on Rat Cunning

"It sounds like science fiction: a brain nurtured in a Petri dish learns to pilot a fighter plane as scientists develop a new breed of 'living' computer. But in groundbreaking experiments in a Florida laboratory that is exactly what is happening.... The 'brain', grown from 25,000 neural cells extracted from a single rat embryo, has been taught to fly an F-22 jet simulator by scientists at the University of Florida.... They hope their research into neural computation will help them develop sophisticated hybrid computers, with a thinking biological component."

Mouse Robot Senses With Whiskers

2005-12-07T08:16:00.000-08:00

Mouse Robot Senses With Whiskers

"A mobile robot that uses a set of whiskers to discriminate between different textures could open the door on new sensing technologies that are more sensitive than touch and lead to better mobile devices able to move efficiently though tight, dark places where vision is useless.... 'It's like walking through a dark room and having your hands stretched out so that you won't bump into something ,' said neurobiologist Miriam Fend, whose research is part of the AMouse project at the University of Zurich."

New Discoveries About Neuron Plasticity Linked To Learning And Memory

2005-11-28T16:37:00.000-08:00

New Discoveries About Neuron Plasticity Linked To Learning And Memory

"Neurons experience large-scale changes across their dendrites during learning, say neuroscientists at The University of Texas at Austin in a new study that highlights the important role that these cell regions may play in the processes of learning and memory.... The research, published online Oct. 23 and in the November issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, shows that ion channels distributed in the dendritic membrane change during a simulated learning task and that this requires the rapid production of new proteins.... "Our new work strongly supports the idea that learning involves changes in dendrites," says Dr. Daniel Johnston, director of the Center for Learning and Memory and professor in the Institute for Neuroscience."

MIT Researcher Presents New View Of How The Cortex Forms

2005-11-28T16:34:00.000-08:00

MIT Researcher Presents New View Of How The Cortex Forms

"A leading neuroscientist at MIT and one from the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) report in the Nov. 4 special issue of Science dedicated to the brain that the controversy is over: The 'protomap' and 'protocortex' theories of brain development are dead.... The cerebral cortex is a sheet of around 10 billion neurons divided into distinctly separate areas that process particular aspects of sensation, movement and cognition. To what extent are these areas predetermined by genes or shaped by the environment? The protomap and protocortex theories developed before 1990 claimed, respectively, that the task-specific regions of the cortex are spawned by a zone of "originator" cells; or that long nerve fibers from the thalamus, a large ovoid mass that relays information to the cortex from other brain regions, are activated by external stimuli to impose identity on the homogeneous blob.... New evidence indicates that the development of cortical areas involves "a rich array of signals," an interwoven cascade of developmental events, some internal and some external, according to co-authors Mriganka Sur, Sherman Fairchild Professor of Neuroscience at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and John L. R. Rubenstein of UCSF."

This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis

2005-11-28T16:27:00.000-08:00

This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis

"Hypnosis, with its long and checkered history in medicine and entertainment, is receiving some new respect from neuroscientists. Recent brain studies of people who are susceptible to suggestion indicate that when they act on the suggestions their brains show profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions, researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and believe to be true.... The new experiments, which used brain imaging, found that people who were hypnotized "saw" colors where there were none. Others lost the ability to make simple decisions. Some people looked at common English words and thought that they were gibberish."

Discovery Disproves Simple Concept of Memory as 'Storage Space'

2005-11-28T16:24:00.000-08:00

Discovery Disproves Simple Concept of Memory as 'Storage Space'

"Even if you could get more RAM for your brain, the extra storage probably wouldn't make it easier for you to find where you left your car keys.... What may help, according to a discovery published Nov. 24 in the journal Nature, is a better bouncer - as in the type of bouncer who manages crowd control for nightclubs. The study by Edward Vogel, an assistant professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Oregon, is the first to demonstrate that awareness, or 'visual working memory,' depends on your ability to filter out irrelevant information."

Scientists Propose Theory of Time Perception

2005-11-18T07:15:00.000-08:00

Scientists Propose Theory of Time Perception

"Through recent findings, scientists are beginning to unravel the mystery behind humans' perceptions of time.... Two Duke neuroscientists have proposed a theory of how human brains track time in the seconds to minutes range-called interval timing-that enables individuals to pursue everyday activities ranging from conversations to sports.... The findings were published in the October issue of Nature Reviews Neuroscience, a prominent science journal."

