Brain

The animal brain is so complex, it would take a supercomputer and vast amounts of data to create a detailed 3-D model of the billions of neurons that power it.

But computer scientists and a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Utah have developed software that maps out a monkey's brain and more easily creates a 3-D model, providing a more complete picture of how the brain is wired. Their process was announced this week at Neuroscience 2015, the annual Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago.

Activities outside the classroom - especially community engagement and sports - may help low-income, urban youth academically as they transition into middle school, according to a new study by NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

The findings, published online in the American Journal of Community Psychology, suggest that participating in extracurricular activities may be protective for low-income youth by providing a setting for development outside the classroom.

Facial color is suggestive of emotional states, as in the phrases: "flushed with anger" and "pale with fear." Although some behavioral studies have investigated the effects of facial color on expression, there is limited neurophysiological evidence showing the effects of facial color on emotional expression perception.

Unlike cooperation among individuals that meet on a regular basis, one-shot interactions among strangers are not motivated by the prospect of receiving a favour in return. So why bother being helpful? In an attempt to shed light on the evolutionary puzzle of what factors result in cooperation among genetically unrelated individuals who meet only once, two German researchers examined a situation well-known to everyone: standing in line at the checkout of a supermarket.

Brain imaging reveals how neural responses to different types of music really affect the emotion regulation of persons. The study proves that especially men who process negative feelings with music react negatively to aggressive and sad music.

Daijin Kim and his team at POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology), South Korea, have developed a virtual dance teacher that can make learning famous K-Pop dances easier at home by precisely tracking 3D body joints. Kim presented the relevant technical paper at ICIP 2015 (IEEE International Conference on Image Processing 2015).

Recordings from echolocating bat brains have for the first time given researchers a view into how mammals understand 3-D space.

By training bats to fly around obstacles in a room, and sit patiently on a platform, a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research team were able to interpret how the animals use echolocation -- a high-frequency sound navigation system that bats use to hunt -- to sense their environment. The results were presented today at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

Alzheimer's patients frequently suffer from sleep disorders, mostly even before they become forgetful. Furthermore, it is known that sleep plays a very important role in memory formation. Researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have now been able to show for the first time how the pathological changes in the brain act on the information-storing processes during sleep. Using animal models, they were able to decode the exact mechanism and alleviate the impairment with medicinal agents.

JERUSALEM (October 22, 2015)--Major depression, which afflicts one in six people at some point in their life, is the leading global cause of disability - surpassing cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, cancer and HIV/AIDS combined.

AUGUSTA, Ga. - At its most basic level, the brain is about the power of two, says Medical College of Georgia neuroscientist Dr. Joe Z. Tsien.

He postulates in his "Theory of Connectivity" that, not unlike high school, where a human clique includes your closest friends, a neural clique is typically comprised of a couple of similar neurons. But unlike most transient teenage cliques, neural cliques provide a basic, prewired framework for how neurons connect and function lifelong.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have identified neurons in a cockroach's brain that control whether the insect walks slow or fast, turns right or left or downshifts to climb.

By selectively stimulating these same neurons, the scientists can cause the roach to replicate the movements.

The finding makes clear how the insect brain directs the body to move in an intended direction, including changes in joint coordination and reflexes.

SALT LAKE CITY, Oct. 22, 2015 - If you think it is okay to talk to your car infotainment system or smartphone while driving or even when stopped at a red light, think again. It takes up to 27 seconds to regain full attention after issuing voice commands, University of Utah researchers found in a pair of new studies for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

Professors Martin Makary and Timothy Pawlik at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore say that as well as detecting unprofessional behaviour, video recording has the potential to radically improve quality through increased accountability, and can be used for learning and self improvement.

If concerns about consent, privacy, and data security are dealt with carefully, "video data can tell a story that simply cannot be matched by written documentation," they write.

This is it, kids: official permission to stop listening to what your parents tell you--but only if you're a bird. Many animal parents spend time teaching their young about how to find food and avoid danger, and this usually gives a big boost to their offspring. In a Commentary forthcoming in The Condor: Ornithological Applications, however, Vladimir Dinets of Louisiana State University makes the case that when environmental conditions change, relying on their parents' way of doing things can actually hinder, not help, young cranes.

Lincoln, Neb., Oct. 21, 2015 -- New research led by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has provided the first direct evidence that an algae-infecting virus can invade and potentially replicate within some mammalian cells.

Known as Acanthocystis turfacea chlorella virus 1, or ATCV-1, the pathogen is among a class of chloroviruses long believed to take up residence only in green algae. That thinking changed with a 2014 study from Johns Hopkins University and UNL that found gene sequences resembling those of ATCV-1 in throat swabs of human participants.