Latest Neurophysiology Stories

Scientists measure dream content for the first time and find that dreams activate the brain in a similar way to real actions. The ability to dream is a fascinating aspect of the human mind. However, how the images and emotions that we experience so intensively when we dream form in our heads remains a mystery. Up to now it has not been possible to measure dream content. Max Planck scientists working with colleagues from the Charité hospital in Berlin have now succeeded, for the first...

Scientists have designed a novel, noninvasive system that allows users to control a virtual helicopter using only their minds, as reported in the online journal PLoS ONE on Oct. 26. The researchers, led by Dr. Bin He of University of Minnesota, created an EEG-based, noninvasive brain-computer interface that allowed users to accurately and continually navigate a virtual helicopter simply by thinking about where they wanted to craft to go. The task required users to direct their helicopter...

Haxby found that the brain's responses to movies reveal a detailed code that is the same for all individuals A team of neuroscientists at Dartmouth College has shown that different individuals' brains use the same, common neural code to recognize complex visual images. The paper, "A common, high-dimensional model of the neural representational space in human ventral temporal cortex," is in the October 20, 2011, issue of the journal, Neuron. The lead author of the paper is James Haxby,...

OPHN1 is found to be essential for mGluR-dependent long-term depression at synapses Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have solved part of a puzzle concerning the relationship between changes in the strength of synapses – the tiny gaps across which nerve cells in the brain communicate – and dysfunctions in neural circuits that have been linked with drug addiction, mental retardation and other cognitive disorders. A team led by CSHL Professor Linda Van Aelst has...

An ongoing lack of sleep during adolescence could lead to more than dragging, foggy teens, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study suggests. Researchers have found that short-term sleep restriction in adolescent mice prevented the balanced growth and depletion of brain synapses, connections between nerve cells where communication occurs. "One possible implication of our study is that if you lose too much sleep during adolescence, especially chronically, there may be lasting consequences...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Galenea Corp., a leader in the rapidly emerging field of synaptic transmission, today announced the publication of a paper in PLoS ONE demonstrating the development and validation of the MANTRA (Multiwell, Automated NeuroTRansmission Assay) system, Galenea's proprietary technology that enables high throughput screening of synaptic function directly on cultured primary neurons. Changes in synaptic function are now believed to play a central...

In a first ever demonstration of a two-way interaction between a primate brain and a virtual body, two monkeys trained at the Duke University Center for Neuroengineering learned to employ brain activity alone to move an avatar hand and identify the texture of virtual objects. "Someday in the near future, quadriplegic patients will take advantage of this technology not only to move their arms and hands and to walk again, but also to sense the texture of objects placed in their hands, or...

Research gives insight into 50-year-old mystery -- zinc important for learning and memory Zinc plays a critical role in regulating how neurons communicate with one another, and could affect how memories form and how we learn. The new research, in the current issue of Neuron, was authored by Xiao-an Zhang, now a chemistry professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC), and colleagues at MIT and Duke University. Researchers have been trying to pin down the role of zinc in the...

MILTON, Mass., Oct. 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Sleep HealthCenters, a network of specialized sleep medicine centers and the largest provider of such services in New England, announces their Milton Hospital location has received accreditation by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine(AASM). AASM accreditation is the gold standard by which the medical community and the public can evaluate sleep medicine services. The AASM is a professional organization that ensures that sleep medicine centers...

The brain learns through changes in the strength of its synapses -- the connections between neurons -- in response to stimuli. Now, in a discovery that challenges conventional wisdom on the brain mechanisms of learning, UCLA neuro-physicists have found there is an optimal brain "rhythm," or frequency, for changing synaptic strength. And further, like stations on a radio dial, each synapse is tuned to a different optimal frequency for learning. The findings, which provide a grand-unified...