now they are imprinted in your brain. Basic psychological research has shown already that the psychological mechanism behind this repetition effect is the easiness with
Repeatedly perceived information is easier to process for the brain which saves capacity and thus feels positive.
During inner speech the brain attempts to utter the novel name. When names are presented repeatedly this articulation simulation is trained
It s a bit like the plant s brain#says Singh.##oealthough in the past scientists have identified it as the pathway that regulates the way a variety of genes are expressed until now no one had made the link with PHS.#
#Study shows how neurons enable us to know smells we like and dislike, whether to approach or retreatthink of the smell of freshly baking bread.
New research by neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) published in The Journal of Neuroscience reveals a set of cells in the fruit fly brain that respond specifically to food odors.
Remarkably the team finds that the degree to which these neurons respond when the fly is presented different food odors--apple mango banana--predicts incredibly well how much the flies will given'like'a odor says the lead author of the research paper Jennifer Beshel Ph d. a postdoctoral investigator in the laboratory of CSHL
Dr. Zhong and I wanted to find the part of the brain that might be responsible for these types of behavior.
Is there somewhere in the brain that deals with food odors in particular? How does brain activity change
when we are hungry? Can we manipulate such a brain area and change behavior? When Beshel and Zhong examined the response of neurons expressing a peptide called dnpf to a range of odors they saw that they only responded to food odors.
dnpf is the fly analog of appetite-inducing Neuropeptide y found in people. Moreover the neurons responded more to these same food odors
when flies were hungry. The amplitude of their response could in fact predict with great accuracy how much the flies would like a given food odor--i e. move toward it;
the scientists needed simply to look at the responses of the dnpf-expressing neurons. When they switched off these neurons the researchers were able to make flies treat their most favored odor
as if it were just air. Conversely if they remotely turned these neurons on they could make flies suddenly approach odors they previously had tried to avoid.
As Dr. Beshel explains: The more general idea is that there are areas in the brain that might be involved specifically in saying:'
'This is great I should really approach this.''The activity of neurons in other areas in the brain might only take note of what something isis it apple?
fish? --without registering or ascribing to it any particular value whether about its intrinsic desirability or its attractiveness at a given moment.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
In their experiments the researchers used the genetic model system Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) that was engineered genetically in such a way that neurons activated by DEET glowed fluorescent green.
and R01ai087785) and the National Institute of Neurological disorders and Stroke (grant R21ns074332) and internal funding from UCR.
In the Journal of Pineal Research scientists from the University of Granada Institute for Neuroscience the Hospital Carlos III Madrid and the University of Texas Health Science Center in San antonio (USA) have revealed for the first time the previously unknown
In the operation the source of Vandyke's seizures--a lesion on her right medial temporal lobe--was destroyed with heat generated by light from a thin laser-tipped probe inserted into her brain through a tiny hole in her skull
Our initial indications are that this is a really effective therapy said Wake Forest Baptist neurosurgeon Adrian Laxton M d. who performed the operation on Vandyke.
which involves removing part of the skull cutting through healthy brain matter and physically removing the problem tissue followed by a weeklong hospital stay and prolonged recovery period.
which abnormal electrical impulses in the brain affect a variety of mental and physical functions.
As a patient of neurologist Cormac O'Donovan M d. Vandyke underwent an extensive series of scans tests and assessments through
Some of the same brain regions and neurological chemicals that control human social behavior are involved probably in fish social behavior as well.'
and nutritious and our systematic review shows it may help to protect the ageing brain by reducing the risk of dementia.
what we see according to a study published this month by University of Wisconsin-Madison cognitive scientist and psychology professor Gary Lupyan and Emily Ward a Yale university graduate student in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Experiments have shown that continuous flash suppression interrupts sight so thoroughly that there are no signals in the brain to suggest the invisible objects are perceived even implicitly.
