All Articles Tagged As: fmri

Brain scans could be marketing tool of the future (3/5/2010)

Using advanced tools to see the human brain at work, a new generation of marketing experts may be able to test a product's appeal while it is still being designed, according to a new analysis by two researchers at Duke University and Emory University. ...> Full Article

Monetary gain and high-risk tactics stimulate activity in the brain (11/20/2009)

Monetary gain stimulates activity in the brain. Even the mere possibility of receiving a reward is known to activate an area of the brain called the striatum. ...> Full Article

'Emotions increase or decrease pain': researchers (11/13/2009)

Getting a flu shot this fall? Canadians scientists have found that focusing on a pretty image could alleviate the sting of that vaccine. According to a new Universite de Montreal study, published in the latest edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, negative and positive emotions have a direct impact on pain. ...> Full Article

Precuneus region of human and monkey brain is divided into 4 distinct regions (11/5/2009)

A study published this week in PNAS provides a comprehensive comparative functional anatomy study in human and monkey brains which reveals highly similar brain networks preserved across evolution. An international collaboration co-led by scientists at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City examined patterns of connectivity to show that the precuneus, long thought to be a single structure, is actually divided into four distinct functional regions. ...> Full Article

Where religious belief and disbelief meet (10/9/2009)

While the human brain responds very differently to religious and nonreligious propositions, the process of believing or disbelieving a statement, whether religious or not, seems to be governed by the same areas in the brain. ...> Full Article

Cracking the brain's numerical code (9/30/2009)

By carefully observing and analyzing the pattern of activity in the brain, researchers have found that they can tell what number a person has just seen. They can similarly tell how many dots a person has been presented with, according to a report published online on September 24 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. ...> Full Article

Scientists develop novel use of neurotechnology to solve classic social problem (9/11/2009)

Research shows how brain imaging can be used to create new and improved solutions to the public-goods provision problem ...> Full Article

New research findings pave the way to more accurate interpretation of brain imaging data (8/31/2009)

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a technique widely used in studying the human brain. However, it has long been unclear exactly how fMRI signals are generated at brain cell level. This information is crucially important to interpreting these imaging signals. Scientists from the Academy of Finland's Neuroscience Research Program have discovered that astrocytes, support cells in brain tissue, play a key role in the generation of fMRI signals. ...> Full Article

Human mind: Sound and vision wired through same 'black box' (8/16/2009)

Sounds and images share a similar neural code in the human brain, according to a new Canadian study. In the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists from the Universite de Montreal and the Montreal Neurological Institute at McGill University explain how the same neural code in the brain allows people to distinguish between different types of sounds, such as speech and music, or different images. ...> Full Article

Can brain scans read your mind? (7/26/2009)

Can neuroscience read people's minds? New research by neuroscientists at UCLA and Rutgers University provides new evidence that a brain imaging technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can be used to determine what a person is thinking. However, the research suggests that highly accurate "mind reading" using fMRI is still far from reality. The research will be published in the October 2009 issue of the journal Psychological Science. ...> 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

Researchers capture wave of brain activity linked to anticipation (3/2/2009)

Neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center have, for the first time, shown what brain activity looks like when someone anticipates an action or sensory input which soon follows.In the Feb. 25 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, they say this neural clairvoyance involves strong activity in areas of the brain responsible for preparing the body to move. ...> Full Article

Decoding short-term memory with fMRI (2/26/2009)

Experiments at the University of Oregon bring focus to perceptual and memory storage processing ...> Full Article

Echoes discovered in early visual brain areas play role in working memory (2/22/2009)

Vanderbilt University researchers have discovered that early visual areas, long believed to play no role in higher cognitive functions such as memory, retain information previously hidden from brain studies. The researchers made the discovery using a new technique for decoding data from functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI. The findings are a significant step forward in understanding how we perceive, process and remember visual information. ...> Full Article

Researchers shed new light on connection between brain and loneliness (2/17/2009)

Work is part of emerging field examining brain mechanisms ...> Full Article

Behind closed eyes (2/5/2009)

Weizmann Institute research shows our brain's sense centers are continuously active. In the absence of a stimulus, however, their electrical activity remains in "screen saver" mode. ...> Full Article

Readers build vivid mental simulations of narrative situations, brain scans suggest (2/4/2009)

A brain-imaging study is shedding light on what it means to "get lost" in a good book -- suggesting that readers create vivid mental simulations of the sounds, sights, tastes and movements described in a textual narrative while simultaneously activating brain regions used to process similar experiences in real life. ...> Full Article

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

Do we think that machines can think? (7/19/2008)

When our PC goes on strike again we tend to curse it as if it was a human. The question of why and under what circumstances we attribute human-like properties to machines and how such processes manifest on a cortical level was investigated in a new project ...> Full Article

Research reveals passive learning imprints on the brain just like active learning (7/15/2008)

Researchers determined that people can acquire motor skills through the "seeing" as well as the "doing" form of learning. ...> Full Article

Children are naturally prone to be empathic and moral (7/13/2008)

Research using fMRI scans shows tendencies toward kindness ...> Full Article

New map IDs the core of the human brain (7/2/2008)

An international team of researchers has created the first complete high-resolution map of how millions of neural fibers in the human cerebral cortex -- the outer layer of the brain responsible for higher level thinking -- connect and communicate ...> Full Article

Scientists find how neural activity spurs blood flow in the brain (6/29/2008)

Newfound mechanisms could bolster understanding of brain imaging, aging's effects ...> Full Article

Study shows compassion meditation changes the brain (3/29/2008)

Can we train ourselves to be compassionate? A new study suggests the answer is yes. Cultivating compassion and kindness through meditation affects brain regions that can make a person more empathetic to other peoples' mental states ...> Full Article

High-tech interrogations may promote abuse (3/24/2008)

There is evidence that brain imaging technology is being used to interrogate suspected terrorists despite concerns that it may not be reliable, and that it might inadvertently promote abuse of detainees, according to a Penn State researcher. He says the risk that such technology could license further abuse of detainees remains ever present, given President Bush's March 8 veto of legislation that would have prohibited the CIA from conducting aggressive interrogations. ...> Full Article

Smokers' brains recognize potential negative consequences but fail to act (3/5/2008)

Addicted people persist with drug use despite the potential negative consequences of their actions or "what might happen." Using a simple stock market game, researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston show that the brains of chronic smokers recognize "what might happen (fictive outcomes)," but do not act on that brain signal. The report appears online today in the journal Nature Neuroscience. ...> Full Article