When Sensation Becomes Perception

2005-11-18T07:13:00.000-08:00

When Sensation Becomes Perception

"Perceiving a simple touch may depend as much on memory, attention, and expectation as on the stimulus itself, according to new research from Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) international research scholar Ranulfo Romo and his colleague Victor de Lafuente. The scientists found that monkeys' perceptions of touch match brain activity in the frontal lobe, an area that assimilates many types of neural information."

First Evidence of a Living Memory Trace

2005-11-18T07:12:00.000-08:00

First Evidence of a Living Memory Trace

"An international team of scientists for the first time has detected a memory trace in a living animal after it has encountered a single, new stimulus. The research, done with honeybees sensing new odors, allows neuroscientists to peer within the living brain and explore short-term memory as never before, according to scientist Roberto Fernandez Galan, a leading author on the report who is currently a postdoctoral research associate at Carnegie Mellon University.... Capturing these memory traces could ultimately provide a completely new way to understand how short-term memory works, stated Galan. The findings are scheduled for January publication in Neural Computation."

Novel Brain Training Program Enhances Memory and Cognition

2005-11-18T07:10:00.000-08:00

Novel Brain Training Program Enhances Memory and Cognition

"A global team of researchers has developed a program that dramatically improves auditory memory and other cognitive functions in older adults. Members of the team, organized by Posit Science Corporation, presented findings on a pilot study that evaluates the impact of the program at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting today in Washington, DC.... The randomized controlled study showed that participants using a computer-based brain training program achieved significant improvement in neurocognitive function and memory. After eight weeks of specialized training, the intervention group improved, on average, by more than 10 years in standard measures of auditory memory, attention and other cognitive function."

Brain Memory Area Modifies Its 'Wiring Diagram' during the Female Cycle

2005-11-18T07:06:00.000-08:00

Brain Memory Area Modifies Its 'Wiring Diagram' during the Female Cycle

"Researchers at Northwestern University and Columbia University have found that 'wiring' in female rat brain memory area expands and retracts in relation to the amount of estrogen present during the estrous/menstrual cycle.... A study describing this research will be presented on Nov. 14 by Aryeh Routtenberg, professor of psychology, neurobiology and physiology at Northwestern University, at the 2005 Society for Neuroscience Meeting in Washington, D.C.... Because this area of the brain, the hippocampus, has been shown to be critical to both humans and animals for memory processes, the group's finding lends support to a vast array of empirical and anecdotal evidence concerning variations in cognition and memory processes as a function of the time of the female cycle."

Stress Interferes with Problem-Solving; Beta-Blocker May Help

2005-11-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

Stress Interferes with Problem-Solving; Beta-Blocker May Help

"An experience as simple as watching graphically violent or emotional scenes in a movie can induce enough stress to interfere with problem-solving abilities, new research at Ohio State University Medical Center suggests. A related study suggests a beta-blocker medication could promote the ability to think flexibly under stressful conditions, neurology researchers say."

Older Brains Store and Encode Memories Differently Than Younger Brains

2005-11-14T14:54:00.000-08:00

Older Brains Store and Encode Memories Differently Than Younger Brains

"Researchers working with rats have found the first solid evidence that still 'sharp' older brains store and encode memories differently than younger brains.... This discovery is reported by a Johns Hopkins team in the issue of Nature Neuroscience released online Nov. 13. Should it prove to apply as well to human brains, it could lead eventually to the development of new preventive treatments and therapies based on what healthy older brains are doing, rather than on the less relevant, younger brain model, according to study co-author Michela Gallagher, chair of the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins' Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences."

MIT Speeds Up Robotic Muscles

2005-11-14T14:51:00.000-08:00

MIT Speeds Up Robotic Muscles

"Robots, both large and micro, can potentially go wherever it's too hot, cold, dangerous, small or remote for people to perform any number of important tasks, from repairing leaking water mains to stitching blood vessels together.... Now MIT researchers, led by Professor Sidney Yip, have proposed a new theory that might eliminate one obstacle to those goals - the limited speed and control of the 'artificial muscles' that perform such tasks. Currently, robotic muscles move 100 times slower than ours. But engineers using the Yip lab's new theory could boost those speeds - making robotic muscles 1,000 times faster than human muscles - with virtually no extra energy demands and the added bonus of a simpler design. This study appears in the Nov. 4 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters."

