Latest Brain Stories

Breakthrough Could Lead to Better Understanding of Learning and Memory Students preparing for final exams might want to wait before pulling an all-night cram session — at least as far as their neurons are concerned. Carnegie Mellon University neuroscientists have discovered a new intermediate phase in neuronal development during which repeated exposure to a stimulus shrinks synapses. The findings are published in the May 8 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. It's well known that...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The first evidence that bacteria ingested in food can affect brain function in humans has been found by a group of researchers from the Gail and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress (CNS) and the Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center, both of which are research arms of the UCLA. The scientists conducted an early proof-of-concept study of healthy women, finding that women who regularly consumed beneficial...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Max Planck Institute (MPG) scientists have found that rats move their eyes in opposite directions in both the horizontal and the vertical plane when running. This gives the rats a unique perspective on the world around them. The team discovered that each rat eye moves in a different direction, depending on the change in the animals' head position. They analyzed both eyes and found that one of the eye movements exclude the possibility...

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online The dangers of speaking on a cellphone or texting while driving have been well documented, but new research from the University of Alberta (U of A) suggests that using a hands-free device to talk while behind the wheel of a car can also lead to a significant increase in driver-related errors that could put others at risk. Yagesh Bhambhani, a professor in the U of A Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, and graduate student Mayank...

[ Watch The Video Worm Brain Reader ] University of Southampton Scientists from the University of Southampton have developed a device which records the brain activity of worms to help test the effects of drugs. NeuroChip is a microfluidic electrophysiological device, which can trap the microscopic worm Caenorhadbitis elegans and record the activity of discrete neural circuits in its 'brain' - a worm equivalent of the EEG. C. elegans have been enormously important in...

Duke University "For songbirds, singing a lot of songs indicates a bird is smart, but that signal is not necessarily indicative of intelligence for everything," said Duke biologist Steve Nowicki. In a series of problem-solving tests with the birds, he and his colleagues found that the male song sparrows that sang the most songs learned to solve food-finding puzzles more slowly than the birds singing fewer songs. The results are the first to show that a larger song repertoire links to...

Groundbreaking SharpBrains Analysis Identifies Four Proven Brain Training Methodologies and Reviews Leading Computerized Programs WASHINGTON, May 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- To help clarify the confusing media controversies on whether "brain training" actually works, a new book by independent market research company SharpBrains outlines five key conditions required for brain training to work, based on the analysis of hundreds on scientific studies. "Brain training is rapidly becoming...

University of California - Santa Barbara In a remote fishing community in Venezuela, a lone fisherman sits on a cliff overlooking the southern Caribbean Sea. This man –– the lookout –– is responsible for directing his comrades on the water, who are too close to their target to detect their next catch. Using abilities honed by years of scanning the water's surface, he can tell by shadows, ripples, and even the behavior of seabirds, where the fish are schooling, and what kind of fish...

Amirsys announced today that Osborn’s Brain: Imagine, Pathology, and Anatomy, authored by Anne G. Osborn, M.D. has received a perfect score (5 stars, 100/100) from Doody’s Review Service. Salt Lake City, UT (PRWEB) May 20, 2013 Osborn’s Brain: Imaging, Pathology, and Anatomy is the much-pleaded-for successor to Anne G. Osborn’s 1993 award winning book Diagnostic Neuroradiology (a.k.a. “The Red Book”), which became one of the all-time bestselling neuroradiology texts. In this...

Leading Philanthropists, Celebrity, Experts and People with Epilepsy Serve as Judges at Antiepileptic Drug and Device Trials (AED) XII and Pipeline Conference MIAMI, May 17, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Epilepsy Foundation today announced the 2013 winner of the Epilepsy Therapy Project Second Annual "Shark Tank" competition for the most innovative new product idea for people with epilepsy. Utkan Demirci, Ph.D. and Steven C. Schachter, MD designed a novel point of care...