Latest Brain Stories
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A noise in the dark, a rustle in the undergrowth; these are sounds likely to make an animal or a person stop sharply and be still, anticipating a predator. Freezing is part of the natural fear response, a reaction to a stimulus in the environment and part of how the brain decides whether to be afraid of it. A new study released by a neuroscience group at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) examines how fear responses are learned,...
[ Watch the Video: Good Sleep Equals Good Memory ] redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online A lack of quality, deep sleep could play a vital role in the memory loss sometimes experienced by older men and women, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley have discovered. Matthew Walker, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley, and colleagues discovered that the brain waves generated during slow-wave sleep help move memories from...
Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist, was instrumental in the formation of the school of study of conditioned response. His work, spanning some 40 years, has pervaded the public consciousness ever since. We are all, in one way or another, unwitting participants in his research. For instance, who among us doesn’t jump up to grab our mobile phone when it dings at us, signaling an incoming text message or e-mail? Researchers at...
Brains of older people may well have abilities that younger folks have not yet developed. Rose Cottage Press details new study linking weight training to better memory, decision making, and problem solving. Whitefield, New Hampshire (PRWEB) January 23, 2013 Now for some really good news about brain health. Scientists (and thus the rest of us,) used to think that after reaching age thirty the picture was grim, beginning with lost keys, loss of comprehension, followed by confusion,...
Deleting or reducing expression of a gene that carries the code for tau, a protein associated with Alzheimer's disease, can prevent seizures in a severe type of epilepsy linked to sudden death, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., in a report in the current issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. A growing understanding of the link between epilepsy and some forms of inherited Alzheimer's disease led to the finding that could point the way...
Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Scientists from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign recently studied emotional intelligence by focusing on combat-related brain injures in 152 Vietnam veterans. The researchers believe that this is the first study to provide a detailed look at how different brain regions can affect emotional intelligence. With emotional intelligence, individuals can process emotional information and work through various parts of the...
Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online A new study from the University of Washington (UW) that incorporated a brain-imaging technique on the whole infant brain revealed that there are certain parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus and cerebellum, that can help predict a child's language abilities when they are one year old. The researchers believe that their study is the first to link specific brains structures with language learning ability, and the findings are...
Dr. J Marshall Dent has released an article explaining that weight loss occurs in the brain. The balances of many factors play into successful weight loss and maintenance. Columbia, SC (PRWEB) January 16, 2013 Dr. J. Marshall Dent insists that, "people have been taught for years that controlling weight begins and ends with the stomach." The misconception about dieting is it’s all about creating a better ratio of “calories in versus calories out.” The truth is that weight...
Findings also illustrate how individuals can train their brains to handle injuries more efficiently For the first time, scientists at Carnegie Mellon University's Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging (CCBI) have used a new combination of neural imaging methods to discover exactly how the human brain adapts to injury. The research, published in Cerebral Cortex, shows that when one brain area loses functionality, a "back-up" team of secondary brain areas immediately activates, replacing not...
EPFL scientists find evidence that psychological wounds inflicted when young leave lasting biological traces—and a predisposition toward violence later in life It is well known that violent adults often have a history of childhood psychological trauma. Some of these individuals exhibit very real, physical alterations in a part of the brain called the orbitofrontal cortex. Yet a direct link between such early trauma and neurological changes has been difficult to find, until now....
Latest Brain Reference Libraries
Formation and Orientation The development of the brain is broken down into stages. The basic evolution begins in the third week of the embryonic process where the neural plate is formed. By week four, the neural plate has developed into the neural tube. The anterior part of the tube, the telencephalon, grows rapidly as it prepares to later give way to the brain. As time goes on, cells begin to classify themselves as either neurons or glial cells, thus determining their functions. Glial...