Bird Calls May Have Meaning

2005-11-13T07:05:00.000-08:00

Bird Calls May Have Meaning

"A deep-voiced black-capped chickadee may wonder why other birds ignore it, but there may be a good reason behind the snub, says a University of Alberta study that looked into how the bird responds to calls.... Dr. Isabelle Charrier and Dr. Chris Sturdy modified the black- capped chickadee calls, played those sounds back to the bird and observed how they reacted. They found that the chickadee relies on several acoustic features including pitch, order of the notes and rhythm of the call. They also rejected the calls of the control bird, the gray-crowned rosy finch, in favour of their own species. This research is published in the current edition of the journal, 'Behavioural Processes.'"

When It Comes to Babies Learning Language, the Eyes Have It

2005-11-13T07:03:00.000-08:00

When It Comes to Babies Learning Language, the Eyes Have It

"Infants begin pulling off an amazing feat sometime in the final three months of their first year of life. They learn an important social interaction by following the gaze of an adult, a step that scientists believe gives babies a leg up on understanding language.... University of Washington psychologists Rechele Brooks and Andrew Meltzoff have pinpointed this developmental step as beginning somewhere in the 10th or 11th month of life, and have found that infants who are advanced in gaze-following behavior before their first birthday understand nearly twice as many words when they are 18 months old.... Writing in the current issue of the journal Developmental Science, Brooks and Meltzoff provide further evidence for the importance of eyes in human social interactions and trace how gaze-following develops in infants. Three years ago they reported that 12- 14- and 18-month-old infants are much more likely to look at an object when a person turns toward it with open eyes rather than closed eyes."

Gay Flies Lose Their Nerve

2005-11-13T07:01:00.000-08:00

Gay Flies Lose Their Nerve

"Researchers have finally pinned down a physical difference between male flies that are engineered to behave homosexually and those that are not: the tweaked variety is missing a small cluster of nerve cells in the brain.... Genetically altered flies that are designed to court members of their own sex, or no one at all, have made headlines in recent months (see 'Fruitflies tap in to their gay side '). But no one knew exactly what those genes were doing, or how the flies differed physically from heterosexual ones. Now Japanese researchers have pinpointed one difference in the brain."

Worms Know Bad Food When They Smell It

2005-11-13T06:59:00.000-08:00

Worms Know Bad Food When They Smell It

"For most people, a whiff of food that made them sick in the past is enough to trigger a wave of nausea - and to prevent them from eating that food again. It's a response that's instantaneous, involuntary, and so fundamental to basic biology that it occurs in a broad range of species. Even worms, researchers have now shown, quickly learn to avoid smells associated with foods that have made them ill.... The new study, led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Cornelia I. Bargmann and Yun Zhang, a postdoctoral fellow in Bargmann's laboratory at The Rockefeller University, demonstrates a clear capacity for learning in the laboratory animal C. elegans, a microscopic worm with only 302 neurons. The work suggests that the cellular mechanisms underlying this type of learning have been maintained through evolution, and opens the way for more in depth studies of how learning occurs. The study will be published in the November 10, 2005, issue of the journal Nature."

Humor and the Sexes

2005-11-13T06:56:00.000-08:00

Humor and the Sexes

"Scientists have confirmed something many of us may have already suspected, that the brains of men and women react differently when we find something funny. As this ScienCentral News video explains, the study could help scientists understand how humor helps us cope with stress.... Scientists have long known that different parts of the brain are generally responsible for different functions, but only since the development of new, highly sophisticated scanning devices have they been able to watch the brain in action. Using a Magnetic Resonating Imaging scanner or MRI, they can watch portions of the brain 'light up' when different things happen."