Unless they can tell us they saw it there's nothing to suggest the brain was taking it in at all Lupyan says.
and reach potentially sensitive sites such as the spleen brain liver and heart. The growing trend to use other types of nanoparticles has revolutionized the food industry by enhancing flavors improving supplement delivery keeping food fresh longer
The research team developing the drug--led by scientists at the Nanomedicine Research center part of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute in the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical center--conducted the study in laboratory mice with implanted human
and a gene of Herceptin said Julia Y. Ljubimova MD Phd professor of neurosurgery and biomedical sciences and director of the Nanomedicine Research center.
and Cedars-Sinai chemists Eggehard Holler Phd professor in the Department of Neurosurgery and Hui Ding Phd assistant professor performed the technically difficult task of attaching it to the nanoplatform.
or pizza than for whole grains and leafy green vegetables suggests a new study from UC Berkeley that examines the brain regions that control food choices.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri) UC Berkeley researchers scanned the brains of 23 healthy young adults first after a normal night's sleep and next after a sleepless night.
They found impaired activity in the sleep-deprived brain's frontal lobe which governs complex decision-making
but increased activity in deeper brain centers that respond to rewards. Moreover the participants favored unhealthy snack and junk foods when they were sleep deprived.
What we have discovered is that high-level brain regions required for complex judgments and decisions become blunted by a lack of sleep
while more primal brain structures that control motivation and desire are amplified said Matthew walker a UC Berkeley professor of psychology and neuroscience and senior author of the study published Aug 6 in the journal Nature Communications.
Moreover he added high-calorie foods also became significantly more desirable when participants were sleep-deprived.
This combination of altered brain activity and decision-making may help explain why people who sleep less also tend to be overweight or obese.
but the latest findings provide a specific brain mechanism explaining why food choices change for the worse following a sleepless night Walker said.
These results shed light on how the brain becomes impaired by sleep deprivation leading to the selection of more unhealthy foods
and Neuroimaging Laboratory and lead author of the paper. Another co-author of the study is Andrea Goldstein also a doctoral student in Walker's lab. In this newest study researchers measured brain activity as participants viewed a series of 80 food images that ranged from high-to low-calorie
and healthy and unhealthy and rated their desire for each of the items. As an incentive they were given the food they most craved after the MRI scan.
On a positive note Walker said the findings indicate that getting enough sleep is one factor that can help promote weight control by priming the brain mechanisms governing appropriate food choices.
When they bind a chemical compound drifting through the air the nerve cell sends an impulse to the brain leading ultimately to the perception of a smell.
but this study indicates that nutrition is a big factor too said Bita Moghaddam lead author of the paper and professor of neuroscience in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of arts and Sciences.
We observed changes in areas of the brain responsible for decision making and habit formation. The team is now exploring epigenetics as a potential cause.
Likewise the team is exploring markers of inflammation in the brain since omega-3 deficiencies causes an increase of omega-6 fats which are proinflammatory molecules in the brain and other tissues.
It's remarkable that a relatively common dietary change can have said generational effects Moghaddam. It indicates that our diet does not merely affect us in the short-term
The team also included from the National institutes of health Stanley Rapoport senior investigator and chief of the brain physiology and metabolism unit;
and it does not seem to change the game said Alexander Powers M d. assistant professor of neurosurgery at Wake Forest Baptist
This may be very important in kids where brains are developing. Coaching style also had a major influence on factors such as the types of drills used in practice
Your brain can't work if you're not consuming enough calories and in general that's not a problem explained Krista Casazza Ph d. R. D. assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition Sciences.
#Parasites change bees brains, but not their behaviorhoney bees Apis mellifera) infected with the parasitic mite Varroa destructor
and in their brains finds research in Biomed Central's open access journal BMC Ecology.
Parasitization caused changes in the levels of active genes in the brains of infected bees.
However very few studies have analyzed the impact of parasites on bee phenotypes e g. brain and behavior.
We found that parasitized bees were attacked not by their nestmates suggesting that they leave the hive voluntarily perhaps in response to the changes in gene expression in their brains.
Silicon oxide memories transcend a hurdlea Rice university laboratory pioneering memory devices that use cheap plentiful silicon oxide to store data has pushed them a step further with chips that show the technology's practicality.
