Brain And Consciousness Research - January 2009 Archives

Language performance and differences in brain activity possibly affected by sex (1/31/2009)

In a new fMRI study conducted in the Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Clinical Research Laboratory and published by Elsevier in the February 2009 issue of Cortex, researchers found differences among male and female groups on activation strength linked to verbal fluency. ...> Full Article

Stress disrupts human thinking, but the brain can bounce back (1/31/2009)

Med school students prepping for their boards and rodents digging for food have a bit of psychology in common: Stress hampers their nimbler thinking abilities. A new neuroimaging study, building on earlier rodent research, shows that stressed-out men, like rats, have a hard time shifting their attention from one task to another. But the work holds good news too, for both rats and humans: Their brains are resilient. Less than one month after the stress disappears, the quick thinking returns. ...> Full Article

Trust your gut: Too much thinking leads to bad choices (1/30/2009)

Don't think too much before purchasing that new car or television. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, people who deliberate about decisions make less accurate judgments than people who trust their instincts. ...> Full Article

Did I see what I think I saw? (1/30/2009)

Research increasingly suggests that eyewitness testimony may not be as accurate as we would like it to be. A new study examining how false information following a recall test affects volunteers' memories of a witnessed event suggests that recalled information is prone to distortion. These results suggest that the recall test may have improved subjects' ability to learn the false information -- that it enhanced learning of new and erroneous information. ...> Full Article

Rational or experiential? New study highlights differences in thinking styles (1/29/2009)

Consumers approach problems, products, and websites differently according to distinct thinking styles, says a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. ...> Full Article

People left out in the cold may act heatedly toward others (1/28/2009)

New research helps explain link between social rejection and aggressive behavior ...> Full Article

Popular songs can cue specific memories, psychology research shows (1/27/2009)

"Most people have this idea that music can be a powerful memory cue," Richard Harris said. "You hear a song on the radio and it brings up memories of senior prom or graduation. That's why oldies stations are so popular -- not because the music is good but because it reminds us of specific times in our lives." ...> Full Article

'Sunshine vitamin' link to cognitive problems in older people (1/26/2009)

Researchers from the Peninsula Medical School, the University of Cambridge and the University of Michigan, have for the first time identified a relationship between vitamin D and cognitive impairment. ...> Full Article

Language driven by culture, not biology (1/25/2009)

Language in humans has evolved culturally rather than genetically, according to a study by UCL (University College London) and US researchers. By modelling the ways in which genes for language might have evolved alongside language itself, the study showed that genetic adaptation to language would be highly unlikely, as cultural conventions change much more rapidly than genes. Thus, the biological machinery upon which human language is built appears to predate the emergence of language. ...> Full Article

Feeling your words: Hearing with your face (1/25/2009)

The movement of facial skin and muscles around the mouth plays an important role not only in the way the sounds of speech are made, but also in the way they are heard according to a study by scientists at Haskins Laboratories, a Yale-affiliated research laboratory. ...> Full Article

When less attention improves behavior (1/24/2009)

Reducing attentional resources improves memory performance in confabulating patients. ...> Full Article

Mind out of balance, body out of balance (1/24/2009)

New research from Tel Aviv University suggests a link between anxiety and balance problems in children. ...> Full Article

Motor skill learning may be enhanced by mild brain stimulation (1/23/2009)

People who received a mild electrical current to a motor control area of the brain were significantly better able to learn and perform a complex motor task than those in control groups. The findings could hold promise for enhancing rehabilitation for people with traumatic brain injury, stroke and other conditions. ...> Full Article

Players love the game not the gore (1/22/2009)

Psychology study shows that violence does not motivate video game players ...> Full Article

Neurons show sex-dependent changes during starvation (1/22/2009)

Dartmouth Medical School researchers have found two proteins that work in concert to ensure proper chromosome segregation during cell division. Their study is in the January 2009 issue of the journal Nature Cell Biology. ...> Full Article

Canada-US scientists discover gene responsible for brain's aging (1/21/2009)

According to a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, a research team from the Universite de Montreal, Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has identified a gene that controls the normal and pathological aging of neurons in the central nervous system: Bmi1. ...> Full Article

Why you can't hurry love (1/20/2009)

Scientists have developed a mathematical model of the mating game to help explain why courtship is often protracted. The study, by researchers at University College London, University of Warwick and London School of Economics and Political Science, shows that extended courtship enables a male to signal his suitability to a female and enables the female to screen out the male if he is unsuitable as a mate. ...> Full Article

Brain mechanisms of social conformity (1/19/2009)

New research reveals the brain activity that underlies our tendency to "follow the crowd." The study, published by Cell Press in the Jan. 15 issue of the journal Neuron, provides intriguing insight into how human behavior can be guided by the perceived behavior of other individuals. ...> Full Article

Delusions associated with consistent pattern of brain injury (1/18/2009)

A new study provides a novel theory for how delusions arise and why they persist. NYU Langone Medical Center researcher Orrin Devinsky, MD, performed an in-depth analysis of patients with certain delusions and brain disorders revealing a consistent pattern of injury to the frontal lobe and right hemisphere of the human brain. ...> Full Article

Game of two halves leads to brain asymmetry (1/18/2009)

