Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Shows How the Brain Repurposes Unused Regions
Listening triggers synchronized activity in the ‘visual’ cortex in blind adults. In adults that are born blind, the “visual” cortex is activated in a similar…
Neuroscience
Neuroscientists Make Major Breakthrough in 200-Year-Old Puzzle – New Psychophysical Law
For centuries, the mental world of the mind and the physical world were treated as utterly distinct. While the movement of inanimate objects could be…
Johns Hopkins Breakthrough Opens the Door for Stem Cell Transplants to Repair the Brain
Transplanted brain stem cells survive without anti-rejection drugs in mice. By exploiting a feature of the immune system, researchers open the door for stem cell…
Analyzing Brain Activity to Detect and Treat Patient Pain Even When Unconscious
Researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a system that measures a patient’s pain level by analyzing brain activity from a portable neuroimaging device. The…
Key Brain Circuit Controls Individual Responses to Temptation
Differences in how individual rats respond to ‘reward cues’, which have been linked to compulsive behaviors such as substance abuse and overeating, can be traced…
Watching Music Move Through the Brain
Listening to and remembering music involve different cognitive processes. Scientists have observed how the human brain represents a familiar piece of music, according to research…
Neuroscientist: Animal Brains Key for Next Generation of Artificial Intelligence
CSHL neuroscientist Anthony Zador shows how evolution and animal brains can be a rich source of inspiration for machine learning, especially to help AI tackle…
Safer Pain Medications Possible After Discovery of Anti-Opioid Pathway
A team at Scripps Research in Florida has discovered a biological system that manages cells’ response to opioid drug exposure. The unexpected discovery offers new…
Three Distinct Brain Circuits Lead Us to Make Bad and Good Decisions
A prevailing theory in neuroscience holds that people make decisions based on integrated global calculations that occur within the frontal cortex of the brain. However,…
Scientists Restore Partial Brain Function Hours After Death
Circulation and cellular activity were restored in a pig’s brain four hours after its death, a finding that challenges long-held assumptions about the timing and…
Neuroscientists Devise New Technique To Preserve Biological Tissue
MIT chemical engineers and neuroscientists have devised a new way to preserve biological tissue, allowing them to visualize proteins, DNA, and other molecules within cells,…
Study Shows Connection Between Brain Size and Cognitive Performance
Using a larger dataset than all previous studies on the subject combined, researchers found a small but significant connection between brain size and cognitive performance….
Alcohol Dependence and Psychiatric Disorders Share Genetic Links
Gene variants associated with alcohol dependence are also linked to the risk of psychiatric disorders and other drug use, a massive study of more than…
Scientists Paint a New Comprehensive Picture on How Humans Think
It is one of the most fundamental questions in neuroscience: How do humans think? Until recently, we seemed far from a conclusive answer. However, scientists…
Neuroscientists Identify Brain Activity Pattern Linked to Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia, a brain disorder that produces hallucinations, delusions, and cognitive impairments, usually strikes during adolescence or young adulthood. While some signs can suggest that a…
Dendrites Help Explain the Unique Computing Power of Our Brain
Neurons in the human brain receive electrical signals from thousands of other cells, and long neural extensions called dendrites play a critical role in incorporating…
Researchers Explain Why Certain People Possess Amazing Memory Abilities
How do house hunters who visit 20 homes daily still recall details of the master bedroom of a specific one? Our memories can perform this…
Neuroscientists Discover Fundamental Rule of Brain Plasticity
Our brains are famously flexible, or “plastic,” because neurons can do new things by forging new or stronger connections with other neurons. But if some…