The crossbar memories built by the Rice lab are flexible resist heat and radiation and show promise for stacking in three-dimensional arrays.
Rudimentary silicon memories made in the Tour lab are now aboard the International Space station where they are being tested for their ability to hold a pattern
It will be industry's job to scale this into commercial memories but this demonstration shows it can be done.
#Live from the hens egglike a contortionist twisted the chick is lying in its eggshell brain eyes and beak visible in levels of grey.
We have focused on the brain and the vitreous body of the eye as bright and distinctive identifying features.
One of the keys to the success of this research was our cloning of a mosquito sodium channel for the first time said Ke Dong MSU insect toxicologist and neurobiologist and the paper's senior author.
Experiments conducted on the fruit fly Drosophila by scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried have shown that hunger not only modifies behaviour but also changes pathways in the brain.
Neurobiologists in Martinsried have discovered now how the brain deals with this constant conflict in deciding between a hazardous substance and a potential food source taking advantage of the fly as a great genetic model organism for circuit neuroscience.
But how does the brain manage to decide between these options? Avoiding carbon dioxide is an innate behaviour
and should therefore be generated outside the mushroom body in the fly's brain: previously the nerve cells in the mushroom body were linked only with learning
In further studies the researchers identified a projection neuron which transports the carbon dioxide information to the mushroom body.
In hungry animals however the nerve cells are in the mushroom body and the projection neuron
If mushroom body or projection neuron activity is blocked only hungry flies are concerned no longer about the carbon dioxide explains Ilona Grunwald-Kadow who headed the study.
'but will use brain centres to gauge internal and external signals and reach a balanced decision explains Grunwald-Kadow.
and hunger affect the processing systems in the brain she adds. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.
and behavior in smell recognitionbehind the common expression you can't compare apples to oranges lies a fundamental question of neuroscience:
How does the brain recognize that apples and oranges are different? A group of neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has published new research that provides some answers.
In the fruit fly the ability to distinguish smells lies in a region of the brain called the mushroom body (MB.
Prior research has demonstrated that the MB is associated with learning and memory especially in relation to the sense of smell also known as olfaction.
CSHL Associate professor Glenn Turner and colleagues have mapped now the activity of brain cells in the MB in flies conditioned to have Pavlovian behavioral responses to different odors.
Their results outlined in a paper published today by the Journal of Neuroscience suggest that the activity of a remarkably small number of neurons--as few as 25--is required to be able to distinguish between different odors.
These intriguing new findings are part of a broad effort in contemporary neuroscience to determine how the brain easily the most complex organ in any animal manages to make a mass of raw sensory data intelligible to the individual
Looking closely at Kenyon cellsthe neurons in the fly MB are known as Kenyon cells named after their discoverer the neuroscientist Frederick Kenyon who was the first person to stain
and visualize individual neurons in the insect brain. Kenyon cells receive sensory inputs from organs that perceive smell taste sight and sound.
Kenyon cells make up only about 4%of the entire fly brain and are extremely sensitive to inputs triggered by odors in
which only two connections between neurons called synapses separate them from the receptor cells at the front end of the olfactory system.
But in contrast to other regions of the brain such as the vertebrate hippocampus the sensory responses in the MB are few in number and relatively weak.
It is the sparseness of the signals in the Kenyon cell neurons that makes studying memory formation in flies
Turner suspects the very selectiveness of the response helps in the accurate formation and recall of memories.
when brain activity suggested the flies had difficulty discerning the odors their behavior also showed they could not choose between them.
Ultimately he and colleagues hope to be able to relate their findings in the fly brain with the operation of the brain in mammals.
Imaging a population code for odor identity in the Drosophila mushroom body is published online in Journal of Neuroscience on June 19 2013.
This is yet more evidence for the need to protect the vulnerable developing brain from effects of environmental contaminants both before
Activate your anterior cingulate cortex with a little meditationscientists like Buddhist monks and Zen masters have known for years that meditation can reduce anxiety but not how.
Scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical center however have succeeded in identifying the brain functions involved. Although we've known that meditation can reduce anxiety we hadn't identified the specific brain mechanisms involved in relieving anxiety in healthy individuals said Fadel Zeidan Ph d. postdoctoral research fellow in neurobiology
and anatomy at Wake Forest Baptist and lead author of the study. In this study we were able to see which areas of the brain were activated and
which were deactivated during meditation-related anxiety relief. The study is published in the current edition of the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
For the study 15 healthy volunteers with normal levels of everyday anxiety were recruited for the study.
Both before and after meditation training the study participants'brain activity was examined using a special type of imaging--arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging--that is very effective at imaging brain processes such as meditation.
In addition anxiety reports were measured before and after brain scanning. The majority of study participants reported decreases in anxiety.
The study revealed that meditation-related anxiety relief is associated with activation of the anterior cingulate cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex areas of the brain involved with executive-level function.
During meditation there was more activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex the area of the brain that controls worrying.
In addition when activity increased in the anterior cingulate cortex--the area that governs thinking and emotion--anxiety decreased.
and feelings Zeidan said Interestingly the present findings reveal that the brain regions associated with meditation-related anxiety relief are remarkably consistent with the principles of being mindful.
The results of this neuroimaging experiment complement that body of knowledge by showing the brain mechanisms associated with meditation-related anxiety relief in healthy people he said.
He notes that changes in diet have been linked to both larger brain size and the advent of upright walking in human ancestors roughly 4 million years ago.
Human brains were larger than those of other primates by the time our Genus homo evolved 2 million years ago.
If diet has anything to do with the evolution of larger brain size and intelligence then we are considering a diet that is very different than we were thinking about 15 years ago
Neurobiological studies of the moth brain revealed that E-and Z-odors lead to different activation patterns.
and neurons on their antennae says Bill Hansson director of the institute. The combination of such neurological experiments and ecological field studies are very promising
and her colleagues can image the brains of live birds in a noninvasive environment. MRI is used widely with human beings
which makes any findings derived from songbirds highly applicable to working with the human brain. Until recently fmri in small animals was focused mainly on rats
Thus far songbird brains have been studied using electrophysiological and histological techniques. However these approaches do not provide a global view of the brain
and do not allow repeated long-term developmental measurements. Using the songbird model and MRI as an in vivo tool allows us to answer many questions related to learning language and neuroendocrinological plasticity.
Proud to be included in this significant new section Dr. Van der Linden says MRI imaging techniques should in the near future lead to major conceptual advances in the study of how the brain changes behavior
and how behavior changes the brain both in health and disease. These advances will be due mainly to the inherent capacity of fmri for repeated measures over longitudinal studies.
and the detection of novelty in vertebrates also kicks into high gear in the brains of honey bees
Activity of this gene called Egr quickly increases in a region of the brain known as the mushroom bodies
This discovery gives us an important lead in figuring out how honey bees are able to navigate so well with such a tiny brain said Gene Robinson a professor of entomology
and neuroscience and director of the Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois. And finding that it's Egr with all that this gene is known to do in vertebrates provides another demonstration that some of the molecular mechanisms underlying behavioral plasticity
#Changing gut bacteria through diet affects brain functionucla researchers now have the first evidence that bacteria ingested in food can affect brain function in humans.
In an early proof-of-concept study of healthy women they found that women who regularly consumed beneficial bacteria known as probiotics through yogurt showed altered brain function both
and Gerald Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress and the Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center at UCLA appears in the June edition of the peer-reviewed journal Gastroenterology.
or microbiota in the gut can affect the brain carries significant implications for future research that could point the way toward dietary
or drug interventions to improve brain function the researchers said. Many of us have a container of yogurt in our refrigerator that we may eat for enjoyment for calcium
Our findings indicate that some of the contents of yogurt may actually change the way our brain responds to the environment.
Researchers have known that the brain sends signals to the gut which is why stress and other emotions can contribute to gastrointestinal symptoms.