Squirrels Have Complex Language

2005-11-13T06:54:00.000-08:00

Squirrels Have Complex Language

"Squirrels can be very vocal animals, as backyard and park observers know, and now scientists have translated some of their squirrel-speak.... The findings, published recently in the journal Animal Behavior, present some of the most detailed information to date on squirrel vocalizations, which the researchers now believe constitute a complex language that is unique to the animals."

Hormones Make Women Safer Drivers

2005-11-09T09:32:00.000-08:00

Hormones Make Women Safer Drivers

"The female hormone oestrogen could give women the edge when it comes to tasks such as safe driving, say researchers.... Tests showed attention span and ability to learn rules were far better among women than men.... The Bradford University scientists told a hormone conference in London how tasks requiring mental flexibility favour women over men.... A woman's oestrogen levels may prime the part of the brain involved in such skills - the frontal lobe - they said."

Turning Sensation into Perception

2005-11-09T09:28:00.000-08:00

Turning Sensation into Perception

"Perceiving a simple touch may depend as much on memory, attention, and expectation as on the stimulus itself, according to new research from Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) international research scholar Ranulfo Romo and his colleague Victor de Lafuente. The scientists found that monkeys' perceptions of touch match brain activity in the frontal lobe, an area that assimilates many types of neural information."

Change in Neurons' Responsiveness Marks Newly Formed Sensory Associations during Learning

2005-11-09T09:26:00.000-08:00

Change in Neurons' Responsiveness Marks Newly Formed Sensory Associations during Learning

"During our waking hours, our brains are inundated with sensory information that shifts from one moment to the next. Recognizing meaningful associations between different snippets of this information is a basic form of learning that is essential for survival, even for animals with much simpler brains than our own. For learning to occur, these associations must be made and reinforced in some way at the neuronal level, but how this happens is poorly understood. Research reported this week sheds light on this problem by identifying a group of neurons whose activity changes during the learning process in a way that reflects the new association that is formed between two different sensory stimuli."

Brainstem Blocks Pain to Protect Key Behaviors

2005-11-09T09:25:00.000-08:00

Brainstem Blocks Pain to Protect Key Behaviors

"Certain behaviors, such as eating, drinking and urinating, are so crucial to survival that the brains of all vertebrates contain clusters of nerve cells that can suppress pain long enough to allow the animal to eat, drink -- or pee -- in peace.... A report from researchers at the University of Chicago, published early online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that by activating 'OFF' cells and shutting down 'ON' cells in the ventromedial medulla (VMM) - a small region in the brain stem - animals provide themselves with a form of 'eating-induced analgesia,' allowing them to complete essential tasks even in a difficult situation."

Light-Induced Hormone Surge Points to Benefits of Light Therapy

2005-11-09T07:46:00.000-08:00

Light-Induced Hormone Surge Points to Benefits of Light Therapy

"A report in the November Cell Metabolism reveals powerful effects of light on the adrenal glands, a finding that might explain the broad benefits of bright light therapy for a variety of conditions, including sleep and depressive disorders, according to researchers. The body's two adrenal glands sit atop each kidney, where they secrete hormones that regulate stress response and metabolism.... The researchers found in mice that light sparks a cascade of gene activity in the adrenal gland through its effects on the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). Located in the brain region called the hypothalamus, the SCN is the seat of the circadian clock, the body's internal clock that regulates the roughly 24-hour cycle of biological processes."

Children of Bipolar Parents Score Higher on Creativity Test

2005-11-09T07:43:00.000-08:00

Children of Bipolar Parents Score Higher on Creativity Test

"Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown for the first time that a sample of children who either have or are at high risk for bipolar disorder score higher on a creativity index than healthy children. The findings add to existing evidence that a link exists between mood disorders and creativity.... The small study, published in the November issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research, compared creativity test scores of children of healthy parents with the scores of children of bipolar parents. Children with the bipolar parents - even those who were not bipolar themselves - scored higher than the healthy children."

Women Get a Bigger Buzz from Cartoons

2005-11-09T07:41:00.000-08:00

Women Get a Bigger Buzz from Cartoons

"Women get more of a buzz out of cartoons, a brain-imaging study has found, with their brains feeling more rewarded by a funny joke than those of men.... Women and men are often perceived as having differences in their senses of humour but, until now, there had been no neurological evidence for such suspicions. The new brain scanning study showed that although men and women tended to agree on which of the single-panel cartoons they were shown were funny, they processed the humour differently in their brains."

