Neuroscience

Your Brain Can Still Pay Attention During Sleep- And Science Can Now Hear What Your Sleeping Brain Hears

Our brains can track the sounds in its environment while we sleep, and favor the most relevant ones, according to a recent study. No great new information there. Everyone has woken up from sleep because of noise. But the mechanism that allows us (and some ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 14 2019 - 11:15am

Why We Fail At New Year’s Resolutions, And What To Do About It

The new year has only just begun, yet by Valentine’s Day some 80 percent of us will have already given up on those well-intentioned commitments – at least according to University of Minnesota researcher Marti Hope Gonzales. Why is that? ...

Article - Michael Merzenich - Jan 23 2019 - 8:00am

Honeybees Do Arithmetic

Bees have tiny brains but that is all relative; It seems they also possess complex number skills. Lots of animals count as shown by how many engage in foraging, shoaling, and resource management arithmetic, addition and subtraction, is rare, only a few non ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 6 2019 - 5:39pm

Did Sucking Bone Marrow Give Humans Our Big Brains?

Long before human ancestors began hunting large mammals for meat, a fatty diet provided them with the nutrition to develop bigger brains, according to a paper in Current Anthropology. The paper argues that our early ancestors acquired a taste for fat by ea ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 7 2019 - 3:24pm

Oxytocin And Vasopressin- An Experiment Tackles The Chemistry Of Love And Altruism

Love is a complex topic. You love your dog differently than you love chocolate. There are times when you might put your dog, or a loved one, ahead of yourself, but you would never jump in front of a moving car to save chocolate. ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Feb 12 2019 - 12:49pm

The Genetics Of Having Perfect Pitch

Perfect pitch may be more strongly under genetic control than previously thought, according to a new study. Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven were able to precisely identify musical notes and there is certainly a genetic component to music like there is math or ...

Article - News Staff - Feb 12 2019 - 2:41pm

4 Drug Cocktail Regenerates Neurons Following Neural Insult

     Neuronal loss/destruction is the leading cause of symptoms in patients suffering from neural injury or neurodegenerative disorders. Following neural insult astrocytes proliferate and become active glial cells to form glial scarring in order to protec ...

Blog Post - Scott Beers - Feb 25 2019 - 11:21am

Scottish Woman Has Lived Her Life Pain Free, And Never Realized That Was Different

A woman in Scotland can feel virtually no pain due to a mutation in a previously-unidentified gene, FAAH-OUT, according to a new research paper in the British Journal of Anaesthesia. She also experiences very little anxiety and fear, and may have enhanced ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 28 2019 - 12:15pm

Your Brain On Deception: Why April Fools’ Day Pranks Work

I enjoy hearing about or even falling for a good harmless prank — and I certainly enjoy pulling a child or two’s string, in a cheerful, happy way, just to keep them on their toes — so, April Fools’ is one of my favorite days of the year. The holiday unders ...

Article - Michael Merzenich - Mar 29 2019 - 11:56am

New Genetic Markers For 'Chemobrain', Cognitive Impairment Associated With Cancer Treatment

Scholars recently characterized plasma levels of the biomarker dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and its sulfated form (DHEAS) – jointly referred to as DHEA(S) – to be biological determinants of chemobrain, difficulties related to memory and attention in cance ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 24 2019 - 1:55pm