Our study shows that the gut-brain connection is a two-way street.##The small study involved 36 women between the ages of 18 and 55.
and after the four-week study period looked at the women's brains in a state of rest and in response to an emotion-recognition task in
This task designed to measure the engagement of affective and cognitive brain regions in response to a visual stimulus was chosen
--which processes and integrates internal body sensations like those form the gut--and the somatosensory cortex during the emotional reactivity task.
Further in response to the task these women had a decrease in the engagement of a widespread network in the brain that includes emotion-cognition-and sensory-related areas.
During the resting brain scan the women consuming probiotics showed greater connectivity between a key brainstem region known as the periaqueductal grey and cognition-associated areas of the prefrontal cortex.
The researchers were surprised to find that the brain effects could be seen in many areas including those involved in sensory processing
The knowledge that signals are sent from the intestine to the brain and that they can be modulated by a dietary change is likely to lead to an expansion of research aimed at finding new strategies to prevent
and neurological disorders said Dr. Emeran Mayer a professor of medicine physiology and psychiatry at the David Geffen School of medicine at UCLA and the study's senior author.
but also affects brain function. The UCLA researchers are seeking to pinpoint particular chemicals produced by gut bacteria that may be triggering the signals to the brain.
They also plan to study whether people with gastrointestinal symptoms such as bloating abdominal pain and altered bowel movements have improvements in their digestive symptoms
which correlate with changes in brain response. Meanwhile Mayer notes that other researchers are studying the potential benefits of certain probiotics in yogurts on mood symptoms such as anxiety.
By demonstrating the brain effects of probiotics the study also raises the question of whether repeated courses of antibiotics can affect the brain as some have speculated.
Antibiotics are used extensively in neonatal intensive care units and in childhood respiratory tract infections and such suppression of the normal microbiota may have longterm consequences on brain development.
Finally as the complexity of the gut flora and its effect on the brain is understood better researchers may find ways to manipulate the intestinal contents to treat chronic pain conditions
or other brain related diseases including potentially Parkinson's disease Alzheimer's disease and autism. Answers will be easier to come by in the near future as the declining cost of profiling a person's microbiota renders such tests more routine Mayer said.
The study was funded by Danone Research. Mayer has served on the company's scientific advisory board. Three of the study authors (Denis Guyonnet Sophie Legrain-Raspaud and Beatrice Trotin) are employed by Danone Research
The research appears in the May 28 2013 print issue of Neurology the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The above story is provided based on materials by American Academy of Neurology (AAN. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and feeding behaviour was impaired by the neurotoxin. Failure of conventional toxicity testingthe slow starvation effect observed under constant exposure to low levels of neonicotinoids is detected not by conventional toxicity tests as they are carried not out over a period of several weeks.
Beginning around two million years ago early stone toolmaking humans known scientifically as Oldowan hominin started to exhibit a number of physiological and ecological adaptations that required greater daily energy expenditures including an increase in brain
and scavenging behaviors-cornerstone adaptations that likely facilitated brain expansion in human evolution movement of hominins out of Africa and into Eurasia as well as important shifts in our social behavior anatomy and physiology
and hyenas were unable to break them open to access their nutrient-rich brains. Tool-wielding hominins at KJS on the other hand could access this tissue
and consuming the brains. This is important because it provides the earliest archaeological evidence of this type of resource transport behavior in the human lineage.
The study appearing today in Annals of Neurology a journal of the American Neurological Association
and Child Neurology Society suggests that eating foods that contain even a small amount of nicotine such as peppers
Parkinson's disease is a movement disorder caused by a loss of brain cells that produce dopamine. Symptoms include facial hand arm
but symptoms are treated with medications and procedures such as deep brain stimulation. Previous studies have found that cigarette smoking and other forms of tobacco also a Solanaceae plant reduced relative risk of Parkinson's disease.
or if people who develop Parkinson's disease are simply less apt to use tobacco because of differences in the brain that occur early in the disease process long before diagnosis. For the present population-based study Dr. Susan Searles Nielsen
and colleagues from the University of Washington in Seattle recruited 490 patients newly diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at the university's Neurology Clinic or a regional health maintenance organization Group Health Cooperative.
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