New Discoveries about Neuron Plasticity Linked to Learning and Memory

2005-11-05T09:56:00.000-08:00

New Discoveries about Neuron Plasticity Linked to Learning and Memory

"Neurons experience large-scale changes across their dendrites during learning, say neuroscientists at The University of Texas at Austin in a new study that highlights the important role that these cell regions may play in the processes of learning and memory.... The research, published online Oct. 23 and in the November issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, shows that ion channels distributed in the dendritic membrane change during a simulated learning task and that this requires the rapid production of new proteins."

Autism 'Extreme Male Brain' Clue

2005-11-05T09:52:00.000-08:00

Autism 'Extreme Male Brain' Clue

"The brain structure of people with autism is an 'exaggeration' of the normal male brain, researchers suggest.... It has long been suggested that autistic behaviour is an exaggeration of male habits such as making lists.... But Cambridge Autism Research Centre researchers say the actual development of the autistic brain also exaggerates what happens in male brains.... Writing in Science, they say investigating this theory further will aid understanding of autism."

Monkey Math Methods Parallel Our Own

2005-11-05T09:49:00.000-08:00

Monkey Math Methods Parallel Our Own

"If you show someone a mouse and a cat and ask which is smaller, they'll quickly reply, 'the mouse.' Ask which is bigger, and it takes most people slightly longer to respond.... Conversely, if the two animals are large, such as a cow and an elephant, the typical person will be quicker at saying the elephant is larger than saying the cow is smaller.... This rule, known to scientists from actual tests on people, is known as 'semantic congruity,' and it also holds true for comparing numbers and distances.... Until now, scientists thought the rule was rooted in our language abilities. But in a recent study by researchers at Duke University, a group of monkeys have shown a similar ability to tell the difference between large and small groups of dots."

Remote-Control Flies

2005-11-05T09:46:00.000-08:00

Remote-Control Flies

"Making creatures do what we want at the flick of a switch sounds more like Frankenstein than real science, but scientists have discovered that using a laser, they can make headless fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) jump, flap their wings and fly on command.... But Yale University neurologist Gero Miesenboeck and his team weren't out just to create remote-controlled insects. They hoped to study nerve-cell activity and connections, and learn how nerve cell circuits process information related to specific behaviors - from simple movements to more complex behaviors like learning, aggression and even abstract thoughts, like how they understand notions of punishment and reward. 'The nervous system is simple enough to raise hopes that we can actually some day understand how it works and yet it's complex enough to produce really, really interesting behaviors,' Miesenboeck says. 'Now it is possible to control specific groups of nerve cells.'"

Elephants Pay Respects to Their Dead

2005-11-05T09:41:00.000-08:00

Elephants Pay Respects to Their Dead

"Elephants pay homage to the bones of their dead, gently touching the skulls and tusks with their trunks and feet, according to the first systematic study of elephant empathy for the dead.... The finding provides the first hard evidence to support stories of elephant mourning, in which the pachyderms are said to congregate at elephant cemeteries, drawn by the bones of their kin."

Scientists Crack Code for Motor Neuron Wiring

2005-11-05T09:36:00.000-08:00

Scientists Crack Code for Motor Neuron Wiring

"Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers have deciphered a key part of the regulatory code that governs how motor neurons in the spinal cord connect to specific target muscles in the limbs.... The researchers said that understanding this code may help guide progress in restoring motor neuron function in people whose spinal cords have been damaged by trauma or disease. The studies suggest that the code - which involves members of the family of transcription factors encoded by the Hox genes - could also govern the establishment of other spinal cord circuits. This circuitry includes interneurons that control motor neuron firing patterns and sensory neurons that transmit feedback information on muscle action."

Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Not Necessarily

2005-11-01T08:25:00.000-08:00

Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Not Necessarily

"Visual information can be processed unconsciously when the area of the brain that records what the eye sees is temporarily shut down, according to research at Rice University in Houston.... The research, published the week of Oct. 31 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences' (PNAS) online Early Edition, suggests the brain has more than one pathway along which visual information can be sent."

