Neuroscience

It's what you always feared. Your brain actually does react differently to donuts, according to fMRI-based research led by Marsel Mesulam, M.D., a neurologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Krispy Kremes, in perhaps their first starring role in neurological research, helped lead to the discovery. In the study, subjects were tested twice -- once after gorging on up to eight Krispy Kreme donuts until they couldn't eat anymore, and on another day after fasting for eight hours. In both sessions, people were shown pictures of donuts and screwdrivers, while researchers examined their brains…

Butterflies and moths are well known for their striking metamorphosis from crawling caterpillars to winged adults. In light of this radical change, not just in body form, but also in lifestyle, diet and dependence on particular sensory cues, it would seem unlikely that learned associations or memories formed at the larval or caterpillar stage could be accessible to the adult moth or butterfly. Now, scientists at Georgetown University have discovered that a moth can indeed remember what it learned as a caterpillar. The Georgetown researchers found that tobacco hornworm caterpillars could be…

Just picture the scene: you’re at a cocktail party, talking to someone you would like to get to know better but the background noise is making it hard to concentrate. Luckily, humans are very gifted at listening to someone speaking while many other people are talking loudly at the same time. This so-called cocktail-party-phenomenon is based on the ability of the human auditory system to decompose the acoustic world into discrete objects of perception. It was originally believed that the major acoustic cue used by the auditory system to solve this task was directional information of the sound…

Researchers writing in the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry have discovered evidence linking variation in a particular gene with anxiety-related traits. The team describes finding that particular versions of the RGS2 protein, which affects the activity of important neurotransmitter receptors, were more common in both children and adults assessed as being inhibited or introverted and also were associated with increased activity of brain regions involved in emotional processing. “We found that variations in this gene were associated with shy, inhibited behavior in children,…

Researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Haifa say they have shown that areas of the brain associated with language work harder in girls than in boys during language tasks, and that boys and girls rely on different parts of the brain when performing these tasks. Researchers have long believed that girls have superior language abilities to boys but no one has clearly provided a biological basis that may account for their differences. “Our findings – which suggest that language processing is more sensory in boys and more abstract in girls -- could have major implications…

Schizophrenia emerges from an altered pattern of brain development and researchers have long searched for genes that cause the brain to develop along a path that ultimately leads to schizophrenia. In a new Biological Psychiatry article, researchers report their findings on a new genetic link to schizophrenia. A prior genetic mapping study indicated that a particular gene, multiple epidermal growth factor-like domains 10 or MEGF10, may be associated with schizophrenia. In this new paper, Chen and colleagues directly studied this particular MEGF10 gene in both schizophrenia patients and…

The distinctive ability of mothers to identify the cries of their offspring is widely evident in nature, where it is critical to the survival of these offspring. In humans, we are aware that the distinctive ability of mothers to recognize and respond to the smiles and cries of their babies plays an important role in the psychological, cognitive, and social development of these babies. We have had a very limited understanding of how the maternal brain accomplishes these amazing feats, but a new study published in Biological Psychiatry now provides some new insight. Noriuchi, Kikuchi, et al.…

Scientists funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) have found that, when jazz musicians are engaged in the highly creative and spontaneous activity known as improvisation, a large region of the brain involved in monitoring one’s performance is shut down, while a small region involved in organizing self-initiated thoughts and behaviors is highly activated. The researchers propose that this and several related patterns are likely to be key indicators of a brain that is engaged in highly creative thought. During the study, six highly trained jazz…

Among the many benefits accruing from the Genetics of Anorexia Nervosa Collaborative Study funded by the NIH is the ability to study other issues related to AN. A recent paper on Suicide Attempts in Anorexia Nervosa published in Psychosomatic Medicine offers much-needed examination of an important topic. A high proportion of deaths from anorexia are not from starvation; patients take their own lives, often in the early stages of recovery. Just last week, one of the subjects of the HBO documentary Thin lost her life after years of struggle. The recent research identifies an important…

Manic depression, also known as bipolar disorder, is a psychiatric condition characterized by alternating mania and depression, affecting about one in every hundred people worldwide. Although it is known that the condition can be treated relatively effectively using the mood-stabilising drugs lithium and valproic acid, the reasons why these treatments work are poorly understood. People with manic depression have a distinct chemical signature in their brains, according to a new study. The research may also indicate how the mood stabilisers used to treat the disorder counteract the changes in…