Brain and mind news and Brain Teasers

Kids Think Eyeglasses Make Other Kids Look Smart - Young children tend to think that other kids with glasses look smarter than kids who don’t wear glasses, according to a new study. May 13, 2008

Why Emotional Memories Of Traumatic Life Events Are So Persistent - Emotional memories of traumatic life events such as accidents, war experiences or serious illnesses are stored in a particularly robust way by the brain. May 12, 2008

New Link To Schizophrenia Discovered - Neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins have discovered that mice lacking an enzyme that contributes to Alzheimer disease exhibit a number of schizophrenia-like behaviors. May 9, 2008

Does The Brain Control Muscles Or Movements? - One of the major scientific questions about the brain is how it can translate the simple intent to perform an action - say, reach for a glass - into the dynamic, coordinated symphony of muscle movements required for that action. May 8, 2008

Is Bipolar Disorder Overdiagnosed? - A new study by Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University researchers reports that fewer than half the patients previously diagnosed with bipolar disorder received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder based on a comprehensive, psychiatric diagnostic interview - the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID). May 7, 2008

Brain-training To Improve Memory Boosts Fluid Intelligence - Brain-training efforts designed to improve working memory can also boost scores in general problem-solving ability and improve fluid intelligence, according to new University of Michigan research. May 6, 2008

Weight Loss Possible When Self-belief High - If you are what you eat, what you eat has a lot to do with how you think about yourself, says a QUT PhD researcher whose study is part of an international research project on the healthy ageing of women. May 5, 2008

Hypnosis: The Key To Unlocking The Delusional Mind? - Researchers at Macquarie University have developed an original new approach to the study of delusions, using hypnosis to temporarily create typical delusional beliefs in otherwise non-delusional people. May 1, 2008

Decision Making, Is It All 'Me, Me, Me'? - People act in their own best interests, according to traditional views of how and why we make the decisions that we do. April 29, 2008

Explaining Science Through Drawings - If a picture is worth a thousand words, creating one can have as much value to the illustrator as to the intended audience. April 28, 2008

Psychologists Demonstrate Simplicity Of Working Memory - A mind is a terrible thing to waste, but humans may have even less to work with than previously thought. April 25, 2008

Human Brain Appears 'Hard-wired' For Hierarchy - Human imaging studies have for the first time identified brain circuitry associated with social status, according to researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) of the National Institutes of Health. April 24, 2008

Chemotherapy's Damage To The Brain Detailed - A commonly used chemotherapy drug causes healthy brain cells to die off long after treatment has ended and may be one of the underlying biological causes of the cognitive side effects - or "chemo brain" - that many cancer patients experience. April 23, 2008

Intelligence And Rhythmic Accuracy Go Hand In Hand - People who score high on intelligence tests are also good at keeping time, new Swedish research shows. April 22, 2008

Aerobic Exercise Boosts Older Bodies And Minds - Aerobic exercise could give older adults a boost in brainpower, according to a recent review of studies from the Netherlands. April 21, 2008

Your Belly Fat Could Be Making You Hungrier - The extra fat we carry around our middle could be making us hungrier, so we eat more, which in turn leads to even more belly fat. April 17, 2008

Decision-making May Be Surprisingly Unconscious Activity - Contrary to what most of us would like to believe, decision-making may be a process handled to a large extent by unconscious mental activity. April 16, 2008

Does The Internet Really Influence Suicidal Behavior? - People searching the Internet for information about suicide methods are most likely to come across sites that encourage suicide rather than sites offering help and support, finds a study in the British Medical Journal. April 15, 2008

Mental Health Cultivated On The Farm - Time down on the farm with animals could provide some therapeutic benefit for people with mental illness, according to researchers. April 14, 2008

Just 20 Minutes Of Weekly Housework Boosts Mental Health - Just 20 minutes of any physical activity, including housework, in a week is enough to boost mental health, reveals a large study published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. April 11, 2008

Sleep Problems Common In Children With ADHD - Children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) appear likely to experience sleep problems, according to a new report. April 9, 2008

Brain Damage Can Be Repaired - Scientists in the Laboratoire de Neurobiologie des Processus Adaptatifs have shown that it is possible to repair an injured brain by creating a small number of new, specifically-targeted innervations, rather than a larger number of non-specific connections. April 8, 2008

Brain DNA 'Remodeled' In Alcoholism - Reshaping of the DNA scaffolding that supports and controls the expression of genes in the brain may play a major role in the alcohol withdrawal symptoms, particularly anxiety, that make it so difficult for alcoholics to stop using alcohol. April 7, 2008

Insomnia May Perpetuate Depression In Some Elderly Patients - In addition to being a risk factor for a depressive episode, persistent insomnia may perpetuate the illness in some elderly patients, and especially in those receiving standard care for depression in primary care settings, according to a new study. April 4, 2008

Brain Lesions More Common Than Previously Thought - New research shows cerebral microbleeds, which are lesions in the brain, are more common in people over 60 than previously thought. April 3, 2008

Neurons Hard Wired To Tell Left From Right - It's well known that the left and right sides of the brain differ in many animal species and this is thought to influence cognitive performance and social behaviour. April 2, 2008