Mice Sqeak into Song

2005-11-01T08:22:00.000-08:00

Mice Sqeak into Song

"Mickey Mouse may have kept quiet during his early days on the silver screen, but his lab counterparts seem to have a penchant for song. That's the finding in an analysis of the ultrasonic sounds made by male mice wooing potential mates.... For years, animal-behaviour experts have known that mice make vocalizations that are too high in pitch to be picked up by the human ear. Young mice, for example, make 'isolation calls' when cold or distressed. And male mice emit ultrasonic sounds in the presence of a potential mate or in response to chemical sex cues, called pheromones, in the urine of female mice.... But until now, scientists had not examined these sounds for musical patterns. Thanks in part to a sophisticated computer program, Timothy Holy and Zhongsheng Guo of the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri, were able to tackle this challenge."

Robot's Rimless Wheels Gives it "Whegs"

2005-10-31T09:16:00.000-08:00

Robot's Rimless Wheels Gives it "Whegs"

"A new kind of locomotion that combines wheels with legs gives a mobile robot 'whegs' to tackle rocky terrain.... The robot named IMPASS, which stands for Intelligent Mobility Platform with Active Spoke System, has four rimless wheels with spokes designed to lengthen and shorten according to its movement needs.... 'The spoke wheel concept allows multiple modes of motion, which give it the ability to stride quickly using one contact point per wheel, walk with static stability with two contact points per wheel, or assume a stable stance using three contact points per wheel,' said mechanical engineer Dennis Hong, who designed the system with Doug Laney at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University."

Brain Structure Link to Anxiety

2005-10-31T09:11:00.000-08:00

Brain Structure Link to Anxiety

"Vulnerability to anxiety may be down to the size of a brain structure involved in fearful memories, say US scientists.... People with a thicker ventromedial prefrontal cortex were better able to cope with stressful experiences.... The findings may help explain why some people develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) while others bounce back after adversity, say the authors."

Boy Brains, Girl Brains: Are Separate Classrooms the Best Way to Teach Kids?

2005-10-30T08:43:00.000-08:00

Boy Brains, Girl Brains: Are Separate Classrooms the Best Way to Teach Kids?

"Three years ago, Jeff Gray, the principal at Foust Elementary School in Owensboro, Ky., realized that his school needed help-and fast. Test scores at Foust were the worst in the county and the students, particularly the boys, were falling far behind. So Gray took a controversial course for educators on brain development, then revamped the first- and second-grade curriculum. The biggest change: he divided the classes by gender. Because males have less serotonin in their brains, which Gray was taught may cause them to fidget more, desks were removed from the boys' classrooms and they got short exercise periods throughout the day. Because females have more oxytocin, a hormone linked to bonding, girls were given a carpeted area where they sit and discuss their feelings. Because boys have higher levels of testosterone and are theoretically more competitive, they were given timed, multiple-choice tests. The girls were given multiple-choice tests, too, but got more time to complete them. Gray says the gender-based curriculum gave the school 'the edge we needed.' Tests scores are up. Discipline problems are down. This year the fifth and sixth grades at Foust are adopting the new curriculum, too."

New Microscopic Robot's Tiny Step Is a Huge Leap

2005-10-30T08:40:00.000-08:00

New Microscopic Robot's Tiny Step Is a Huge Leap

"Researchers have built one of the world's smallest controllable robots-a machine tinier than the period that ends this sentence... The miniscule device is as narrow as a human hair. Its inventors note that some 200 of them could line up across the top of an M&M candy.... A lab headed by Bruce Donald, a computer science professor at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, designed the robot. It was unveiled earlier this month at the 12th International Symposium of Robotics Research in San Francisco."

Autism Problems Explained in New Research

2005-10-30T08:36:00.000-08:00

Autism Problems Explained in New Research

"New research from Melbourne's Howard Florey Institute helps to explain why children with autism spectrum disorders (autism) have problem-solving difficulties.... Using functional magnetic resonance imaging technology (fMRI) the Florey scientists have shown that children with autism have less activation in the deep parts of the brain responsible for executive function (attention, reasoning and problem solving).... Research leader Dr Ross Cunnington said autism was known to have a biological cause, but this neuroimaging research clearly showed the dysfunction in the brain that accounted for why children with autism have problems with their executive function."