A tug-of-war between the two sides of the brain causes it to become asymmetrical, according to research published today in the journal Neuron. Asymmetry in the brain is thought to be important to enable the two hemispheres to specialize and operate more efficiently. ...> Full Article

Rice University psychologist finds women's brains recognize, encode smell of male sexual sweat (1/17/2009)

A new Rice University study published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that socioemotional meanings, including sexual ones, are conveyed in human sweat. ...> Full Article

Evolution of new brain area enables complex movements (1/16/2009)

A new area of the cerebral cortex has evolved to enable man and higher primates to pick up small objects and deftly use tools. The brain's primary motor cortex turns out to have neighboring "old" and "new" parts. In most animals, including cats, rats and some monkeys, the old primary motor cortex controls movement indirectly through the circuitry of the spinal cord. ...> Full Article

Why we procrastinate and how to stop (1/15/2009)

Psychologists wanted to see if there might be a link between how we think about a task and our tendency to postpone it. It turns out, the students who thought about the questions abstractly were much more likely to procrastinate. By contrast, those who were focused on the how, when and where of doing the task e-mailed their responses much sooner, suggesting that they started the assignment right away rather than procrastinating. ...> Full Article

Where am I? How our brain works as a GPS device (1/14/2009)

The results of a new study in Psychological Science reveal that the brain does not have a distinct preference for certain cues during reorientation. These findings indicate that the brain takes into account a number of factors, including the environment and our past experiences, while determining the best way to reorient us to our surroundings. ...> Full Article

Growth of new brain cells requires 'epigenetic' switch (1/13/2009)

New cells are born every day in the brain's hippocampus, but what controls this birth has remained a mystery. Reporting in the Jan. 1 issue of Science, neuroscientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have discovered that the birth of new cells, which depends on brain activity, also depends on a protein that is involved in changing epigenetic marks in the cell's genetic material. ...> Full Article

People are more suggestible under laughing gas (1/12/2009)

The pain-relieving effects of nitrous oxide -- laughing gas -- may be enhanced by suggestion or hypnosis, according to a new study by UCL. The study's findings -- that people are more suggestible under the gas -- mean that dental patients may benefit from being coached to relax while undergoing sedation. ...> Full Article

'Tetris' may help reduce flashbacks to traumatic events (1/11/2009)

Playing 'Tetris' after traumatic events could reduce the flashbacks experienced in post-traumatic stress disorder. ...> Full Article

Restoring trust harder when it is broken early in relationship (1/10/2009)

In relationships built on trust, a bad first impression can be harder to overcome than a betrayal that occurs after ties are established, a new study suggests. While betraying trust is never good for a relationship, the results show that early violations can be particularly devastating, and plant seeds of doubt that may never go away. ...> Full Article

'It takes 2 to know 1': Shared experiences change self-recognition (1/10/2009)

Looking at yourself in the mirror every morning, you never think to question whether the person you see is actually you. A study published in the online, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, by Dr. Manos Tsakiris, Royal Holloway, University of London, challenges this common-sense notion about our own self image. The study shows for the first time that the image we hold of our own face can actually change through shared experiences with other people's faces. ...> Full Article

Emotional needs key for teaching gifted students (1/9/2009)

Teachers of gifted students need to pay close attention to the social and emotional needs of their pupils or they are far less likely to reach their potential. This is according to the author of a chapter in a new book about how to teach the gifted. ...> Full Article

UCLA assessment technique lets scientists see brain aging before symptoms appear (1/8/2009)

UCLA scientists have used innovative brain-scan technology developed at UCLA, along with patient-specific information on Alzheimer's disease risk, to help diagnose brain aging, often before symptoms appear. ...> Full Article

Study yields clues about the evolution of epilepsy (1/7/2009)

Two children have a seizure. One child never has another seizure. Twenty years later, the other child has a series of seizures and is diagnosed with epilepsy. A study being led by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is looking at what could possibly happen in the development of these two children that would lead to such extreme variations in their neurologic health. ...> Full Article

Brain starvation as we age appears to trigger Alzheimer's (1/5/2009)

Improving blood flow to brain is a preventive strategy ...> Full Article

Researchers' Discovery Could Rejuvenate the Brain (1/4/2009)

Researchers at The University of British Columbia have discovered why the brain loses its capacity to re-grow connections and repair itself, knowledge that could lead to therapeutics that "rejuvenate" the brain. ...> Full Article

Bright lights, not-so-big pupils (1/3/2009)

A team of Johns Hopkins neuroscientists has worked out how some newly discovered light sensors in the eye detect light and communicate with the brain. The report appears online this week in Nature. ...> Full Article

Researchers link blood sugar to normal cognitive aging (1/2/2009)

Maintaining blood sugar levels, even in the absence of disease, may be an important strategy for preserving cognitive health, suggests a study published by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center. The study appeared in the December issue of Annals of Neurology.The findings suggest that exercising to improve blood sugar levels could be a way for some people to stave off the normal cognitive decline that comes with age. ...> Full Article

Risk takers, drug abusers driven by decreased ability to process dopamine (1/1/2009)

For risk-takers and impulsive people, New Year'sresolutions often include being more careful, spending more frugally and cutting back on dangerous behavior, such as drug use. But new research from Vanderbilt finds that these individuals -- labeled as novelty seekers bypsychologists -- face an uphill battle in keeping their New Year's resolutions due to the way their brains process dopamine. ...> Full Article