Brains in Biological News

Snakes and how they helped our big brains evolve

From the temptation of Eve to the venomous murder of the mighty Thor, the serpent appears throughout time and cultures as a figure of mischief and misery. The worldwide prominence of snakes in religion, myth, and folklore underscores our deep connection to the serpentbut why, when so few of us...

Our brains make their own marijuana: We're all pot heads deep inside

U.S. and Brazilian scientists have just proven that one of Bob Dylan's most famous lines"everybody must get stoned" is correct. That's because they've discovered that the brain manufactures proteins that act like marijuana at specific receptors in the brain itself. This discovery, published online...

Rice University psychologist finds women's brains recognize, encode smell of male sexual sweat

A new Rice University study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that socioemotional meanings, including sexual ones, are conveyed in human sweat. Denise Chen, assistant professor of psychology at Rice, looked at how the brains of female volunteers processed and encoded the smell of...

Old and young brains rely on different systems to remember emotional content

DURHAM, N.C.Neuroscientists from Duke University Medical Center have discovered that older people use their brains differently than younger people when it comes to storing memories, particularly those associated with negative emotions. The study, appearing online in the January issue of Psych...

Big brains arose twice in higher primates

After taking a fresh look at an old fossil, John Flynn, Frick Curator of Paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, and colleagues determined that the brains of the ancestors of modern Neotropical primates were as small as those of their early fossil simian counterparts in the Old Wor...

From brains to behavior: Cold Spring Harbor Protocols features methods for neuroscience research

COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y. (Mon., Oct. 1, 2007) Research in the field of neuroscience is constantly expanding to provide knowledge about biological mechanisms that underlie our ability to experience and interact with the world around us. To facilitate such research, two neuroscience methods are fea...

The 'satellite navigation' in our brains

Our brains contain their own navigation system much like satellite navigation ("sat-nav"), with in-built maps, grids and compasses, neuroscientist Dr Hugo Spiers told the BA Festival of Science at the University of Liverpool today. The brain's navigation mechanism resides in an area know as the...

Study finds mix of disease processes at work in brains of most people with dementia

Few older people die with brains untouched by a pathological process, however, an individual’s likelihood of having clinical signs of dementia increases with the number of different disease processes present in the brain, according to a new study. The research was funded by the National Institute ...

Traumas like Sept. 11 make brains more reactive to fear

According to a new brain study, even people who seemed resilient but were close to the World Trade Center when the twin towers toppled on Sept. 11, 2001, have brains that are more reactive to emotional stimuli than those who were more than 200 miles away. That is the finding of a new Cornell stud...

2 brains -- 1 thought

Although no two brains are alike, they can display a comparable pattern of neural activity when exposed to similar sensory input. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen have now developed a mathematical method to design networks from neural cells whic...

Newborn brains grow vision and movement regions first

The regions of the brain that control vision and other sensory information grow dramatically in the first few months following birth, while the area that controls abstract thought experiences very little growth during the same period, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers have fou...

Unraveling where chimp and human brains diverge

Six million years ago, chimpanzees and humans diverged from a common ancestor and evolved into unique species. Now UCLA scientists have identified a new way to pinpoint the genes that separate us from our closest living relative ?and make us uniquely human. The Proceedings of the National Academy...

Ecstasy can harm the brains of first-time users

Researchers have discovered that even a small amount of MDMA, better known as ecstasy, can be harmful to the brain, according to the first study to look at the neurotoxic effects of low doses of the recreational drug in new ecstasy users. The findings were presented today at the annual meeting of t...

Carnegie Mellon researchers discover key deficiencies in brains of people with autism

In a pair of groundbreaking studies, brain scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh have discovered that the anatomical differences that characterize the brains of people with autism are related to the way those brains process information. Previous studies have ...

Bird brains shrink from exposure to contaminants

The regions in robins' brains responsible for singing and mating are shrinking when exposed to high levels of DDT, says new University of Alberta research--the first proof that natural exposure to a contaminant damages the brain of a wild animal. "These residues have been persisting since the l...

Animal brains 'hard-wired' to recognize predator's foot movements, Queen's study suggests

The reason people can approach animals in the wild more easily from a car than by foot may be due to an innate "life detector" tuned to the visual movements of an approaching predator's feet, says Queen's University psychologist Niko Troje. "We believe this visual filter is used to signal the pr...

'Sharp' older brains are not the same as younger brains

Researchers working with rats have found the first solid evidence that still "sharp" older brains store and encode memories differently than younger brains. This discovery is reported by a Johns Hopkins team in the issue of Nature Neuroscience released online Nov. 13. Should it prove to apply as...

Divergent life history shapes gene expression in brains of salmon

Scientists working with salmon have found that gene expression in the brain can differ significantly among members of a species with different life histories. Their study indicates that roughly 15 percent of Atlantic salmon genes show differential expression in males who migrate from their freshwat...

Bees, Brains and Addiction

To understand the complex processes in the human brain that lead to addiction, some researchers at UCSD have turned to bees. Granted, the brains of humans and bees don't look much alike. But how bees respond to simple rewards, such as food, can tell scientists much about the workings of the primi...

Mice brains shrink during winter, impairing some learning and memory

The brains of one species of mouse actually shrink during the winter, causing the mice to have more difficulty with some types of learning, a new study found. The results showed that, during the short days of winter, white-footed mice had impaired spatial memory ?the mental map that helps them r...

Supercomputers to focus brains on AIDS dilemma

More than two decades after it burst onto the scene, HIV/AIDS has claimed more than twenty million lives and continues to devastate societies around the world, particularly in Africa and other developing countries. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, after years of effort AIDS researchers succeeded ...