The Brain Is a Time Machine - What Makes It Tick?

2005-10-30T08:34:00.000-08:00

The Brain Is a Time Machine - What Makes It Tick?

"The brain is a 'time machine,' assert Duke neuroscientists Catalin Buhusi and Warren Meck. And understanding how the brain tracks time is essential to understanding all its functions. The brain's internal clocks coordinate a vast array of activities from communicating, to orchestrating movement, to getting food, they said.... In a review article in the October 2005 Nature Reviews Neuroscience, Buhusi and Meck discuss the current state of understanding of one of the brain's most important, and mysterious, clocks -- the one governing timing intervals in the seconds to minutes range. Such interval timing occupies the middle neurological ground between two other clocks -- the circadian clock that operates over the 24-hour light-dark cycle, and the millisecond clock that is crucial for such functions as motor control and speech generation and recognition. Meck is a professor and Buhusi is an assistant research professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences."

Researchers Look at What Sleep Does for the Brain

2005-10-30T08:32:00.000-08:00

Researchers Look at What Sleep Does for the Brain

"What the body does during that or any hour of sleep - or why we slumber in the first place - remains a mystery. But some scientists, including a team of researchers at UW-Madison, have a theory.... Sleep, they say, allows us to learn by downscaling brain activity, or reducing its 'weight.'... 'Sleep is the price we pay for plasticity,' or having brains that take in, integrate and store information, said Dr. Giulio Tononi, a UW-Madison professor of psychiatry."

Pentagon Seeks a Computer That Works Like a Brain

2005-10-29T06:54:00.000-07:00

Pentagon Seeks a Computer That Works Like a Brain

"Artificial intelligence, long the stuff of science fiction tales such as '2001: A Space Odyssey,' has frustrated computer scientists for decades.... Teaching computers to think, it turns out, is even harder than teaching people to do it. So the experts are going back to the source.... The Pentagon is funding a closer look at how the human brain works its magic, in hopes of programming machines to do it. This project aims to tap advances in neuroscience and cognitive psychology -- from imaging technologies that identify brain activity to emerging theories about the role of emotions.... The goal is to figure out how the mind makes decisions -- and then design systems to help soldiers fight on battlefields of the future."

Picky Female Frogs Drive Evolution of New Species in Less than 8,000 Years

2005-10-29T06:50:00.000-07:00

Picky Female Frogs Drive Evolution of New Species in Less than 8,000 Years

"Picky female frogs in a tiny rainforest outpost of Australia have driven the evolution of a new species in 8,000 years or less, according to scientists from the University of Queensland, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service.... The yet-to-be- named species arose after two isolated populations of the green-eyed tree frog reestablished contact less than 8,000 years ago and found that their hybrid offspring were less viable. To avoid hybridizing with the wrong frogs and ensure healthy offspring, one group of females preferentially chose mates from their own lineage. Over several thousand years, this behavior created a reproductively isolated population - essentially a new species - that is unable to mate with either of the original frog populations."

Color Perception Is Not in the Eye of the Beholder: It's in the Brain

2005-10-28T15:11:00.000-07:00

Color Perception Is Not in the Eye of the Beholder: It's in the Brain

"First-ever images of living human retinas have yielded a surprise about how we perceive our world. Researchers at the University of Rochester have found that the number of color-sensitive cones in the human retina differs dramatically among people-by up to 40 times-yet people appear to perceive colors the same way. The findings, on the cover of this week's journal Neuroscience, strongly suggest that our perception of color is controlled much more by our brains than by our eyes."

Changes in Brain, Not Age, Determine One's Ability to Focus on Task

2005-10-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

Changes in Brain, Not Age, Determine One's Ability to Focus on Task

"When it comes to focusing on a task amid distractions, some folks more than 60 years old are as mentally sharp as 22-year-olds. Others struggle. Researchers at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have shed some light on why that is.... Reporting in the current issue (September) of the quarterly journal Psychology and Aging, the scientists say there is less white matter in the frontal lobes of those who struggle with focusing. The differences became apparent through the use of functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) imaging of the brains of 40 individuals ranging in age from 19 to 87.... 'We found that both performance and brain-activation differences of older good performers and the older poor performers are predicted by changes in brain structure, specifically by the volume of white matter connecting the right and left hemispheres of the frontal lobes,' said Arthur F. Kramer, a professor of psychology."

