Brain Mysteries
Tongue twisters are not just fun to say; it turns out that these sound-related slip-ups can also open windows into the brain's speech-planning processes. A team from MIT will report new insights gleaned from a comparison of two types of tongue twisters at the 166th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, held Dec. 2-6, 2013, in San Francisco, Calif.
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Sexual imagery is often used in magazine and TV ads, presumably to help entice buyers to purchase a new product. But new research published in Psychological Science suggests that women tend to find ads with sexual imagery off-putting, unless the advertised item is priced high enough.
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 | Who is the culprit to cause memory impairment during brain aging? ...> Full Article |
While the human brain is in a resting state, patterns of neuronal activity which are associated to specific memories may spontaneously reappear. Such recurrences contribute to memory consolidation -- i.e. to the stabilization of memory contents. Scientists of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases and the University of Bonn are reporting these findings in the current issue of "The Journal of Neuroscience".
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 | Using a powerful gene-hunting technique for the first time in mammalian brain cells, researchers at Johns Hopkins report they have identified a gene involved in building the circuitry that relays signals through the brain. The gene is a likely player in the aging process in the brain, the researchers say. ...> Full Article |
A psychological study has found that skilled typists can't identify the positions of many of the keys on the QWERTY keyboard and probably didn't memorize them even when they first learned to type.
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 | An emerging field of study known as neuroeconomics combines the economists' insights with brain science to learn more about decision-making processes and how they can go awry. In the Dec. 8 issue of Neuron, one of the field's founders reports new links between brain cell activity and choices where two options have equal appeal. ...> Full Article |
Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine have found further evidence that exercise may be beneficial for brain health and cognition. The findings, which are currently available online in Behavioural Brain Research, suggest that certain hormones, which are increased during exercise, may help improve memory.
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A recent paper by Mass. Eye and Ear/Harvard Medical School researchers in collaboration with researchers at the Ecole Normale Superieure, France, challenge the two dominant theories of how people localize sounds, explain why neuronal responses to sounds are so diverse and show how sound can be localized, even with the absence of one half of the brain. Their research is described on line in the journal eLife.
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A new study led by University of Kentucky researchers suggests that a diet low in vitamin D causes damage to the brain.
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 | A new brain connectivity study from Penn Medicine published today in the Proceedings of National Academies of Sciences found striking differences in the neural wiring of men and women that's lending credence to some commonly-held beliefs about their behavior. ...> Full Article |
When the St. Louis Cardinals lost the World Series, just how much shame did the players feel? According to researchers at Penn State and Australia's Central Queensland University, a person's goals at the outset of a competence-based task, such as a sporting event, can influence how much shame or pride he or she feels upon completion of the task.
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 | Fear of being single is a meaningful predictor of settling for less in relationships among both men and women, a new University of Toronto study has found. The results are published in the December edition of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. ...> Full Article |
Pioneering research conducted at Western University (London, Canada) points to a promising avenue for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder: utilising neurofeedback training to alter the plasticity of brain networks linked to the condition. During neurofeedback, intentional control of one's own brain activity may be learned with what's called a brain-computer interface, which is able to represent graphically a person's real-time brain activation on a computer.
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Two new studies point to important legal implications when moral outrage is generated through the interactive effect of anger and disgust. Research points to the need for judges to carefully consider the admissibility of evidence likely to elicit moral outrage in jurors in a world where phone and security cameras increasingly catch horrible crimes on camera and therefore may be entered as evidence.
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Who is the culprit to cause memory impairment during brain aging?
Gene found to be crucial for formation of certain brain circuitry
Heads or tails? Random fluctuations in brain cell activity may determine toss-up decisions
Brain connectivity study reveals striking differences between men and women
Study finds that fear of being single leads people to settle for less in relationships