Brain Science: Finding Secrets in Century-Old Brains
The father of neurosurgery, Yale’s Harvey Cushing, MD, left a remarkable gift to science. Now, for the first time, his collection of brains is being used for active research. (more…)
Tag Archives: brain science
Advance in tuberous sclerosis brain science
By manipulating the timing of disease-causing mutations in the brains of developing mice, Brown University researchers have found that early genetic deletions in the thalamus may play an important role in course and severity of the developmental disease tuberous sclerosis complex. Findings appear in the journal Neuron.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Doctors often diagnose tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) based on the abnormal growths the genetic disease causes in organs around the body. Those overt anatomical structures, however, belie the microscopic and mysterious neurological differences behind the disease’s troublesome behavioral symptoms: autism, intellectual disabilities, and seizures. In a new study in mice, Brown University researchers highlight a role for a brain region called the thalamus and show that the timing of gene mutation during thalamus development makes a huge difference in the severity of the disease. (more…)
Brainwaves reflect ability to beat built-in bias
Many animals, including humans, harbor ingrained biases to act when they can obtain rewards and to remain inactive to avoid punishment. Sometimes, however those biases can steer us wrong. A new study finds that theta brainwave activity in the prefrontal cortex predicts how well people can overcome these biases when a better choice are available.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Vertebrates are predisposed to act to gain rewards and to lie low to avoid punishment. Try to teach chickens to back away from food in order to obtain it, and you’ll fail, as researchers did in 1986. But humans are better thinkers than chickens. In the May 8 edition of the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers show that the level of theta brainwave activity in the prefrontal cortex predicts whether people will be able to overcome these ingrained biases when doing so is required to achieve a goal. (more…)
A tangle of talents untangles neurons
Brown’s growing programs in brain science and engineering come together in the lab of Diane Hoffman-Kim. In a recent paper, her group employed techniques ranging from semiconductor-style circuit patterning to rat cell culture to optimize the growth of nerve cells for applications such as reconstructive surgery.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Two wrongs don’t make a right, they say, but here’s how one tangle can straighten out another.
Diane Hoffman-Kim, associate professor of medicine in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biotechnology, is an affiliate of both Brown’s Center for Biomedical Engineering and the Brown Institute for Brain Science. Every thread of expertise woven through those multidisciplinary titles mattered in the Hoffman-Kim lab’s most recent paper, led by graduate student Cristina Lopez-Fagundo. (more…)