Adolescent brains are insensitive to alcohol for a short time, but at great cost
...he more potentially damaging effects of alcohol on neural systems involved in learning and memory. Varlinskaya added that adolescent insensitivity to alcohol may also be related to an ability to rapidly counteract different effects of alcohol with compensatory responses such as acute tolerance. Acute tole...Synchronous neuronal firing may underlie Parkinson's disease
...ta, D.V.M., Ph.D., chief of the section of in vivo neural function at the National Institutes of Health, who launched this study as a postdoctoral fellow in Nicolelis' laboratory. "Therapeutic interventions that restore the normal synchrony of these neurons in the brain may potentially be beneficial in tre...Researchers discover mechanism that determines when detailed memories are retained
...tem. In a study published in 2005, he discovered a neural coding mechanism that the brain relies upon to register the intensity of memories based on the importance of the experience. The study presented the first evidence that a "memory code" of any kind may exist. His laboratory also was the first to induc...First Quantum Grant to fund stem cell repair of damage from stroke
... stroke patients where it will provide a source of neural and vascular cells that will continue to develop and differentiate, repairing the injured tissue in the process. "This project represents an integrated effort among leading scientists who have jointly authored numerous publications, mentored studen...Williams Syndrome, the brain and music
...urophysiology, the electrical activity of behaving neural networks. Says Bellugi, who studies the cognitive aspects of the disorder: "Things are really starting to come together now." Identified more than 40 years ago, Williams syndrome arises from a faulty recombination event during the development of sp...Study identifies part of brain responsible for tone deafness
... musical skills. The study examined the structural neural correlates of tone deafness. Magnetic resonance im...itutes the first investigation into the structural neural correlates of tone deafness. The results have implications for the understanding of normal acquisiti...Microscopic brain damage detected in early Alzheimer's disease
...the brain more freely. This phenomenon can disrupt neural processes and cause neuron cells to die, leading to brain atrophy. This process of cellular damage causes an increase in the "apparent diffusion coefficient," or ADC, which is a measurement used to study the distribution of water in the brain. Thir...Emotional control circuit of brain's fear response discovered
...(fMRI) that can detect moment-to-moment changes in neural activity. fMRI is a version of the widely-used clinical MRI scanning technique. The study, which is published in the Sept 21, 2006 issue of Neuron, was led by a Columbia University Medical Center M.D./Ph.D. student, Amit Etkin, who explained that, T...Pregnancy and lactation may affect maternal behavior and coping skills
... to demonstrate long-term changes in the prolactin neural system, a system that Bridges' research group previously identified as crucial for stimulating the establishment of maternal behavior. In addition, since prolactin is known to reduce the stress response of nursing mothers, the implication of the pres...Mirrors in the mind: New studies elucidate how the brain reflects onto itself the actions of others
... point out that the findings also suggest that the neural mechanisms that underlie action observation are intrinsically "social"--that the neural mechanisms map the actions of others onto one's own body, rather than initially treating all observe...Brain's action center is all talk
...kage between the way we talk about actions and the neural machinery that supports those actions. That's very intriguing," said USC University Professor Michael Arbib. Arbib also noted the sharp difference between the subjects' responses to literal action statements (such as "biting the peach") and metapho...Carnegie Mellon receives NIMH/NSF grant to examine mechanisms that underlie neuronal synchronization
...t kinds of random inputs. Bursts of synchronized neural electrical activity, whether connectivity- or noise-induced, occur at different rates. For example, during sleep the brain's neurons send electrical signals at around four times a second. Higher-level cognitive activities are thought to result from s...Licensing arrangement reached for antiepileptic drug
...neurotransmitters, either excitatory or inhibitory neural transmissions within the central nervous system. Epilepsy is caused, among other reasons, by disturbances in the balance between these two functions: a rise in the level of the excitatory amino acids or a reduction in the level of the inhibitory acid...Combined therapies may boost immune response and long-term protection against brain tumors
...tudy, the researchers injected bone marrow-derived neural stem cells that were genetically engineered to produce IL-23. The stem cells tracked tumor cells and the IL-23 produced an immune response and long-term protection. In the newly published study, 80 percent of animals receiving intratumoral injection...Brain scan of nuns finds no single 'God spot' in the brain, Universit de Montral study finds
... "The main goal of the study was to identify the neural correlates of a mystical experience," explained Beauregard. "This does not diminish the meaning and value of such an experience, and neither does it confirm or disconfirm the existence of God." Fifteen cloistered Carmelite nuns ranging from 23 to ...More than just pretty faces for this brain region, says Stanford researcher
... this allowed the team to "zoom in" on a hybrid of neural patches, each of which responds to a different category of objects. "We were able to see things we haven't before," said Grill-Spector. "What's really cool is these structures are very selective in their responses - and only to one kind of object."...Nanowire arrays can detect signals along individual neurons
...sticated interfaces between the brain and external neural prosthetics; it represents a new, powerful, and flexible approach for real-time cellular assays useful for drug discovery and other applications; and it opens the possibility for hybrid circuits that couple the strengths of digital nanoelectronic and...Childhood sleep apnea linked to brain damage, lower IQ
In what is believed to be the first study showing neural changes in the brains of children with serious, untreated sleep apnea, Johns Hopkins researchers conclude that children with the disorder appear to suffer damage in two brain structures tied to learning ability. Writing in the Aug. 22 issue of the ...Daytime light exposure dynamically enhances brain responses
... responses to light. Especially mysterious are the neural correlates of these responses, and their temporal dynamics. Such issues are of significant interest given that daytime sleepiness is a major source of complaint in modern society and has considerable socio-economic implications. In the present stud......ally responsive to variations in metabolic status, neural ensembles appear to integrate the information provided by these neural sensors to maintain similar levels of activity across comparable behavioral states," they concluded....