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How sleep helps brain learn motor task

By Guest PostAugust 26, 2013Healthbrain, brain region, brainwave frequency, delta brainwave oscillation, magnetoencephalography, masako tamaki, massachusetts general hospital, meg, meg oscillations, motor task, playing piano, polysomnography, sigma, sleep, sma, supplementary motor area, tsung ren huang, yuka sasaki

Sleep helps the brain consolidate what we’ve learned, but scientists have struggled to determine what goes on in the brain to make that happen for different kinds of learned tasks. In a new study, researchers pinpoint the brainwave frequencies and brain region associated with sleep-enhanced learning of a sequential finger tapping task akin to typing, or playing piano.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — You take your piano lesson, you go to sleep and when you wake up your fingers are better able to play that beautiful sequence of notes. How does sleep make that difference? A new study helps to explain what happens in your brain during those fateful, restful hours when motor learning takes hold. (more…)

What Color is Your Night Light? It May Affect Your Mood

By Guest PostAugust 9, 2013Healthanabel galan, body, brain, celynn vaughn, circadian clock, color, dendritic spines, density, depressive like symptoms, ghassan daye, health hazards, hippocampus regions, iprgcs, light at night, mood disorders, night light, photosensitive cell, randy nelson, retina, salk institute, tracy bedrosian, your mood, zachary weil

Study Finds Red Light Least Harmful, While Blue Light is Worst

COLUMBUS, Ohio –– When it comes to some of the health hazards of light at night, a new study suggests that the color of the light can make a big difference.

In a study involving hamsters, researchers found that blue light had the worst effects on mood-related measures, followed closely by white light.

But hamsters exposed to red light at night had significantly less evidence of depressive-like symptoms and changes in the brain linked to depression, compared to those that experienced blue or white light. (more…)

Blind(fold)ed by Science: Study Shows the Strategy Humans Use to Chase Objects

By Guest PostAugust 2, 2013Sciencearizona state university, blindfolded, brain, charles swank, dennis shaffer, eric mcmanama, motion capture equipment, moving object, polymodal

Vision and Hearing Work Together in the Brain to Help Us Catch a Moving Target

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A new study has found that chasing down a moving object is not only a matter of sight or of sound, but of mind.

The study found that people who are blindfolded employ the same strategy to intercept a running ball carrier as people who can see, which suggests that multiple areas of the brain cooperate to accomplish the task.

Regardless of whether they could see or not, the study participants seemed to aim ahead of the ball carrier’s trajectory and then run to the spot where they expected him or her to be in the near future. Researchers call this a “constant target-heading angle” strategy, similar to strategies used by dogs catching Frisbees and baseball players catching fly balls. (more…)

Is sexual addiction the real deal?

By Guest PostAugust 1, 2013Health, Science, SexBible, brain, criteria, diagnosing mental disorders, dsm 5, economic ruin, hypersexual disorder, hypersexual people, hypersexual problems, hypersexuality, mental health experts, nicole prause, p300 reaction, p300 response, psychology, romantic images, sex addiction, sexual addiction, sexual compulsions, sexual desire, sexual images, timothy fong, ucla

Controversy exists over what some mental health experts call “hypersexuality,” or sexual “addiction.” Namely, is it a mental disorder at all, or something else? It failed to make the cut in the recently updated Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5, considered the bible for diagnosing mental disorders. Yet sex addiction has been blamed for ruining relationships, lives and careers.

Now, for the first time, UCLA researchers have measured how the brain behaves in so-called hypersexual people who have problems regulating their viewing of sexual images. The study found that the brain response of these individuals to sexual images was not related in any way to the severity of their hypersexuality but was instead tied only to their level of sexual desire. (more…)

How the brain creates the ‘buzz’ that helps ideas spread

By Guest PostJuly 21, 2013Sciencebrain, buzz, capitol hill, emily falk, Facebook, fictitious pilots, fmri brain scans, go viral, karl dambacher, locke welbourn, matthew lieberman, radio djs, salesperson effect, spread of ideas, sylvia morelli, teenage vampires, temporoparietal junction, tpj, Twitter, ucla psychologists, werewolves, wired to connect

How do ideas spread? What messages will go viral on social media, and can this be predicted?

UCLA psychologists have taken a significant step toward answering these questions, identifying for the first time the brain regions associated with the successful spread of ideas, often called “buzz.”

The research has a broad range of implications, the study authors say, and could lead to more effective public health campaigns, more persuasive advertisements and better ways for teachers to communicate with students. (more…)

Exercise reorganizes the brain to be more resilient to stress

By Guest PostJuly 10, 2013Healthbrain, brain cell, brain region, brian hsueh, elizabeth gould, exercise, fight, flight, gaba, gamma aminobutyric acid, human anxiety disorders, immediate early genes, mechanism, neurons, neurotransmitter, normal brain function, pedro pieruzzini, pedro rada, physical activity, princeton university, reaction, regulate anxiety, resilient to stress, sedentary mice, stanford university, timothy schoenfeld, university of los andes, Venezuela, ventral hippocampus

Physical activity reorganizes the brain so that its response to stress is reduced and anxiety is less likely to interfere with normal brain function, according to a research team based at Princeton University.

The researchers report in the Journal of Neuroscience that when mice allowed to exercise regularly experienced a stressor — exposure to cold water — their brains exhibited a spike in the activity of neurons that shut off excitement in the ventral hippocampus, a brain region shown to regulate anxiety. (more…)

Do songbirds hold key to stuttering?

By Guest PostJune 14, 2013Natureaustralian songbird, behavior, brain, california based, grammy awards, grammy foundation, j devin mcauley, jennifer lampen, juli wade, key to stuttering, language skills, laura dilley, michigan state university, million americans, process rhythm, recording academy, scientists, songbirds, soo eun chang, speech production, zebra finch

A tiny Australian songbird may hold the answer to discovering the biological source of stuttering, which affects 3 million Americans and is notoriously difficult to treat.

A team of Michigan State University scientists will investigate the brain and behavior of the zebra finch in the first in-depth study of whether stuttering stems from a lack of rhythm. (more…)

Do you obsess over your appearance? Your brain might be wired abnormally

By Guest PostMay 17, 2013Scienceabnormal, alex leow, appearance, bdd, body dysmorphic disorder, brain, brain maps, donatello arienzo, graph theory, jamie feusner, jesse a brown, johnson gadelkarim, liang zhan, neurobiology of bdd, neuropsychopharmacology, obsess, patterns of connections, psychiatric condition, psychiatry, sarit hovav, ucla, university of Illinois, white matter networks

Body dysmorphic disorder is a disabling but often misunderstood psychiatric condition in which people perceive themselves to be disfigured and ugly, even though they look normal to others. New research at UCLA shows that these individuals have abnormalities in the underlying connections in their brains.

Dr. Jamie Feusner, the study’s senior author and a UCLA associate professor of psychiatry, and his colleagues report that individuals with BDD have, in essence, global “bad wiring” in their brains — that is, there are abnormal network-wiring patterns across the brain as a whole. (more…)

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