Chimps Fall Short on Friendship

2005-10-28T15:07:00.000-07:00

Chimps Fall Short on Friendship

"You can tell a lot about someone from how they treat their friends. As the results of a study of captive chimpanzees seem to show, our ape cousins are only in it for themselves.... The study, led by Joan Silk of the University of California, Los Angeles, looked for evidence that chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) will help other members of their group. But the apes seem to be indifferent at best to the welfare of their fellows."

Body Language Speaks Loudest

2005-10-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

Body Language Speaks Loudest

"People pay more attention to body language than to facial expressions, even when observers are trying to focus on faces, according to a new study.... The finding, published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that interpretation of body language happens without conscious awareness.... This instantaneous response also works like a silent alarm system in the brain whenever facial expressions do not match up properly to the individual's body language. The 'alarm' is a message in the brain of the onlooker that something is not right with the other person."

Super-Soldiers May Get Brain-Chip

2005-10-24T07:06:00.000-07:00

Super-Soldiers May Get Brain-Chip

"US military experts are attempting to create an army of super-human soldiers who will be more intelligent and deadly thanks to a microchip implanted in their brains.... Scientists believe the implant will vastly improve the memory of troops so that they can recall every detail of their training and become more effective fighters."

Autism Problems Explained in New Research

2005-10-24T07:04:00.000-07:00

Emotional Impairment Linked To Cognitive Deficits In Bipolar Children

2005-10-24T07:01:00.000-07:00

Emotional Impairment Linked To Cognitive Deficits In Bipolar Children

"Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago used functional brain imaging to establish a link between emotional impairment and poor cognition in children with bipolar disorder.... 'This study is very exciting because it shows that negative emotions affect cognition differently than positive emotions in these kids,' said Dr. Mani Pavuluri, associate professor of psychiatry at UIC's Institute for Juvenile Research and the Center for Cognitive Medicine, and lead author of the study."

Neurobiologists Gain New Insights into Brain and Memory

2005-10-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

Neurobiologists Gain New Insights into Brain and Memory

"We often make unwise choices although we should know better. Thunderstorm clouds ominously darken the horizon. We nonetheless go out without an umbrella because we are distracted and forget. But do we? Neurobiologists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies carried out experiments that prove for the first time that the brain remembers, even if we don't and the umbrella stays behind. They report their findings in the Oct. 20th issue of Neuron.... 'For the first time, we can a look at the brain activity of a rhesus monkey and infer what the animal knows,' says lead investigator Thomas D. Albright, director of the Vision Center Laboratory."

Fork in Bird's Road Could Split Species in Two

2005-10-24T06:50:00.000-07:00

Fork in Bird's Road Could Split Species in Two

"For the first time, researchers have found evidence of a split in the migration pattern of a species of bird, a behavior that some theorize could lead to a new species.... Bands of the European blackcap, which typically breed in Austria and Germany, have begun flying to two separate locations for the winter: one group goes south to Portugal, Spain and North Africa, whereas the other flies north to Britain and Ireland. Scientists studying the two groups found that the birds that wintered together in the north tended to mate with each other once they arrived back in Austria and Germany. These birds also produced more young than those that wintered in the south, which could improve their evolutionary chances of diverging."

Brains Response to Visual Stimuli Helps Us to Focus on What We Should See, Rather than All There Is to See

2005-10-24T06:48:00.000-07:00

Brains Response to Visual Stimuli Helps Us to Focus on What We Should See, Rather than All There Is to See

"Delving ever deeper into the intricate architecture of the brain, researchers at The Salk Institute have now described how two different types of nerve cells, called neurons, work together in tiny sub-networks to pass on just the right amount and the right kind of sensory information.... Their study, published online by Nature Neuroscience, depicts how specific types of inhibitory neurons in the visual cortex of a rat brain are wired to, and 'talk' with, discrete excitatory neurons. They also show how that 'conversation,' aimed at keeping the right balance of chemical signals, often excludes surrounding neurons."