Brain And Consciousness Research - May 2009 Archives

Brain's object recognition system activated by touch alone (5/31/2009)

Portions of the brain that activate when people view pictures of objects compared to scrambled images can also be activated by touch alone, confirms a new report published online on May 28 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. ...> Full Article

Brain activation can predict the strategies people use to make risky decisions (5/30/2009)

Watching people's brains in real time as they handle a set of decision-making problems can reveal how different each person's strategy can be, according to neuroscientists at the Duke University Medical Center. ...> Full Article

Should I stay or should I go? Neural mechanisms of strategic decision making (5/29/2009)

A new study demonstrates that when faced with a difficult decision, the human brain calls upon multiple neural systems that code for different sorts of behaviors and strategies. The research, published by Cell Press in the May 28 issue of the journal Neuron, provides intriguing insight into the mechanisms that help the human brain rise to the formidable challenge of adaptive decision making in the real world. ...> Full Article

Capturing the birth of a synapse (5/28/2009)

Researchers have identified the locking mechanism that allows some neurons to form synapses to pass along essential information. Mutations of genes that produce a critical cell-adhesion molecule involved in the work were previously linked to autism. ...> Full Article

Psychologists find that head movement is more important than gender in nonverbal communication (5/27/2009)

University of Virginia psychologists and computer scientists have found that gender is less important than head motion in the nonverbal dynamics of how people converse. ...> Full Article

'Super-recognizers,' with extraordinary face recognition ability, never forget a face (5/22/2009)

Research suggests that face recognition may vary more than previously understood ...> Full Article

Tone language is key to perfect pitch (5/21/2009)

Rare musical skill more common among fluent speakers of such languages as Mandarin and Vietnamese ...> Full Article

Special protein helps maintain an efficient brain (5/21/2009)

The instruction manual for maintaining an efficient brain maysoon include a section on synaptotagmin-IV (Syt-IV), a protein known to influence learning and memory, thanks to a study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers. ...> Full Article

Of body and mind, and deep meditation (5/20/2009)

Chinese data unraveled at University of Oregon show a training technique has brain, physiological linkage ...> Full Article

Can you see the emotions I hear? Study says yes (5/18/2009)

By observing the pattern of activity in the brain, scientists have discovered they can "read" whether a person just heard words spoken in anger, joy, relief, or sadness. The discovery, reported online on May 14 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, is the first to show that emotional information is represented by distinct spatial signatures in the brain that can be generalized across speakers. ...> Full Article

Identification of a key molecular pathway required for brain neural circuit formation (5/18/2009)

The research group of Dr. Frederic Charron, a researcher at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montreal, has made a discovery which could help treat spinal cord injuries and neurodegenerative diseases. This new finding has been published in the current issue of the prestigious scientific journal Neuron. ...> Full Article

How learning shapes successful decision making in the human brain (5/17/2009)

New research significantly advances our understanding of the brain mechanisms that link learning with flexible decision making. The study, published by Cell Press in the May 14 issue of the journal Neuron, demonstrates that the brain does not just learn the structure of the physical world but, through learning, encodes rules that regulate how we interpret future sensory information. ...> Full Article

Brain chemical reduces anxiety, increases survival of new cells (5/16/2009)

Animal study suggests potential new treatment for anxiety disorders and depression ...> Full Article

How to build a bigger brain (5/15/2009)

Study shows that meditation may increase gray matter ...> Full Article

Can happiness be inherited? (5/15/2009)

A new article published in Elsevier's journal Bioscience Hypotheses suggests that our feelings in our lifetime can affect our children. ...> Full Article

Too much information: Process thinking can lead to difficult choices (5/14/2009)

Choosing among products can be more difficult if you tend to think more about the process of using an item rather than the outcome of the purchase, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. ...> Full Article

Body movements can influence problem solving, researchers report (5/13/2009)

Swinging their arms helped participants in a new study solve a problem whose solution involved swinging strings, researchers report, demonstrating that the brain can use bodily cues to help understand and solve complex problems. ...> Full Article

