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At a Loss for Words

By Guest PostNovember 20, 2011Health, Scienceaphasia, aphasia research project, biological and cognitive processes, brain, brain damage, brain impairs, bullet, celeste barajas, communication impairments, gabrielle giffords, human communication problems, inability to speak or write, language and hearing sciences, language impairment, language recovery, loss of phonology, magnetic resonance imaging, mechanisms of recovery, mri, national institutes of health, network of brain regions, neuroimaging, pelagie beeson, pima county, rehabilitation, scanner, speech, speech language pathology, steven rapcsak, stroke, traumatic brain injury, university of arizona

*Research into aphasia – the inability to speak or write well-formulated sentences and words – is strong at the UA. Researchers have received $2 million toward the study of the condition.*

The National Institutes of Health have awarded the University of Arizona’s Aphasia Research Project in the department of speech, language and hearing sciences a $2 million grant to research communication impairments in adults who have suffered brain injury.

Aphasia – the inability to speak or write well-formulated sentences and words – is a common result of a stroke or a traumatic brain injury such as the one suffered by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head earlier this year. The bullet damaged regions of the brain that are critical for language and control of the right side of the body. (more…)

How the Brain Makes Memories: Rhythmically!

By Guest PostOctober 9, 2011Health, Sciencearvind kumar, brain, brain mechanisms of learning, brain rhythms, connections between neurons, conventional wisdom, detuning process, einstein, experimental data, frequency, mayank r mehta, memory disorders, mozart, neural signals, neuro physicists, optimal brain rhythm, optimal learning, spike trains, stimuli, synapses, synaptic plasticity, synaptic strength

The brain learns through changes in the strength of its synapses — the connections between neurons — in response to stimuli.

Now, in a discovery that challenges conventional wisdom on the brain mechanisms of learning, UCLA neuro-physicists have found there is an optimal brain “rhythm,” or frequency, for changing synaptic strength. And further, like stations on a radio dial, each synapse is tuned to a different optimal frequency for learning.

The findings, which provide a grand-unified theory of the mechanisms that underlie learning in the brain, may lead to possible new therapies for treating learning disabilities. (more…)

To Ditch Dessert, Feed the Brain

By Guest PostSeptember 22, 2011Sciencebrain, brain imaging scans, fmri scans, glucose, glucose levels, high calorie food, hypothalamus, kathleen page, low calorie food, prefrontal cortex, rajita sinha, regulating impulses, striatum, twinkies, yale university

If the brain goes hungry, Twinkies look a lot better, a study led by researchers at Yale University and the University of Southern California has found.

Brain imaging scans show that when glucose levels drop, an area of the brain known to regulate emotions and impulses loses the ability to dampen desire for high-calorie food, according to the study published online September 19 in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. (more…)

‘Buyer Beware: Advertising May Seduce Your Brain’

By Guest PostSeptember 21, 2011Science, Technologyadvertisers, advertising, amygdala, andrew f leuchter, behavior, brain, cigarette products, cognitive responses to marketing stimuli, david schairer, decision making andemotional processing, eeg, electroencephalography, flat screen tv, george washington university, hippocampus, ian cook, levels of brain activity, logical persuasion, lp, magazines and newspapers, non rational influence, notion of neuromarketing, orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate regions, pretty woman, real world advertisements, sarah k pajot, washing machine

Are you wooed by advertising? Of course you are. After all, it’s one thing to go out and buy a new washing machine after the old one exploded, quite another to impulse-buy that 246-inch flat screen TV that just maybe, in hindsight, you didn’t really need.

Advertisers come at you in two ways. There is the just-the-facts type of ad, called “logical persuasion,” or LP (“This car gets 42 miles to the gallon”), and then there is the ad that circumvents conscious awareness, called “non-rational influence,” or NI (a pretty woman, say, draped over a car). (more…)

Brain’s Map of Space Falls Flat When It Comes to Altitude

By Guest PostAugust 8, 2011Scienceanimal brain, brain, brain map of space, complex environments, grid cells, hippocampus, hotspots, kate jeffery, map of space, nature neuroscience, neurons, place cells, Space, third dimension, ucl psychology and language sciences, wellcome trust

Animal’s brains are only roughly aware of how high-up they are in space, meaning that in terms of altitude the brain’s ‘map’ of space is surprisingly flat, according to new research.

In a study published online in Nature Neuroscience, scientists studied cells in or near a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which forms the brain’s map of space, to see whether they were activated when rats climbed upwards. (more…)

Neurosurgeon’s Rare Skills Saved a Haitian Priest’s Life

By Guest PostJuly 20, 2011Healthaneurysm, brain, catheter, endovascular surgery, femoral artery, haiti, ketan bulsara, neuroendovascular and skull-based surgery, neurosurgeons, norbert tibeau, optic nerve, pituitary gland, priesthood, skull based cerebrovascular microsurgery, state of the art technology, yale medical group, yale new haven hospital

On April 26, Dr. Ketan Bulsara, using state-of-the-art technology, threaded a catheter less than one centimeter in width from the femoral artery in Norbert Tibeau’s thigh into an aneurysm in his brain. The aneurysm had grown to a diameter of two centimeters and bordered on such critical structures as the optic nerve and pituitary gland. If left untreated chances were high that within five years it would either kill Tibeau or devastate him neurologically. (more…)

Crossing Your Arms Relieves Pain

By Guest PostJune 8, 2011Healthbrain, centre of the body, clinical therapies, crossed hands, eeg, electroencephalography, external space, giandomenico iannetti, hand, intensity of pain, laser, neuroscience, pain, painful stimulus, phenomenon, sensory stimuli, ucl

Crossing your arms reduces the intensity of pain you feel when receiving a painful stimulus on the hand, according to research by scientists at UCL.

Published in the current issue of the journal PAIN, the research shows that crossing your arms over the midline (an imaginary line running vertically down the centre of the body) confuses the brain and reduces the intensity of the pain sensation. (more…)

Changes in Brain Circuitry Play Role in Moral Sensitivity as People Grow Up

By Guest PostMay 31, 2011Health, Scienceaccidental actions, amygdala, behavioral measures, brain, brain scanning, cingulate cortex, cognitive processes, dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, eye tracking, fmri scan, insula and subgenual prefrontal cortex, jean decety, kalina michalska, katherine kinzler, mental states, moral judgment, moral responses, negative emotions, neurodevelopmental perspective, people, perpetrator, pupil dilation, social neuroscience, university of chicago, young children

People’s moral responses to similar situations change as they age, according to a new study at the University of Chicago that combined brain scanning, eye-tracking and behavioral measures to understand how the brain responds to morally laden scenarios.

Both preschool children and adults distinguish between damage done either intentionally or accidently when assessing whether a perpetrator had done something wrong. Nonetheless, adults are much less likely than children to think someone should be punished for damaging an object, especially if the action was accidental, said study author Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Professor in Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Chicago and a leading scholar on affective and social neuroscience. (more…)

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