How Dangerous Is Boxing For The Brain? - Boxing is possibly less dangerous for the brain than previously feared – at least for amateurs. However, conclusive statements on the level of danger are not yet possible. March 31, 2008

Brain's 'Sixth Sense' For Calories Discovered - The brain can sense the calories in food, independent of the taste mechanism, researchers have found in studies with mice. March 28, 2008

Brain Scientist Shedding Light On Learning, Memory - He had stopped by the lab of a brain researcher at Shanghai’s East China Normal University. The room was dark except for a light shining on the brain. “You could hear this pop, pop, pop, pop,” says Dr. Tsien, brain scientist who recently came to the Medical College of Georgia from Boston University. “At that moment, I got interested in the brain. March 27, 2008

Regulating Negative Emotions And The Impact On Brain Activity - Emotions play an important role in the lives of humans, and influence our behavior, thoughts, decisions, and interactions. The ability to regulate emotions is essential to both mental and physical well-being. March 26, 2008

Fly's Tiny Brain May Hold Huge Human Benefits - Before swatting at one of those pesky flies that come out as the days lengthen and the temperature rises, one should probably think twice. March 25, 2008

Second Depth-Perception Method In Brain Discovered - It's common knowledge that humans and other animals are able to visually judge depth because we have two eyes and the brain compares the images from each. But we can also judge depth with only one eye, and scientists have been searching for how the brain accomplishes that feat. March 24, 2008

Does Stress Damage The Brain? - Individuals who experience military combat obviously endure extreme stress, and this exposure leaves many diagnosed with the psychiatric condition of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. March 20, 2008

Populations Of Brain Cells Adapt To Changing Images - Neuroscientists studying the mind's ability to process images have completed the first empirical study to demonstrate, using animal models, how populations of nerve cells in visual cortex adapt to changing images. March 18, 2008

Bird Brains Suggest How Vocal Learning Evolved - Though they perch far apart on the avian family tree, birds with the ability to learn songs use similar brain structures to sing their tunes. March 17, 2008

Manic Mouse Made With One Gene Missing - Bipolar Disorder (BPD or manic-depressive illness) is one of the most serious of all mental disorders, affecting millions of individuals worldwide. Affected individuals alternate between states of deep depression and mania. March 14, 2008

Mind Over Body: New Hope For Quadriplegics - Around 2.5 million people worldwide are wheelchair bound because of spinal injuries. Half of them are quadriplegic, paralysed from the neck down. March 13, 2008

The Hand Can't Be Fooled, Study Shows - New research suggests that we process images in two very distinct ways. March 11, 2008

More Than Meets The Ear In Successful Cocktail Party Conversations - Just picture the scene: you're at a cocktail party, talking to someone you would like to get to know better but the background noise is making it hard to concentrate. March 10, 2008

Your Brain On Krispy Kremes: How Hunger Motivates - What makes you suddenly dart into the bakery when you spy chocolate- frosted donuts in the window, though you certainly hadn't planned on indulging? March 7, 2008

Brain Chemistry Ties Anxiety And Alcoholism - Doctors may one day be able to control alcohol addiction by manipulating the molecular events in the brain that underlie anxiety associated with alcohol withdrawal. March 6, 2008

Men Have A Harder Time Forgiving Than Women Do - Forgiveness can be a powerful means to healing, but it does not come naturally for both sexes. Men have a harder time forgiving than women do, according to Case Western Reserve University psychologist Julie Juola Exline. March 4, 2008

Chimps May Have A 'Language-ready' Brain - An area of the brain involved in the planning and production of spoken and signed language in humans plays a similar role in chimpanzee communication, researchers report. March 3, 2008

Researchers Use MRI To Study Spontaneity, Creativity - A pair of Johns Hopkins and government scientists have discovered that when jazz musicians improvise, their brains turn off areas linked to self-censoring and inhibition, and turn on those that let self-expression flow. February 29, 2008

Princeton Researchers Peek Into Deepest Recesses Of Human Brain - A team of scientists from Princeton University has devised a new experimental technique that produces some of the best functional images ever taken of the human brainstem, the most primitive area of the brain. February 28, 2008

Inside The Head Of An Ape - Do apes have imagination? How do they understand pictures? February 26, 2008

Study Shows How Believing Can Be Seeing - Scientists have found the link between what we expect to see, and what our brain tells us we actually saw. February 25, 2008

Good Ideas Distract Groups From Generating Great Ideas - Good ideas can have drawbacks. When information is freely shared, good ideas can stunt innovation by distracting others from pursuing even better ideas, according to Indiana University cognitive scientist Robert Goldstone. February 22, 2008

Scientists Explore Consciousness - An international team of scientists led by a University of Leicester researcher has carried out a scientific study into the realm of consciousness. February 20, 2008

Sex Differences In The Brain's Serotonin System - A new thesis from he Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet shows that the brain's serotonin system differs between men and women. February 18, 2008

Can People Love The One They Are Compatible With? - Physical attractiveness is important in choosing whom to date. Good looking people are not only popular targets for romantic pursuits, they themselves also tend to flock together with more attractive others. February 15, 2008

