If you suffer traumatic brain injury, your risk of having a stroke within three months may increase tenfold, according to a new study reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Brain
NIH-funded scientists have developed a strain of mice with a built-in off switch that can selectively shut down the animals' serotonin-producing cells, which make up a brain network controlling breathing, temperature regulation, and mood. The switch controls only the serotonin-producing cells, and does not affect any other cells in the animal's brains or bodies.
"The problem the bat is facing is that it's flying around in this really complicated environment. It's getting all these echoes back [from the sonar broadcasts it emits], and the echoes are all arriving at almost the same time," said Bates, lead author on the Science paper. "And they have no trouble at all dealing with that. We're trying to figure out perceptually how these bats distinguish an echo from a nearby target from all the background echoes that are arriving within a similar time window."
Boston, MA (July 28, 2011) — Researchers have developed a toolkit that enables them to turn off targeted cell populations while leaving others unaffected.
WORCESTER, Mass. – Escape responses are some of the most studied behaviors by neurobiologists who want to understand how the brain processes sensory information. The ability to evade predators plays a vital role in the process of natural selection. Animals explore their environment to find food, find mates and locate new habitats, and have developed distinct escape responses to avoid predators, thereby increasing their chances for survival. Yet there are few examples that illustrate a complete understanding of the basic biological mechanisms of behavior with its ecological relevance.
The human brain is the most complex of all organs, containing billions of neurons with their corresponding projections, all woven together in a highly complex, three-dimensional web. To date, mapping this vast network posed a practically insurmountable challenge to scientists. Now, however, a research team from the Heidelberg-based Max Planck Institute for Medical Research has developed a method for tackling the mammoth task.
A scientist at the Gladstone Institutes has discovered a novel way to convert human skin cells into brain cells, advancing medicine and human health by offering new hope for regenerative medicine and personalized drug discovery and development.
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but clueless copycatting comes at a cost.
As anyone who has been subjected to the mocking playground game knows, parroting can be annoying. Yet gentle mimicry can act as a kind of "social glue" in human relationships. It fosters rapport and trust. It signals cohesion. Two people who like each other will often unconsciously mirror each other's mannerisms in subtle ways – leaning forward in close synchrony, for example – and that strengthens their bond.
Researchers at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona have developed an electronic tongue which can identify different types of cava wines, thanks to a combination of sensor systems and advanced mathematical procedures. The device automatically produces classifications similar to those of a sommelier.
Tel Aviv — For years, teachers have been complaining about large class sizes, an old-fashioned learning environment and a lack of support for students with different learning styles. Now Dovi Weiss, a Ph.D. student from Tel Aviv University's Jaime and Joan Constantiner School of Education and the Chief Pedagogical Officer of the Israeli company Time To Know, has developed a new digital teaching platform integrating technology, a digital curriculum, real-time class participation, and instant educator empowerment — and it's already revolutionizing classrooms in New York and Texas.
In humans, inherited mutations in a gene called HPRT1 lead to very specific self-destructive behavior. Boys with Lesch-Nyhan disease experience uncontrollable urges to bite their fingers, slam their arms into doorways and otherwise harm themselves.
Puzzlingly, mice with mutations in the same gene don't behave differently than normal mice. Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine have identified a gene related to HPRT1, present in humans but not in mice that helps explain this discrepancy.
The results were published this week by the journal PLoS One.
Brains shrink in humans, potentially causing a number of health problems and mental illnesses as people age, but do they shrink to the same extent in the closest living relatives to humans--the chimpanzees?
New research says no, making the extreme amount of brain shrinkage resulting from normal aging in humans unique.
Children and adolescents who use mobile phones are not at a statistically significant increased risk of brain cancer compared to their peers who do not use mobile phones, according to a study published July 27 in the Journal of The National Cancer Institute.
Yale University researchers can't tell you where you left your car keys- but they can tell you why you can't find them.
A new study published July 27 in the journal Nature shows the neural networks in the brains of the middle-aged and elderly have weaker connections and fire less robustly than in youthful ones, Intriguingly, the research suggests that this condition is reversible.
STANFORD, Calif. — Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have been able to switch on, and then switch off, social-behavior deficits in mice that resemble those seen in people with autism and schizophrenia, thanks to a technology that allows scientists to precisely manipulate nerve activity in the brain. In synchrony with this experimentally induced socially aberrant behavior, the mice exhibited a brain-wave pattern called gamma oscillation that has been associated with autism and schizophrenia in humans, the researchers say.