Brain And Consciousness Research - October 2007 Archives

Sight, Sound Processed Together and Earlier than Previously Thought (10/31/2007)

The area of the brain that processes sounds entering the ears also appears to process stimulus entering the eyes, providing a novel explanation for why many viewers believe that ventriloquists have thrown their voices to the mouths of their dummies. ...> Full Article

Brain Circuits That Control Hunger Identified (10/31/2007)

Researchers have determined the brain circuits involved in hunger that are influenced by a hormone called leptin. In previous clinical trials, supplementation of leptin, the signaling molecule produced by fat cells, produced moderate weight loss in some obese patients, purportedly by inhibiting hunger and promoting feelings of being full. Thus, this new work suggests possible new targets for treating obesity. ...> Full Article

Hearing 'Messages' Embedded in Noise Could Be a Sign of Early Schizophrenia (10/30/2007)

A tendency to extract messages from meaningless noise could be an early sign of schizophrenia. ...> Full Article

Behavioral Intervention Normalizes Stress-related Hormone in High-Risk Kids (10/30/2007)

Family Intervention that Improves Behavior, Social Skills Also Improves Cortisol Patterns ...> Full Article

Gambling and increased sexual desire linked to restless leg syndrome (10/29/2007)

Study finds evidence of compulsive behavior associated with treatment ...> Full Article

Napping doesn't impair nighttime sleep, research finds (10/29/2007)

Concerned that a midday snooze might ruin a good night's sleep? Fret not; ongoing research from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center indicates that napping has little effect on sleep onset -- and that a nap today may be beneficial for mental processing tomorrow. ...> Full Article

Drug-craving Brain Region In Rats Discovered (10/29/2007)

Chilean researchers have identified a region of the brain -- the insular cortex -- that plays a role in drug craving in amphetamine-addicted rats, according to a report published in Science. This finding ultimately may help support the development of new therapies to treat drug addiction as well as certain behavioral side effects of medications. ...> Full Article

Dealing with Stress as a Treatment for Alcohol Abuse (10/28/2007)

A researcher is initiating a study of 'mindfulness-based stress reduction,' a technique often used in behavioral medicine for stress reduction but not before as an adjunct in the treatment of alcohol use disorders. ...> Full Article

The accumulation of sugar in neurons may explain the origin of several neurodegenerative diseases (10/28/2007)

A new study demonstrates that the excess of glucose chains (glycogen) induces neuronal death and causes Lafora disease, a fatal kind of epilepsy that affects adolescents. This mechanism, unknown until now, may provide the key to understanding other neurodegenerative pathologies. ...> Full Article

Watching funny shows helps children tolerate pain longer, study finds (10/28/2007)

Watching comedy shows helps children tolerate pain for longer periods of time. ...> Full Article

Stress a major problem in the U.S. (10/27/2007)

New Poll Shows Stress on the Rise, Affecting Health, Relationships and Work Americans Say Housing Costs an Added Stressor in 2007 ...> Full Article

Imaging Shows Structural Changes in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (10/27/2007)

Researchers report that diffusion tensor imaging can identify structural changes in the white matter of the brain that correlates to cognitive deficits even in patients with mild traumatic brain injury. ...> Full Article

Humans And Monkeys Share Machiavellian Intelligence (10/26/2007)

When it comes to their social behavior, people sometimes act like monkeys, or more specifically, like rhesus macaques, a type of monkey that shares with humans strong tendencies for nepotism and political maneuvering. ...> Full Article

Impulsivity May Especially Vex Alcoholics With Antisocial And Borderline Personality Disorders (10/26/2007)

Impulsivity is a problem common to many different personality and psychiatric disorders, including alcoholism. A new study that looked at impulsivity among alcoholic subpopulations has found that, one, the inability to delay gratification may be a vulnerability marker for alcoholism, and two, certain inhibitory-control issues may be specific to antisocial and borderline personality disorders. ...> Full Article

