Disabling a sensory organ prompts female mice to act like male mice
By short-circuiting the sensory organ that detects the chemical cues mice use to a...ls respond more to visual cues or a combination of sensory cues. Scientists have been studying the vomeronasal organ for a century and know its role as a det...Human knowledge is based upon directed connectivity between brain areas
...bject-based knowledge, in particular if sufficient sensory information is available and the respective category is distinctly characterized by object features. The precise neural mechanisms behind this brain function are currently not well understood. Several theoretical models are available, but empirical...A sensory organ, not the brain, differentiates male and female behavior in some mammals
...x-specific behavior in many species may be a small sensory organ found in the noses of all terrestrial vertebrates except higher primates. Their work, appearing this week in the journal Nature, indicates that defects in this organ, known as the vomeronasal organ, lead female mice to adopt male behaviors such...How a pain in the neck could be bad for your blood pressure
...hanged. More research is now needed to see which sensory nerve fibres and precisely which cells are involved in the process. Amongst other things, the team would now like to know what other brain regions the neck muscle termination site connects to. They believe that there are many malfunctions associate...Testing the force of a shark's bite
... and developing materials suitable for cabling and sensory equipment used in the marine environment." US shark biologist Dan Huber is working with the Australian team to learn whether sharks such as the Great White are responsible for damaging submarine cables and communication systems on US Navy submarine...Reading a face is tricky business
...the volunteers to monitor their brains analyses of sensory input. Volunteers evaluated 70 different surprise faces. Half of the faces were primed by fearful expressions and half by happy expressions. The prime faces -- with happy or fearful expressions -- were shown for 30 milliseconds immediately prior to e...Steroids, not songs, spur growth of brain regions in sparrows
... if structural changes in the brain are related to sensory experience or the performance of learned behavior, and now University of Washington researchers have found evidence that one species of songbird apparently has something in common with a few baseball sluggers. Both rely on steroids, birds to increas...Sour taste make you pucker? It may be in your genes
...says study lead author Paul M. Wise, PhD, a Monell sensory psychologist. In the study, published online in advance of print in the journal Chemical Senses, researchers tested 74 pairs of monozygotic (MZ, identical) twins and 35 pairs of dizygotic (DZ, fraternal) twins to determine the lowest concentration...5 OHSU faculty members singled out for honors
... research he has studied the central processing of sensory information in animals to provide insight into human perception and learning. He has been regarded, said the committee, as the go-to-guy for investigators across the Institute on a wide variety of research problems. He also has been an active leader ...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...necessary for Schwann cell-mediated myelination of sensory nerves. BDNF expression increased soon after purif...uring a Boston rush hour. Laser ablation of amphid sensory neurons, particularly ASJ or ASH, disrupted this electrosensory behavior. These neurons were sensiti...Modern brains have an ancient core
...l: they secrete hormones and at the same time have sensory properties. The vasotocin-secreting cells contain ...BL scientists now assume that such multifunctional sensory neurons are among the most ancient neuron types. Their role was likely to directly convey sensory cu...Which came first: Primates' ability to see colorful food or see colorful sex?
... to discriminate red from green was a pre-existing sensory bias that then drove the evolution of red-orange pelage and skin, possibly through sexual selection. The study used comparative methods which incorporated the evolutionary relationships among 203 primate species to determine the sequential evolution ...Turn-ons and turn-offs for neurons
...emical and electrical impulses to compute incoming sensory information and integrate it via distinct brain regions. With 20,000 - 25,000 genes in our genome, most also expressed in neurons, there is now little doubt that neurons respond to challenging environments by adjusting the expression of genes for app...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
... looking. In the peripheral branches of trigeminal sensory neurons, arborizations were altered in the ophthal...ng at that branch. Although central projections of sensory axons in the spinal cord bifurcated normally in mice lacking Slit1/Slit2 or Robo1/Robo2, one branch ...Reconstructing the biology of extinct species: A new approach
...e mechanism linking a species' locomotion with the sensory systems that process information about its environment," says Alan Walker, Evan Pugh Professor of Anthropology and Biology at Penn State University, one of the team's leaders. The researchers studied 91 separate primate species, including all taxono...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
... showed greater and faster recovery in locomotion, sensory function, bladder control, and weight gain compared with control-treated rats. Drug-treated animals also had more spared myelin and more axons reactive for serotonin or tyrosine hydroxylase. Injury caused a marked upregulation of EGFR in the spinal c...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...so have to get to the right target. In the case of sensory axons in the spinal cord, this means getting to, and staying within, the right lamina. Nociceptors that express calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) and Substance P (SP) are normally restricted to lamina I and II. To target axons after a dorsal rhi...New research shows sharks use their noses and bodies to locate smells
...t conditions fluorescent and infrared and in two sensory conditions with their lateral lines intact or lesioned by streptomycin," explained Gardiner. According to the researchers, streptomycin, an antibiotic, interferes with the normal function of motion sensitive "hair cells," the receptor cells of th...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
...e PN in somatosensory barrel cortex is affected by sensory experience. The authors identified the PN by stain...ntinued to decline, highlighting the importance of sensory activity during the first postnatal month. Inside the Cat- 315-reactive nets, the main catch was par...Dinosaur hearing, listening to muscle noise, quieter cubicles
...tween the body mass of a species and the size of a sensory structure in the inner ear known as the basilar papilla. Small, lightweight species with a short basilar membrane can hear higher frequencies than larger species with a longer basilar membrane. Analyzing these and other variables, the researchers ...