Neuroscience

The word "adolescent" is defined as a young person; one who is at the stage between childhood and adulthood. The word means "lack" or "be short of", and it has been used by humanity since centuries ago for the young persons who are still short of maturity. All of us know that during this period of the life we are unable to think about the future consequences of our acting; therefore the need of the adult guide, someone who is able to understand the implications of the acts of the young. If well this concept is not new, the understanding of its neurobiological roots is very recent. Now we know…

Neuroscientists from the University of Southampton investigating alcohol dependency and withdrawal in C. elegans worms say they exhibit alcohol-dependent behaviors similar to humans, despite their evolutionary distance, and very simple brain consisting of just 302 nerve cells. The research, published in PLoS One, shows that withdrawal symptoms could be relieved by small doses of alcohol. However, easing the effects can increase dependency. In humans, the symptoms are manifested in anxiety, agitation and, in extreme cases, seizures. The worms, as video footage shows, also became overactive in…

Problem gamblers react more intensely to "near misses" than casual gamblers, possibly spurring them on to play more, according to new research published in The Journal of Neuroscience. Researchers found that the brain region that responds to rewards by delivering a dose of the chemical dopamine was especially active in these individuals. Studies have shown that pathological gambling is an addiction, similar in many ways to drug addiction. The new study suggests that the degree to which a person's brain responds to near misses may indicate the severity of addiction. Researchers used…

There is no single advanced area of the human brain that gives it language capabilities above and beyond those of any other animal species, according to a new study in the latest edition of PNAS Instead, humans rely on several regions of the brain, each designed to accomplish different primitive tasks, in order to make sense of a sentence, the study suggests. Depending on the type of grammar used, the brain will activate a certain set of regions to process it. "We're using and adapting the machinery we already have in our brains," said study coauthor Aaron Newman, from the University of…

Blinking eyes might be a sign of a wandering mind, according to a new study in Psychological Science. Researchers from the University of Waterloo found that when subjects' minds wandered, they blinked more, setting up a tiny physical barrier between themselves and the outside world. The study was inspired by brain research that shows, when the mind wanders, the parts of the brain that process external goings-on are less active. Fifteen volunteers read a passage from a book on a computer. While they read, a sensor tracked their eye movements, including blinks and what word they were looking at…

The Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science has just opened as a new multi-disciplinary research centre at the University of Sussex. One of their first projects is an investigation into synaesthesia and they are looking for volunteer synaesthetes who would like to take part. "We are interested in ALL types of synaesthesia, and not just the more common 'coloured letters' variety. If you are unsure whether your experiences are synaesthetic or not, then don't be afraid to get in touch. For some of our research we need to meet you in person and so it is important that you live in the UK or…

When Dr. Valerie Paradiz invited me to join the staff of her brainchild school for those on the autism spectrum called the ASPIE School in Boiceville, NY, I was most honored and extremely excited. The school, one of the first in the nation at the time, provided a setting where twelve males and later one female, all on the autism spectrum including Asperger’s syndrome, would take high school required classes in a supportive environment, as well as being safely mainstreamed into classes with the public high school next door. The ASPIE School operated for three years from 2003-2006. My position…

The possibility that autism is more common in offspring of older parents has generated considerable interest. To investigate the theory, a study using data from 10 US study sites participating in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, was developed to examine the relation between parental age at delivery and the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Confirmation of such an association has important public health implications in light of increasing trends in recent decades for couples to delay having children. The…

Regular aerobic exercise keeps you physically healthy, but scientists are beginning to uncover evidence that it may also improve your cognition. Researchers writing in Neuroscience say they have found that regular exercise speeds learning and improves blood flow to the brain. While there is ample evidence of the beneficial effects of exercise on cognition in animal models, it has been unclear whether the same holds true for humans. The new study tested the hypothesis in monkeys and provides information that is more comparable to human physiology as a result. The international team of…

The word "inclusion" sounds simple. In fact, though, it can mean many things to many people - which is part of the reason it's so tough to implement.   For example... There's "partial inclusion," wherein a child with autism is included for brief periods of time or in selected settings. In school, partial inclusion could mean "inclusion only in math," or "inclusion only in music," etc. There's "full inclusion with support," in which the child with autism is physically in a setting with typically developing children, but expectations are modified and supports (such as an aide) are put…