Tag: "circuitry" at biology news

New research questions basic tenet of neuron function

...ht to play a role in the development of the neural circuitry in the brain and body, while activity-dependent release is responsible for functions such as learning and memory. ...

Nanogen Issued Patent for Electronic Microarray With Memory

...ay, while minimizing the utilization of "off-chip" circuitry and overall system costs. The electric potential is controlled at each of the NanoChip's 400 test sites to move and concentrate DNA or RNA, providing accuracy, speed and flexibility for developing molecular diagnostic tests. Storing critical voltage ...

New insight into people who 'see' colors in letters and numbers

... synesthesia--in which people's sensory perceptual circuitry seems to be miswired--was long dismissed as an oddity not worthy of scientific study. Now, however, researchers such as Hubbard and his colleagues are using the condition to gain insights into the neural basis of perception. In their experiments wit...

Examination of internal 'wiring' of yeast, worm, and fly reveals conserved circuits

...to a certain degree, conserved," said Ideker. "The circuitry is not exactly the same. In fact, there are striking differences that warrant more investigation." The team included Roded Sharan, a computer scientist currently at the Tel-Aviv University in Israel; Tanja Kuhn and Peter Uetz, researchers at the Ins...

Birds brains reveal source of songs

...of the song. These results suggested that the AFP circuitry itself causes the juvenile bird's experimentation with various sounds and sequences, and that such explorations are essential to learning songs. Deactivating the AFP after a bird had already learned the correct song had no affect on its continued pro...

Cerebral navigation: How do nerve fibers know what direction to grow in?

...ad abnormal axon projections and defects in neural circuitry formation. The second paper demonstrates the role of a protein called ephexin1 in axon guidance. By itself, ephexin 1 promotes axon growth; neurons from mice genetically modified to lack ephexin1 had significantly shorter axons. But when ephrin is p...

Brain-injury rehabilitation depends on acetylcholine circuitry

...injury as stroke or trauma depends on a particular circuitry of neurons that "talk" to one another using the br...ntrol muscles. However, the specific type of brain circuitry on which this plasticity depended was not known. Conner and his colleagues were guided in their exp...

Team Invents Device For Weighing Individual Molecules

... as microwaves. The researchers set up electronic circuitry to continually excite and monitor the frequency of the vibrating bar. Intermittently, a shutter is opened to expose the nanodevice to an atomic or molecular beam, in this case a very fine "spray" of xenon atoms or nitrogen molecules. Because the nano...

Depression gene may weaken mood-regulating circuit

...mperament. Yet, how it works at the level of brain circuitry remained a mystery. The NIMH research team first ... key role in wiring the brain's emotion processing circuitry during early development, the researchers propose that the short variant leads to stunted coupling i...

Bees, Brains and Addiction

...e neurobiology and evolutionary basis of the brain circuitry that processes information about rewards is the focus of study by Terrence Sejnowski, a professor of biology at both the Salk Institute and UCSD. He told a gathering of scientists, high school students and community members last week that neurobiolog...

New clue to cocaine addicts' quirky behavior

...hers working with rats have zeroed in on the brain circuitry mechanism whose disruption contributes to the impu...e as well as other psychostimulant drugs. The same circuitry has been implicated in such disorders as schizophrenia, depression, and post-traumatic stress disord...

Gambling monkeys give insight into neural machinery of risk

...ity Medical Center neurobiologists have pinpointed circuitry in the brains of monkeys that assesses the level o...ing risk, the researchers next explored the neural circuitry that governed that assessment. They threaded hair-thin microelectrodes into a brain region called th...

Researchers discover key to human embryonic stem-cell potential

...vide the foundation for learning how to modify the circuitry of embryonic stem cells to repair damaged or disea...g. "They also establish the foundation for solving circuitry for all human cells." ...

What Makes The Brain Tick, Tick, Tick: Researchers Gaining New Insights Into Brain's Internal Clock

...icated as a key signaling molecule in the neuronal circuitry of the timing machinery. "When Parkinson's patients are on their medication, they time quite normally," said Meck. "But as their medication wears off, we can see their clock slow down by recording their brain signals." Said Meck of their research, ...

Grasshopper love songs give insight into sensory tuning

...ons to optimally respond to such inputs. Neuronal circuitry consists of a web of neurons, each triggering others by launching bursts of neurotransmitters at targets on receiving neurons to produce nerve impulses in those targets. Neurons adjust the strength of those connections adaptively, to amplify or suppr...

Brains response to visual stimuli helps us to focus on what we should see, rather than all there is to see

...h other cells nearby. That meant that the brain's circuitry is organized on a much finer scale than was previously suspected. And this makes sense, explained Callaway, because neuroscientists were puzzled as to why so many neurons were needed in the same part of the brain to carry out the same function. "But...

Science's Breakthrough of the Year: Watching evolution in action

...re rooted in "faulty wiring" of the brain's neural circuitry during development in the womb. Where Did Earth Come From?: This year, researchers took another look at Earth rocks and meteorites that resemble the starting material of the solar system and found that their atoms were significantly different. So wh...

Machinery of the 'marijuana munchies'

..., they have had little understanding of the neural circuitry underlying this effect. Understanding this circuitry has important practical implications because blocking the cannabinoid receptor, CB1, offers a promis...

How Fruitflies Know It's Time for Lunch

...n klu mutants might contain clues about the neural circuitry modulating feeding behavior. Using microarrays, Melcher and Pankratz discovered that mutant fly larvae overexpress the hug gene, which is known to encode at least two neural proteins related to growth signaling. The researchers then investigated whi...

Algal protein in worm neurons allows remote control of behavior by light

...al, such approaches could aid in understanding the circuitry and control of complex behaviors. ...

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