Birds brains reveal source of songs

Scientists have yearned to understand how the chirps and warbles of a young bird morph into the recognizable and very distinct melodies of its parents. Neuroscientists at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT now have come one step closer to understanding that process. They've shown for ...

Bird Brains Show How Trial and Error May Contribute to Learning

The adult male zebra finch knows only one scratchy tune learned in its youth, which it performs repeatedly and intensely when females are listening. But occasionally, the finch might improvise, experimenting with a slower, more sultry variation or emphasizing different notes. Neurobiologists stu...

Abnormal brain circuits may prevent movement disorder

...a patients. There are half a million people in the United States alone. The brains of people with inherited dystonia are normal at autopsy and the exact cause... saw those who presented with the uncontrollable movements. While their brains show the same abnormal network, only approximately 30% of people who carry ...

Brain difference in psychopaths identified

...aid: 'If replicated by larger studies the significance of these findings cannot be underestimated. The suggestion of a clear structural deficit in the brains of psychopaths has profound implications for clinicians, research scientists and the criminal justice system.' While psychopathy is strongly associ...

Experimental treatment halts hypoxic-ischemic brain injury in newborns

... CINCINNATI Inhibiting an enzyme in the brains of newborns suffering from oxygen and blood flow d...plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) into the brains of newborn rats, said Chia-Yi Kuan, M.D. PhD, seni..., have elevated levels of tPA and plasmin in their brains or cerebrospinal fluid. In human newborns, hypo...

Scientists track impact of DNA damage in the developing brain

...on. Some neurons were eventually replaced by scar tissue in a process known as gliosis. Overall changes in the hippocampus mimicked those found in the brains of adults with the seizure disorder known as temporal lobe epilepsy. In this study, the loss of Xrcc1 also resulted in seizures in mice. ...

A 'heart healthy' diet and ongoing, moderate physical activity may protect against cognitive decline

... "We can't do anything about aging or family history, but research continues to show us that there are lifestyle decisions we all can make to keep our brains healthier, and that also may lower our risk of memory decline as we age," said William Thies, PhD, Chief Medical & Scientific Officer at the Alzheimer...

Alzheimer's disease drug treats traumatic brain injury, report GUMC researchers

...tant professor at GUMC. Both disorders are associated with build-up of beta amyloid, a toxic brain peptide. This substance is commonly found in the brains of elderly patients who died from Alzheimer's disease, but has also been found in a third of traumatic brain injury victims, some of whom are children...

22nd Congress of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Sept. 12-16, 2009, Turkey

...ries in brain research Over the last years, our understanding of the brain has increased dramatically. Advances in brain imaging, the mapping of the brains biochemical circuitry and breakthroughs in molecular genetics have significantly enhanced the possibilities of the neurosciences. These advances have ...

1-finger exercise reveals unexpected limits to dexterity

...e nervous system. Together these results begin to identify the mechanical pressures that could have driven the evolutionary specializations of our brains and bodies that make our hands so dexterous. "These apparently esoteric results have tremendous implications for both humans and robots," Valero-Cu...

Brain malformations significantly associated with preterm birth, Wake Forest research shows

...rth Defects Foundation and the Pratt Family Foundation, Brown's research on brain malformations and preterm birth grew out of a study of bleeds in the brains of babies, where researchers found that a large percentage of the babies being studied had small, unrecognized types of brain malformations that warra...

A young brain for an old bee

...rt individuals into a 'younger' stage. If we remove all of the nurse bees of a colony, some of the foragers will revert to nursing behaviour and their brains become 'young' again. We thus hope to study the mechanisms responsible for age-dependent effects, like oxidative damage, and also to discover new ways...

Neural stem cell differentiation factor discovered

...iate into neurons. This is exactly what happened upon the addition of EGFL7. In order to verify their findings in vivo, the researchers analyzed mouse brains and identified mature neurons as a source of EGFL7 in the adult brain. The distribution of these cells in the brain was biologically significant, as E...

Reading the brain without poking it

...pilepsy patients who already were undergoing craniotomies. The epilepsy patients were having conventional ECoG electrodes placed on their brains anyway, so they allowed House to place the microECoG electrode arrays at the same time because "they were brave enough and kind enough to help us deve...

Mouse model provides clues to human language development

... In the brains of the mice the researchers found alterations which may be closely linked to speech and language development. Their analyses comprise part of an inter...

U of M study finds new insight on therapy for a devastating parasitic disease

...s of a very important clinical drug," said Jonathan Marchant, M.A. Ph.D., principal investigator of the study. "Using drugs to make organisms grow two brains may seem bizarre, but the knowledge we gained illustrates the importance of basic scientific research." The study is published in the June 23 issue...

Discovery of a water snake that startles fish in a way that makes them flee into its jaws

... Catania, who is the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" award, studies the brains and behavior of species with extreme specializations. He was attracted to t...ed. These studies have found that many fish have a special circuit in their brains that initiates the escape, which biologists call the "C-start." Fish ears s...

Common fish species has 'human' ability to learn

.... Lead author Dr Jeremy Kendal from Durham University's Anthropology Department, and a Research Council UK Fellow, said: "Small fish may have small brains but they still have some surprising cognitive abilities. "'Hill-climbing' strategies are widely seen in human society whereby advances in technolog...

'The Vision Revolution': Eyes are the source of human 'superpowers'

...Overturns Everything We Thought We Knew About Human Vision. The new book, which hit store shelves this month, is published by BenBella Books. "Our brains don't come with user's manuals listing all the powers we're capable of much of what our eyes can do is still not yet known," Changizi said. "That's w...