Neuroscience

Ability To Detect Sugar Varies Widely In Kids (And Everyone Else)

Taste buds vary widely in humans, which is one reason why some kids prefer sweet or salty treats and others do not, but it may also be the reason that some kids need more sugar to get that same sweet taste.   ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 15 2015 - 12:00pm

Amygdala Influences Kindness, Charitable Behavior

The amygdala, a small structure at the front end of the brain's temporal lobe, has long been associated with negative behaviors generally, and specifically with fear. But new research shows this collection of nuclei can also influence positive social ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 15 2015 - 10:52am

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy Confirmed As Disease That Can Be Definitively Diagnosed

(Boston)--For the first time, CTE has been confirmed as a unique disease that can be definitively diagnosed by neuropathological examination of brain tissue. A consensus panel of expert neuropathologists concluded that CTE has a pathognomonic signature in ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 16 2015 - 8:01am

Wired Different: Compulsive Video Game Player Brains

Brain scans from nearly 200 adolescent boys provide evidence that the brains of compulsive video game players are wired differently. Chronic video game play is associated with hyperconnectivity between several pairs of brain networks. Some of the changes ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 21 2015 - 4:56pm

Jazz And Blues: Emotional Expression Affects Brain Creativity Network In Musicians

Over the past decade, neuroimaging studies, basically taking snapshots of neural circuitry as behavior occurs and mapping cause to effect, have sought to identify components of a neural circuit that operates across various domains of creativity. A new pap ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 4 2016 - 10:09am

Brain Connectivity Changes Protect Against Developing Bipolar Disorder

Naturally occurring changes in brain wiring can help patients at high genetic risk of developing bipolar disorder avert the onset of the illness, according to a new study in Translational Psychiatry.   Bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illn ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 12 2016 - 12:04am

Singin' In The Brain

A songbirds' vocal muscles work like those of human speakers and singers, finds a new study. The research on Bengalese finches showed that each of their vocal muscles can change its function to help produce different parameters of sounds, in a manner ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 12 2016 - 12:08pm

Maybe A Human Sound Is Worth A Thousand Words

Human sounds may convey emotions clearer and faster than words, according to a new paper. It takes just one-tenth of a second for our brains to begin to recognize emotions conveyed by vocalizations, according to the researchers\. It doesn't matter whe ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 19 2016 - 7:30am

Brain Function Differs In Obese Children

The brains of children who are obese function differently from those of children of healthy weight, and exhibit an "imbalance" between food-seeking and food-avoiding behaviors, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have found. Diet ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 26 2016 - 10:01am

25 Point Drop In IQ Linked To Lack Of 16p11.2 Gene Copy

Dr. Sébastien Jacquemont, a geneticist at the University of Montreal, has correlated genetics to intelligence. "We have just discovered, for example, that a missing copy of a region in chromosome 16 results in a 25-point intelligence quotient (IQ) dr ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 27 2016 - 9:07am