Neuroscience

My attention was recently drawn to a link to the Science Codex, which begins: It don’t mean a thing if the brain ain’t got that swing Like Duke Ellington’s 1931 jazz standard, the human brain improvises while its rhythm section keeps up a steady beat. But when it comes to taking on intellectually challenging tasks, groups of neurons tune in to one another for a fraction of a second and harmonize, then go back to improvising, according to new research led by UC Berkeley. These findings, reported today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, could pave the way for more targeted treatments for…

With the results of a new study, neuroscientists have a firmer grasp on the way the brain formulates commands for the hand to grip an object. The advance could lead to improvements in future brain-computer interfaces that provide people with severe paralysis a means to control robotic arms and hands using their thoughts. The key finding of a research team based at Brown University is that neurons in the area of the brain responsible for planning grasping motions retain information about the object to be gripped as they make their movement plan. The collective neural activity therefore looks…

Sleeping not only protects memories from being forgotten, it also makes them easier to access, according to new research which suggest that after sleep we are more likely to recall facts which we could not remember while still awake. In two situations where subjects forgot information over the course of 12 hours of wakefulness, a night's sleep was shown to promote access to memory traces that had initially been too weak to be retrieved. The research tracked memories for novel, made-up words learned either prior to a night's sleep, or an equivalent period of wakefulness. Subjects were asked to…

Could it be that genetic differences can affect how well children perform in exams? Our research suggests that this may well be the case and that individual differences between children are, to a large extent, due to the inherited genetic differences between them that predisposes them to do well academically, whatever the subject. We also found that there is shared genetic influence across a range of subjects, even after controlling the exam results for general intelligence. It goes without saying that children’s exam results at the end of compulsory education play a significant role in…

Challenging the idea that addiction is hardwired in the brain, a new study suggests that even a short time spent in a stimulating learning environment can rewire the brain’s reward system and buffer it against drug dependence. Scientists tracked cocaine cravings in more than 70 adult male mice and found that those rodents whose daily drill included exploration, learning and finding hidden tasty morsels were less likely than their enrichment-deprived counterparts to seek solace in a chamber where they had been given cocaine. “We have compelling behavioral evidence that self-directed…

Music training, begun as late as high school, may help improve the teenage brain's responses to sound and sharpen hearing and language skills, suggests a new study. The research indicates that music instruction helps enhance skills that are critical for academic success.  The gains were seen during group music classes included in the schools' curriculum, suggesting in-school training accelerates neurodevelopment. "While music programs are often the first to be cut when the school budget is tight, these results highlight music's place in the high school curriculum," said Nina Kraus,…

It may seem like infants just sleep, eat and cry, but newborn brains are full of activity and they are already gathering and processing important information from the world around them. At just two days after birth, babies are already able to process language using processes similar to those of adults. Researchers have demonstrated that they are sensitive to the most important parts of words, the edges, a cognitive mechanism which has been repeatedly observed in older children and adults. It is well-known that, in general, people better remember the edges of sequences and particularly in…

A new study has found that long-term stimulant abuse had more significant effects on brain volume in women compared with men. The researchers sought to determine how the brains of people previously dependent on stimulants were different from the brains of healthy people.  The researchers analyzed structural brain magnetic resonance imaging exams in 127 men and women, including 59 people (28 women and 31 men) who were previously dependent on cocaine, amphetamines and/or methamphetamine for an average of 15.7 years, and 68 people (28 women and 40 men) who were similar in age and were not…

By Charles Choi, Inside Science -- Bloodcurdling screams in horror movies often send tingles down people's spines, even though they know such shrieks are fake. Now scientists have discovered the key ingredient of screams that activates the brain's fear circuitry. Inventors may have unknowingly copied this hair-raising acoustic feature into alarms found in cars and houses. Screaming is apparently innate in origin. Many animals do it too, which suggests that the harsh sound is ancient in origin, and it may be an ancestor of more complex forms of communication. Screams can also be key to…

Are wind farms harmful to humans? Some believe so, others refute this; this controversial topic makes emotions run high. To give the debate more objectivity, an international team of experts dealt with the fundamentals of hearing in the lower limit range of the audible frequency range (i.e. infrasound), but also in the upper limit range (i.e. ultrasound). The project, which is part of the European Metrology Research Programme (EMRP), was coordinated by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB). At PTB, not only acoustics experts, but also experts from the fields of biomagnetism (MEG)…