Tag Archives: carlos aizenman

Study shows how judgment of sensory simultaneity may develop in the brain

In a study using tadpoles, neuroscientists tracked how the brain develops its sense of whether two sensory inputs — for example, vision and touch — happened at the same time.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Most people encounter most things by sensing them in multiple ways. As we hear the words people speak, we also see their lips move. We smell, see and hear the onions as we chop them — and we feel them with teary eyes. (more…)

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Dodging dots helps explain brain circuitry

In a new study, Brown University neuroscientists looked cell-by-cell at the brain circuitry that tadpoles, and possibly other animals, use to avoid collisions. The study produced a model of how individual inhibitory and excitatory neurons can work together to control a simple behavior.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A neuroscience study provides new insight into the primal brain circuits involved in collision avoidance, and perhaps a more general model of how neurons can participate in networks to process information and act on it. (more…)

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Cosmetic Chemical Hinders Brain Development in Tadpoles

*A new study finds that low concentrations of the chemical methylisothiazolinone has subtle but measurable negative effects on the neural development of tadpoles. The chemical is found in some cosmetics, although the study does not provide any evidence that cosmetics are unsafe for humans.*

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Scientists, health officials, and manufacturers already know that a chemical preservative found in some products, including cosmetics, is harmful to people and animals in high concentrations, but a new Brown University study in tadpoles reports that it can also interrupt neurological development even in very low concentrations.

In the cosmetics industry, the biocide methylisothiazolinone or MIT, is considered safe at concentrations of less than 100 parts per million. Lab studies, however, have found that lower concentrations affected the growth of animal neurons. Picking up from there, the Brown researchers performed a series of experiments to investigate how 10 days of exposure at concentrations as low as 1.5 ppm would affect whole, living tadpoles as they develop. Their results appear in advance online in the journal Neuroscience. (more…)

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