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Princeton researchers show how the brain breaks down events

By Guest PostDecember 19, 2017Healthbrain, brain activity, brainiak, breaks down events, christopher baldassano, how, kenneth norman, uri hasson

Research by Princeton University neuroscientists provides a new framework for understanding how the experience of life is accumulated, stored and recalled by the human brain.

“When you go about your day, you’re continuously assaulted with visual, auditory and other sensory information,” said Christopher Baldassano, an associate research scholar at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute (PNI). “We don’t try to understand our world as the continuous stream that’s coming in, but we break it up into pieces we can understand and remember. The goal of this research was to look for the signatures of this kind of activity.” (more…)

Neural sweet talk: Taste metaphors emotionally engage the brain

By Guest PostSeptember 4, 2014Healthasymmetric habenular region, berlin, brain, brain activity, dangerous infections, elim hong, individuell dosieren, intractable biofilms, larval zebrafish, medikamente, microbial biofilms, personalisierte antibiotikatherapie, princeton university, pseudomonas bacteria, richard bruch, stoffwechselfunktion, vernita gordon

So accustomed are we to metaphors related to taste that when we hear a kind smile described as “sweet,” or a resentful comment as “bitter,” we most likely don’t even think of those words as metaphors. But while it may seem to our ears that “sweet” by any other name means the same thing, new research shows that taste-related words actually engage the emotional centers of the brain more than literal words with the same meaning. (more…)

Brain responses to emotional images predict PTSD symptoms after Boston Marathon bombing

By Guest PostAugust 31, 2014Healthaleks kotwica, amygdala, brain activity, daniel martin, entwicklungshilfe mit mathematik, himalayan powerhouse, james horscroft, mri, pattern, post traumatic, predict, sherpas, stress disorder, superhuman energy efficiency, terrorist attack, trauma, treating hypoxia, university of washington, wissen fuer morgen, wolfram koepf

The area of the brain that plays a primary role in emotional learning and the acquisition of fear – the amygdala – may hold the key to who is most vulnerable to post-traumatic stress disorder.

Researchers at the University of Washington, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and Boston University collaborated on a unique opportunity to study whether patterns of brain activity predict teenagers’ response to a terrorist attack. (more…)

Yale researchers reconstruct facial images locked in a viewer’s mind

By Guest PostMarch 25, 2014Sciencebrain activity, europaeische vogelwelt, fmri scan, grandmas, kristen hawkes, marvin chun, neurobiology, pair bonds, pattern, people pair up, yale researcher, yale university

Using only data from an fMRI scan, researchers led by a Yale University undergraduate have accurately reconstructed images of human faces as viewed by other people.

“It is a form of mind reading,” said Marvin Chun, professor of psychology, cognitive science and neurobiology and an author of the paper in the journal Neuroimage. (more…)

Brain Scans Show We Take Risks Because We Can’t Stop Ourselves

By Guest PostFebruary 7, 2014Healthadhd, austin, balloon analogue, bart, brain activity, brain scans, developing an addiction, drunk driving, executive function, external factor, health relevant, hunger, lack of sleep, magnetic resonance imaging, make decision, mri, patterns of activity, peer pressure, risk task, risky behavior, risky decisions, russell poldrack, sarah helfinstein, scanner, take risks, university of texas, unprotected sex, unsafe sex, video game

AUSTIN, Texas — A new study correlating brain activity with how people make decisions suggests that when individuals engage in risky behavior, such as drunk driving or unsafe sex, it’s probably not because their brains’ desire systems are too active, but because their self-control systems are not active enough.

This might have implications for how health experts treat mental illness and addiction or how the legal system assesses a criminal’s likelihood of committing another crime. (more…)

Moths Wired Two Ways to Take Advantage of Floral Potluck

By Guest PostDecember 9, 2012Naturearizona, behavior, brain, brain activity, bright green, buffet, caterpillar, channels, chemical composition, favored blossoms, floral environment, flower, hong lei, humans, insects, jeffrey riffell, john hildebrand, leif abrell, manduca sexta, mechanism, moth, naive moths, neural pathways, neurobiology, north, olfactory information, oxygenated aromatic compounds, pollinator, process, scent samples, science express, scientist, sources of nectar, south america, soybean, tobacco hornworms, university, Washington

Moths are able to enjoy a pollinator’s buffet of flowers – in spite of being among the insect world’s picky eaters – because of two distinct “channels” in their brains, scientists at the University of Washington and University of Arizona have discovered.

One olfactory channel governs innate preferences of the palm-sized hawk moths that were studied – insects capable of traveling miles in a single night in search of favored blossoms. The other allows them to learn about alternate sources of nectar when their first choices are not available.

For moths, the ability to seek and remember alternate sources of food helps them survive harsh, food-deprived conditions. Scientists knew bees could learn, but this is the first proof that moths can too. (more…)

Learning to Control Brain Activity Improves Visual Sensitivity

By Guest PostDecember 7, 2012Scienceabnormal patterns, brain activity, brain function, control, electrical activity, emotional response, fmri, frank scharnowski, geneva, human volunteer, neurofeedback approach, stroke patients, training, university, visual cortex, visual information, visual perception, visual sensitivity

Training human volunteers to control their own brain activity in precise areas of the brain can enhance fundamental aspects of their visual sensitivity, according to a new study in the Journal of Neuroscience.

This non-invasive ‘neurofeedback’approach could one day be used to improve brain function in patients with abnormal patterns of activity, for example stroke patients. (more…)

Moral Evaluations of Harm are Instant and Emotional, Brain Study Shows

By Guest PostDecember 2, 2012Scienceaccidental, age, amygdala, brain, brain activity, callous unemotional traits, Chicago, data, emotion, empathy, evolutionary heritage, humans, hurtful action, intentional, jean decety, milliseconds, moral computations, moral response, morality, mri scans, posterior, psychopaths, split second, step, stephanie cacioppo, sulcus, superior, temporal, tpj area, university, ventromedial prefrontal cortex

People are able to detect, within a split second, if a hurtful action they are witnessing is intentional or accidental, new research on the brain at the University of Chicago shows.

The study is the first to explain how the brain is hard-wired to recognize when another person is being intentionally harmed. It also provides new insights into how such recognition is connected with emotion and morality, said lead author Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at UChicago. (more…)

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