Brain's problem-solving function at work when we daydream (5/12/2009)

A new University of British Columbia study finds that our brains are much more active when we daydream than previously thought. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that activity in numerous brain regions increases when our minds wander. It also finds that brain areas associated with complex problem-solving -- previously thought to go dormant when we daydream -- are in fact highly active during these episodes. ...> Full Article

Brain cell mechanism for decision making also underlies judgment about certainty (5/10/2009)

Pattern of firing in nerve cells may show degree of confidence in choice ...> Full Article

Researchers study the idling brain (5/9/2009)

OHSU researchers have uncovered new information about portions of the brain that spontaneously activate together when a person is at rest. The latest research demonstrates how the interactions of certain brain regions at rest become more distributed as a person ages. It is believed that an increased understanding of normal brain function will allow researchers to better characterize mental disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. ...> Full Article

Babies brainier than many imagine (5/8/2009)

A new study from Northwestern University shows what many mothers already know: babies are a lot smarter than others may realize. Though only five months old, the study's cuties indicated through their curious stares that they could differentiate water in a glass from solid blue material that looked very much like water in a similar glass. The study builds upon research showing that babies are not blank slates who primarily depend on others for acquiring knowledge. ...> Full Article

Genetic make-up influences biased economic decision-making, study shows (5/7/2009)

How would you respond if you were told that you had an 80 percent chance of surviving an operation -- would you give consent? How about if you were told you had a 20 percent chance of dying? The answer may partly depend on your genetic make-up, according to new research from University College London and funded by the Wellcome Trust. ...> Full Article

Estrogen controls how the brain processes sound (5/7/2009)

Estrogen found to work within neurons to facilitate hearing and memory ...> Full Article

Depression does 'make your brown eyes blue' (5/6/2009)

It's more than just feeling bad. Clinical depression affects the way we process information in the brain, negatively affecting memory, attention span, and the brain's ability to learn new things. ...> Full Article

Your brain on - and off - caffeine (5/5/2009)

Using EEG, ultrasound to examine blood flow velocity and questionnaires, researchers found physiological evidence of the likely mechanism underlying the common "caffeine withdrawal headache," as well as a surprise finding. ...> Full Article

Researchers pinpoint the mechanisms of self-control in the brain (5/4/2009)

Study of dieters shows how two brain areas interact in people with the willpower to say no to unhealthy foods ...> Full Article

Genetic variant impairs communication within the brain (5/4/2009)

For some time now it has been known that certain hereditary factors enhance the risk of schizophrenia or a manic-depressive disorder. However, just how this occurs had remained obscure. Researchers at the Zentralinstitut fur Seelische Gesundheit in Mannheim, Heidelberg University and Bonn University are now able to answer this question, at least for one common genetic variant: this impairs the interoperation of certain regions of the brain. ...> Full Article

Psyched out by stereotypes: Research suggests thinking about the positive (5/4/2009)

Cognitive scientists have shown that when aware of both a negative and positive stereotype related to performance, women will identify more closely with the positive stereotype, avoiding the harmful impact the negative stereotype unwittingly can have on their performance. This is the first study to examine the influence of concurrent stereotypes, one negative and one positive. It also demonstrated how the negative stereotype encroached on working memory while the positive stereotype did not. ...> Full Article

Gray matter under attack in multiple sclerosis (5/3/2009)

Protein could provoke immune attack on several cell types ...> Full Article

Study suggests left-side bias in visual expertise (5/2/2009)

These findings suggest that whether or not we use holistic processing depends on the task performed with the object and its features, and that holistic processing is not used in general visual expertise. However, the left-side bias exhibited by the native Chinese reader volunteers in the second experiment suggests that since this effect does not appear to be face-specific, it may be a marker of general visual expertise. ...> Full Article

Some short-term memories die suddenly, no fading (5/1/2009)

New study of visual working memory challenges previous thinking that these memories grow hazy before disappearing ...> Full Article