Neuroscience

Babies Feel Pain 'Like Adults', Finds MRI Study

The brains of babies 'light up' like adults when exposed to the same painful stimulus, according to a small brain imaging study, and that suggests babies experience pain much like adults. The study looked at 10 healthy infants aged between one a ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 28 2015 - 8:00am

Some Neurons Outsource Their Cell Body

Nerve cells come in very different shapes and a new paper reveals why, in insects, the cell body is usually located at the end of a separate extension. Nerve cells follow a functional design: They receive input signals over more or less ramified cell bran ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 22 2015 - 2:18pm

The Depression Serotonin Link Is A Myth

The widely held belief that depression is due to low levels of serotonin in the brain and that raising those levels is an effective treatment is invalid, according to David Healy, Professor of Psychiatry at the Hergest psychiatric unit in North Wales. Inst ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 21 2015 - 6:23pm

How The Brain Translates Sound

When people hear the sound of footsteps or the drilling of a woodpecker, the rhythmic structure of the sounds is striking, says Michael Wehr, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, and even when the temporal structure of a sound is less ob ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 27 2015 - 8:45am

The Brain's Source Of Power

Neurons are more independent than previously believed- a finding which has implications for a range of neurological disorders and how nerve cells in the brain generate the energy needed to function.  The brain requires a tremendous amount of energy to do ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 27 2015 - 8:28am

Neurons Rewrite Their DNA On The Go

Scientists have discovered that neurons use minor "DNA surgeries" to toggle their activity levels all day, every day, and since these activity levels are important in learning, memory and brain disorders, it could shed light on a range of import ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 27 2015 - 5:09pm

One-Shot Learning: Now With A Switch

Most of the time, we learn only gradually, incrementally building connections between actions or events and outcomes. But there are exceptions--every once in a while, something happens and we immediately learn to associate that stimulus with a result. For ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 28 2015 - 6:23pm

Positive Vs. Negative Association Brain Circuitry Discovered In Mice

Neuroscientists have discovered brain circuitry for encoding positive and negative learned associations in mice. After finding that two circuits showed opposite activity following fear and reward learning, the researchers proved that this divergent activi ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 29 2015 - 2:59pm

Functional Differences In Brain Communication Of Cocaine Users

The brain function of people addicted to cocaine is different from that of people who are not addicted, and often linked to highly impulsive behavior. The variation in the way that different regions of the brain connect, communicate and function in people ...

Article - News Staff - May 2 2015 - 11:30am

Space Travel Worry: Cosmic Ray Exposure Leads To Dementia-Like Impairments

There is discussion of a U.S. manned mission to Mars but if recent history is any indication, the next president will undo the space program of the current one, just as the current one undid the manned space program of the last. It may be for the best, at ...

Article - News Staff - May 2 2015 - 8:00am