Brain

Male mice appear to be precisely wired to know when they are intruders in another male's territory, according to a study published June 23 in Cell Reports. The smell gives it away. But this study found that a genetically specific cluster of hypothalamic cells is wired to the olfactory system and responds only when a male mouse enters another male's cage.

The reason why treadmill training can boost memory recall remains an active area of investigation. A couple of proteins have been shown to fuel exercise-induced neuron growth, but a June 23 study in Cell Metabolism presents a new candidate, cathepsin B--one that can be directly traced from the muscles to the brain in mice. Also, after a run, protein levels increased in blood in mice, monkeys, and humans.

DURHAM, N.C. -- By combining super-fine electrodes and tiny amounts of a very specific drug, Duke University researchers have singled out a circuit in mouse brains and taken control of it to dial an animal's mood up and down.

Stress-susceptible animals that behaved as if they were depressed or anxious were restored to relatively normal behavior by tweaking the system, according to a study appearing in the July 20 issue of Neuron.

• Neurons are the basic information processing structures in the brain and consist of three parts: dendrites, responsible for receiving information; axons, responsible for sending information; and the soma, the cell body that contains the nucleus.
• For communication between neurons to occur, an electrical impulse, called an action potential, must travel down an axon to its synaptic terminal.
• A major technical challenge impeding the direct examination of this process, axonal excitability, is the small diameter of a typical axon - less than 500 nanometers.

LA JOLLA, CA - June 23, 2016 - A team of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego) and Illumina, Inc., has completed the first large-scale assessment of single neuronal "transcriptomes." Their research reveals a surprising diversity in the molecules that human brain cells use in transcribing genetic information from DNA to RNA and producing proteins.

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- What if lost limbs could be regrown? Cancers detected early with blood or urine tests, instead of invasive biopsies? Drugs delivered via nanoparticles to specific tissues or even cells, minimizing unwanted side effects? While such breakthroughs may sound futuristic, scientists are already exploring these and other promising techniques.

Driverless cars pose a quandary when it comes to safety. These autonomous vehicles are programmed with a set of safety rules, and it is not hard to construct a scenario in which those rules come into conflict with each other. Suppose a driverless car must either hit a pedestrian or swerve in such a way that it crashes and harms its passengers. What should it be instructed to do?

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University researchers have that found a suite of genes in both fruit flies and humans -- including one dubbed "smoke alarm" -- plays a role in nerve sensitivity. The study could help lead to new drug targets in pain management.

The research, published today in the journal Cell Reports, was led by W. Daniel Tracey Jr., a professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences' Linda and Jack Gill Center for Biomolecular Science and the Department of Biology.

A team of researchers has developed the first scalable method to identify different subtypes of neurons in the human brain. The research lays the groundwork for "mapping" the gene activity in the human brain and could help provide a better understanding of brain functions and disorders, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, schizophrenia and depression.

Researchers at Disney Research and Boston University have found that a machine learning program can be trained to detect human activity in a video sooner and more accurately than other methods by rewarding the program for gaining confidence in its prediction the longer it observes the activity.

Researchers from Disney Research and Shanghai's Fudan University have used deep learning techniques to train computer software to recognize events in videos, even categories of events that the software has not previously seen.

Their approach uses both scene and object features from the video and enables associations between these visual elements and each type of event to be automatically determined and weighted by a machine-learning architecture known as a neural network.

Computer vision systems typically learn how to recognize an object by analyzing images of thousands of examples. But scientists at Disney Research have shown that computers also can learn to recognize objects they have never seen before, based in part on studying vocabulary.

As animal tool use events are extremely rare, is often quickly rated as intelligent. Nevertheless, some types of tool use can be controlled by much simpler processes that are a part of the respective animal's inborn behavioural repertoire. Intelligent tool use requires the ability to flexibly adapt a behaviour to changing environmental situations. The Indonesian Goffin's cockatoo has even the rare capacity to use two different types of tools (sticks for probing and raking food into reach as well dropping stones/balls into tubes to knock out a reward inside).

AUGUSTA, Ga. (June 22, 2016) - A molecule that enables strong communication between our brain and muscles appears to also aid essential communication between our neurons, scientists report.

Probability estimates are constantly changing. A 20 per cent chance of rain suddenly goes to 30 per cent and we start thinking about packing an umbrella.

But how differently do we react when a forecast goes from a 40 per cent chance of rain down to 30? According to a new U of T study, the probability of something happening can feel more or less likely to happen depending on an upward or downward change in an estimate.