All Articles Tagged As: prefrontal cortex

Don't make that face at me! (3/7/2010)

A new study published in Biological Psychiatry, by Elsevier, suggests that the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) is a brain region that may help people to control their emotional reactions to negative facial expressions from their romantic partners. ...> Full Article

A midday nap markedly boosts the brain's learning capacity (2/27/2010)

If you see a student dozing in the library or a co-worker catching 40 winks in her cubicle, don't roll your eyes. New research from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that an hour's nap can dramatically boost and restore your brain power. Indeed, the findings suggest that a biphasic sleep schedule not only refreshes the mind, but can make you smarter. ...> Full Article

People with anxiety disorder less able to regulate response to negative emotions, study shows (2/17/2010)

People with generalized anxiety disorder, or GAD, have abnormalities in the way their brain unconsciously controls emotions. That's the conclusion of a new Stanford University School of Medicine study, and the study authors say the findings could open up new avenues for treatments and change our understanding of how emotion is regulated in everyday life. ...> Full Article

Neuroscientists find neural stopwatch in the brain (10/21/2009)

MIT researchers have identified populations of neurons that code time with extreme precision in the primate brain. These neurons are found in two interconnected brain regions, the prefrontal cortex and the striatum, both of which are known to play critical roles in learning, movement, and thought control. ...> Full Article

Young adults may outgrow bipolar disorder (9/30/2009)

Bipolar disorder, or manic-depression, causes severe and unusual shifts in mood and energy, affecting a person's ability to perform everyday tasks. With symptoms often starting in early adulthood, bipolar disorder has been thought of traditionally as a lifelong disorder. Now, University of Missouri researchers have found evidence that nearly half of those diagnosed between the ages of 18 and 25 may outgrow the disorder by the time they reach 30. ...> Full Article

You can't trust a tortured brain: Neuroscience discredits coercive interrogation (9/25/2009)

According to a new review of neuroscientific research, coercive interrogation techniques used during the Bush administration to extract information from terrorist suspects are likely to have been unsuccessful and may have had many unintended negative effects on the suspect's memory and brain functions. ...> Full Article

How we know a dog is a dog: Concept acquisition in the human brain (9/25/2009)

A new study explores how our brains synthesize concepts that allow us to organize and comprehend the world. The research, published by Cell Press in the Sept. 24 issue of the journal Neuron, uses behavioral and neuroimaging techniques to track how conceptual knowledge emerges in the human brain and guides decision making. ...> Full Article

Beep, beep, oops, what was I doing? (8/8/2009)

University of Oregon psychologists finding that folks with lots of working memory are not easily distracted ...> Full Article

Scientists obtain real time snapshot of the learning process (8/1/2009)

To learn from experience, it is essential to know whether a past action was associated with a desired outcome. Now, scientists have demonstrated how this information can be coded by a single cell. The research, published in the July 30 issue of the journal Neuron, provides strong support for a neural mechanism that allows reward signals to be combined over time to drive successful learning. ...> Full Article

Why we learn more from our successes than our failures (7/30/2009)

MIT study sheds light on the brain's ability to change in response to learning ...> Full Article

Long-distance brain waves focus attention (6/1/2009)

Just as our world buzzes with distractions -- from phone calls to e-mails to tweets -- the neurons in our brain are bombarded with messages. Research has shown that when we pay attention, some of these neurons begin firing in unison, like a chorus rising above the noise. Now, a study in the May 29 issue of Science reveals the likely brain center that serves as the conductor of this neural chorus. ...> Full Article

Adult brain processes fractions 'effortlessly' (4/9/2009)

Mathematical value intuited without calculation; findings may impact math education ...> Full Article

Activation of the prefrontal cortex improves working memory (4/2/2009)

Working memory or short-term memory is related to the ability to pass intelligence tests and is stored in the parietal cortex. However, the role of other areas activated during use of visual memory is poorly understood. IDIBAPS and Karolinska investigators have programmed a complex virtual system that simulates a network of neurons, according to which the prefrontal cortex reinforces the activation of the parietal cortex. This hypothesis is confirmed by functional magnetic resonance data. ...> Full Article

Stages of sleep have distinct influence on process of learning and memory (3/1/2009)

Research on the sleeping brain has revealed some fascinating stage-dependent interactions between areas involved in formation and storage of long term memories. The study, published by Cell Press in the Feb. 26 issue of the journal Neuron, may also provide a framework for further understanding the role of sleep in memory. ...> Full Article

EEGs show brain differences between poor and rich kids (12/9/2008)

Prefrontal cortex activity in poor children resembles that of stroke victim, study finds ...> Full Article

Stress-related disorders affect brain's processing of memory (12/5/2008)

Researchers using functional MRI have determined that the circuitry in the area of the brain responsible for suppressing memory is dysfunctional in patients suffering from stress-related psychiatric disorders. Results of the study will be presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. ...> Full Article

This is your brain on adolescence (10/22/2008)

A teen's prefrontal cortex - the piece of brain right behind the forehead that is involved in complex decision making - is not capable of the kind of reasoning that allows most grown-ups to make rational decisions ...> Full Article

Neuroscientist Scans Brain For Clues on Best Time to Multitask (9/4/2008)

A new brain imaging study led by a cognitive neuroscientist finds that there are optimal times when we are better suited to multitask. ...> Full Article

Not quite a teen, not fully an adult (8/7/2008)

New report sheds light on young adults' triumphs, traumas ...> Full Article

Study uncovers how Ritalin works in brain to boost cognition, focus attention (6/27/2008)

Ritalin fine-tunes the functioning of neurons in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) - a brain region involved in attention, decision-making and impulse control ...> Full Article

When your memories can no longer be trusted (5/31/2008)

The experience of false memories, known as confabulation, appears centered in the inferior medial prefrontal cortex ...> Full Article

Brain reacts to fairness as it does to money and chocolate, study shows (4/23/2008)

The human brain responds to being treated fairly the same way it responds to winning money and eating chocolate ...> Full Article

Research Suggests Why Scratching is So Relieving (2/2/2008)

In the first study to use imaging technology to see what goes on in the brain when we scratch, researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center have uncovered new clues about why scratching may be so relieving - and why it can be hard to stop. The work is reported online in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology and will appear in a future print issue. ...> Full Article

Meditation can change brain function, psychology study says (12/17/2007)

Feeling stressed or depressed? You may one day be prescribed meditation rather than medication, thanks to a study conducted by researchers from the Department of Psychology and the Centre for Addiction andMental Health (CAMH) at St. Joseph's Hospital. ...> Full Article

Key to False Memories Uncovered (11/9/2007)

Neuroscientists say the places a memory is processed in the brain may determine how someone can be absolutely certain of a past event that never occurred. ...> 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

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