Happiness comes cheap - even for millionaires (10/25/2007)

A bar of chocolate, a long soak in the bath, a snooze in the middle of the afternoon, a leisurely stroll in the park. These are the things that make us the most happy ...> Full Article

Study Reveals How the Brain Generates the Human Tendency for Optimism (10/25/2007)

A neural network that may generate the human tendency to be optimistic has been identified by researchers at New York University. As humans, we expect to live longer and be more successful than average, and we underestimate our likelihood of getting a divorce or having cancer. The results, reported in the most recent issue of Nature, link the optimism bias to the same brain regions that show irregularities in depression. ...> Full Article

Brain Waves That Distinguish False Memories From Real Ones Pinpointed (10/25/2007)

For the first time, researchers are able to pinpoint brain waves that distinguish true from false memories, providing a better understanding of how memory works and creating a new strategy to help epilepsy patients retain cognitive function. ...> Full Article

From Terror to Joy: Faced with Death, Our Minds Turn to Happier Thoughts (10/24/2007)

Philosophers and scientists have long been interested in how the mind processes the inevitability of death, both cognitively and emotionally. One would expect, for example, that reminders of our mortality--say the sudden death of a loved one--would throw us into a state of disabling fear of the unknown. But that doesn't happen. If the prospect of death is so incomprehensible, why are we not trembling in a constant state of terror over this fact? ...> Full Article

More Educated People Who Develop Dementia Lose Their Memory Faster (10/24/2007)

People with more years of education lose their memory faster than those with less education in the years prior to a diagnosis of dementia. ...> Full Article

Stress: Brain Yields Clues About Why Some Succumb While Others Prevail (10/23/2007)

Discovery Of Resistance Mechanisms In Mouse Brain May Lead To Help For Stress-Related Mental Illness In Humans ...> Full Article

Accessory protein determines whether pheromones are detected (10/22/2007)

Researchers reveal an unanticipated role for a new CD36-like protein to help cells detect pheromones that drive a wide range of behaviors, from recognizing a sibling to courting a mate, a finding that may explain what pheromone communication, pathogen recognition and fat taste perception all have in common. ...> Full Article

Light shone within brains of mice reveals secrets of sleep-wake cycle (10/21/2007)

By flickering a special light inside the brains of sleeping mice to wake them up, researchers have shown that they can induce behavior in a living mammal by directly controlling specific neural cells. In so doing, they have answered fundamental questions about the process of waking up. ...> Full Article

Scientists To Study Psychosocial Stress (10/21/2007)

Researchers are studying the effectiveness of a wrist-mounted instrument for measuring psychosocial stress exposure during the course of daily life. ...> Full Article

Blood may help us think (10/20/2007)

Scientists propose that blood may help us think, in addition to its well-known role as the conveyor of fuel and oxygen to brain cells. ...> Full Article

Fish get insomnia, eyes wide open, say sleep researchers (10/19/2007)

Scientists have hooked a fish that suffers from insomnia in their quest to understand the genetics behind sleep disorders. ...> Full Article

Brain scans reveal circuits that control food intake (10/19/2007)

Scientists have identified the circuits that 'decide' how much people eat. Using live brain scanning techniques and an innovative design study, researchers have discovered how the brain controls food intake in humans. ...> Full Article

Predicting the future of the past tense (10/19/2007)

Mathematicians apply evolutionary models to language ...> Full Article

In Human Grid, We are the Cogs (10/18/2007)

Human computation placed in a grid, for a greater good ...> Full Article

How schizophrenia develops: Major clues discovered (10/18/2007)

Schizophrenia may occur, in part, because of a problem in an intermittent on/off switch for a gene involved in making a key chemical messenger in the brain, scientists have found in a study of human brain tissue. The researchers found that the gene is turned on at increasingly high rates during normal development of the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain involved in higher functions like thinking and decision-making – but that this normal increase may not occur in people with schizophrenia. ...> Full Article

Insulin's Brain Impact Links Drugs And Diabetes (10/18/2007)

Insulin, long known as an important regulator of blood glucose levels, now has a newly appreciated role in the brain. ...> Full Article

The Brain is Wired to Mull Over Decisions (10/17/2007)

The next time you pause to mull over menu selections even after you have decided to order your favorite entree, it may comfort you to know that you may be behaving that way because your brain is hard-wired to ponder decisions, leaving room for a possible change of mind. New studies have identified a specific neural circuit in the brains of monkeys that is activated when they postpone acting on a decision. The circuit is thought to keep potential choices brewing in memory even after a decision has already been made. ...> Full Article

How Shyness Became a Mental Illness (10/17/2007)

What's wrong with being shy, and just when and how did bashfulness and other ordinary human behaviors in children and adults become psychiatric disorders treatable with powerful, potentially dangerous drugs, asks a Northwestern University scholar in a new book that already is creating waves in the mental health community. ...> Full Article

People Are Programmed To Love Chocolate, Study Finds (10/15/2007)

For the first time, scientists have linked the all-too-human preference for a food -- chocolate -- to a specific, chemical signature that may be programmed into the metabolic system and is detectable by laboratory tests. The signature reads 'chocolate lover' in some people and indifference to the popular sweet in others, the researchers say. ...> Full Article

Rejection sets off alarms for folks with low self-esteem (10/12/2007)

Few can tolerate such romantic or professional rebuffs as "It's not you, it's me" and "we regret to inform you that your application was not successful." But while a healthy dose of self-esteem can absorb the shock of rejection, poor self-esteem can trigger the primal fight-or-flight response. ...> Full Article

Brain Imaging Shows Similarities & Differences In Thoughts of Chimps and Humans (10/12/2007)

Researchers have used functional brain imaging to assess resting-state brain activity in chimpanzees as a potential window into their mental world and to compare chimpanzee brain activity to that of humans. ...> Full Article

Why it is Impossible for Some to 'Just Say No' (10/12/2007)

Drug abuse, crime and obesity are but a few of the problems our nation faces, but they all have one thing in common--people’s failure to control their behavior in the face of temptation. While the ability to control and restrain our impulses is one of the defining features of the human animal, its failure is one of the central problems of human society. So, why do we so often lack this crucial ability? ...> Full Article

Scientists identify brain circuits used in sensation of touch (10/11/2007)

The ability to tactually recognize fine spatial details, such as the raised dots used in braille, is especially important to those who are blind. With that in mind, a team of researchers has identified the neural circuitry that facilitates spatial discrimination through touch. Understanding this circuitry may lead to the creation of sensory-substitution devices, such as tactile maps for the visually impaired. ...> Full Article

Stress Contributes to Range of Chronic Diseases (10/11/2007)

In a review of the scientific literature on the relationship between stress and disease a psychologist has found that stress is a contributing factor in human disease, and in particular depression, cardiovascular disease and HIV/AIDS. ...> Full Article

Discovery Supports Theory of Alzheimer's Disease as Form of Diabetes (10/10/2007)

Insulin, it turns out, may be as important for the mind as it is for the body. Research in the last few years has raised the possibility that Alzheimer's memory loss could be due to a novel third form of diabetes. ...> Full Article

Depression Can Foreshadow Intellectual Decline in Older People (10/9/2007)

Depression in the elderly increases the risk of subsequent mental impairment and can act as a predictor of future intellectual decline. ...> Full Article

Not Finishing High School May Lead to Memory Problems (10/8/2007)

People who don't finish high school are at a higher risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease compared to people with more education, ...> Full Article

Playing with Blocks May Improve Language Development in Toddlers, New Study Finds (10/8/2007)

Playing with toy blocks may lead to improved language development in young children ...> Full Article

Simulation Reveals How Body Repairs Balance After Injury (10/8/2007)

Your body goes to a lot of trouble to make sure you stay upright. But when the brain's neural pathways are impaired through injury, age or illness, muscles are deprived of the detailed sensory information they need to perform the constant yet delicate balancing act required for normal movement and standing. ...> Full Article

Project to understand how the brain wires during embryogenesis (10/7/2007)

Scientist will tackle a number of fundamental questions relating both to the wiring of the brain during growth, and how evolution drove forward the sophisticated neural circuitry associated with mammals. ...> Full Article

In Birds, Expecting to Mate Leads to Higher Fertilization Rates (10/7/2007)

From an evolutionary perspective, the primary task of an organism is to pass along its genes to future generations. Such genetic transmission is usually assumed to be instinctive. However, a new study shows that species also learn to adapt to their surroundings in order to increase their "reproductive fitness"-- the likelihood that they will successfully reproduce. ...> Full Article

Engineers study brain folding in higher mammals (10/7/2007)

Engineers are finding common ground between the shaping of the brain and the heart during embryonic development. ...> Full Article

How Stress Supercharges Learning (10/6/2007)

Whether it's a hot stove or a snarling dog, an emotional encounter supercharges learning in a way that indelibly imprints those experiences in memory. Now researchers have pinpointed a molecular pathway in the brain that underlies stress-induced learning enhancement. Their studies establish how the stress hormone norepinephrine boosts learning by strengthening connections between neurons. ...> Full Article

Scientists Search for Brain Center Responsible for Tinnitus (10/6/2007)

30 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans suffer from the condition ...> Full Article

Cockroaches are morons in the morning and geniuses in the evening (10/6/2007)

In its ability to learn, the cockroach is a moron in the morning and a genius in the evening ...> Full Article

Low level of conscientiousness may be a risk factor for alzheimer's disease (10/6/2007)

Individuals who are more conscientious-in other words, those with a tendency to be self-disciplined, scrupulous and purposeful-appear less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. ...> Full Article

What emotional memories are made of (10/5/2007)

Mouse experiments reveal 'flight or fight' hormone's role ...> Full Article

Chemical compound found in tree bark stimulates growth, survival of brain cells (10/5/2007)

Researchers have identified a compound in tree bark that mimics the chemical reactions of a naturally occurring molecule in the brain responsible for stimulating neuronal cell signaling. Neuronal cell signaling plays a crucial role in the growth, plasticity and survival of brain cells. ...> Full Article

Researchers develop targeted approach to pain management (10/4/2007)

Scientists have combined a normally inactive lidocaine derivative with capsaicin, the 'heat'-generating ingredient in chili peppers, to produce pain-specific local anesthesia. When injected into rats, this combination completely blocked pain without interfering with either motor function or sensitivity to non-painful stimuli. ...> Full Article

Brain needs perfection in synapse number (10/4/2007)

Like Goldilocks, the brain seeks proportions that are "just right." ...> Full Article

Infant Expert Helps Show Children Learn Language Skills Earlier Than Thought (10/2/2007)

Research with English-language babies shows toddlers are learning language skills earlier than expected, and by the age of 18 months understand enough of the lexicon of their own language to recognize how speakers use sounds to convey meaning. ...> Full Article

Genes influence people's choices in economics game (10/2/2007)

Researchers have demonstrated for the first time that genes exert influence on people's behavior in a very common experimental economic game. ...> Full Article

Doctors Learn To Control Their Own Brains' Pain Responses To Better Treat Patients (10/1/2007)

Physicians apparently learn to "shut off" the portion of their brain that helps them appreciate the pain their patients experience while treating them and instead activate a portion of the brain connected with controlling emotions, according to new research using brain scans at the University of Chicago. ...> Full Article

Neuroscientists connect neural activity and blood flow in new brain stimulation technique (10/1/2007)

Neuroscientists have for the first time measured the electrical activity of nerve cells and correlated it to changes in blood flow in response to transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a noninvasive method to stimulate neurons in the brain. ...> Full Article