Autism Linked Mother's Antibodies - New research from the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute and Center for Children's Environmental Health has found that antibodies in the blood of mothers of children with autism bind to fetal brain cells, potentially interrupting healthy brain development. February 14, 2008

More Brain Research Suggests 'Use It Or Lose It' - Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) scientists have found another important clue to why nerve cells die in neurodegenerative diseases, based on studies of the developing brain. February 13, 2008

New Research Explores How Our Bodies Keep Time - Our alarm clocks may spring forward on March 9, but our biological clocks may take longer to adjust. That’s because our internal clocks are so tightly wound to many physiological and behavioral processes. February 12, 2008

Neural Basis Of 'Number Sense' In Young Infants - Behavioral experiments indicate that infants aged 4½ months or older possess an early "number sense" that allows them to detect changes in the number of objects. February 11, 2008

Chronic Pain Harms The Brain - People with unrelenting pain don't only suffer from the non-stop sensation of throbbing pain. They also have trouble sleeping, are often depressed, anxious and even have difficulty making simple decisions. February 7, 2008

Scientists Map Signaling Networks That Control Neuron Function - In the first large-scale proteomics study of its kind, researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have mapped thousands of neuronal proteins to discover how they connect into complex signaling networks that guide neuron function. February 6, 2008

Video Games Activate Reward Regions Of Brain In Men More Than Women - Allan Reiss, MD, and his colleagues have a pretty good idea why your husband or boyfriend can't put down the Halo 3. In a first-of-its-kind imaging study, the Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have shown that the part of the brain that generates rewarding feelings is more activated in men than women during video-game play. February 5, 2008

Daytime Nap Can Benefit A Person's Memory Performance - A brief bout of non-REM sleep (45 minutes) obtained during a daytime nap clearly benefits a person's declarative memory performance, according to a new study. February 4, 2008

Déjà Vu Site In The Brain? - Deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery, which is used to treat Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders, is now being studied for its potential to treat a variety of conditions. January 31, 2008

Drug Helps Brain Tumor Patients Live Longer - People who receive high doses of the chemotherapy drug methotrexate to treat a certain type of brain tumor appear to live longer than people receiving other treatments. January 30, 2008

Does Mood Matter? What About The Order Of Choices? - Sure, you're more likely to give things a favorable evaluation when you're happy, and a negative evaluation when you're sad. But how does mood influence your choices among items? January 29, 2008

Laughter Is The Best Medicine - Laughter is the best medicine. We’ve heard the expression time and again. For decades, researchers have explored how humor helps patients relieve stress and heal. January 28, 2008

Your Personality Type Influences How Much Self-control You Have - A new study from Northwestern introduces personality types used frequently in consumer research to the realm of self-improvement. January 25, 2008

'Creator' Gene For Cerebral Cortex Discovered - University of California, Irvine researchers have identified a gene that is specifically responsible for generating the cerebral cortex, a finding that could lead to stem cell therapies to treat brain injuries and diseases such as stroke and Alzheimer's. January 21, 2008

Portable Device Quickly Detects Early Alzheimer's - The latest medications can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease, but none are able to reverse its devastating effects. This limitation often makes early detection the key to Alzheimer’s patients maintaining a good quality of life for as long as possible. January 17, 2008

Aggression As Rewarding As Sex, Food And Drugs - New research from Vanderbilt University shows for the first time that the brain processes aggression as a reward - much like sex, food and drugs - offering insights into our propensity to fight and our fascination with violent sports like boxing and football. January 16, 2008

Culture Influences Brain Function, Study Shows - People from different cultures use their brains differently to solve the same visual perceptual tasks, MIT researchers and colleagues report in the first brain imaging study of its kind. January 14, 2008

Reversal Of Alzheimer's Symptoms Within Minutes In Human Study - An extraordinary new scientific study, which for the first time documents marked improvement in Alzheimer’s disease within minutes of administration of a therapeutic molecule, has just been published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation. January 10, 2008

Violent Shaking Pulps The Infant Brain - Each year in the United States, one thousand infants die after being shaken. An equal number of cases result in brain damage. Many people who are guilty of this type of abuse go free due to a lack of evidence; others are wrongly suspected of a crime that they did not commit. January 9, 2008

Scientists Restore Walking In Mice After Spinal Cord Injury - Spinal cord damage blocks the routes that the brain uses to send messages to the nerve cells that control walking. Until now, doctors believed that the only way for injured patients to walk again was to re-grow the long nerve highways that link the brain and base of the spinal cord. January 8, 2008

Neuroimaging Fails To Demonstrate ESP Is Real - Psychologists at Harvard University have developed a new method to study extrasensory perception that, they argue, can resolve the century-old debate over its existence. January 7, 2008

Researchers Reverse Effects Of Sleep Deprivation - Researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine have shown that the effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance can be reversed when the naturally occurring brain peptide, orexin-A, is administered in monkeys. January 4, 2008

Scientist Finds Way To Measure Covert Attention - The person you're speaking with may be looking at you, but are they really paying attention" Or has the person covertly shifted their attention, without moving their eyes" Dr. Brian Corneil, of the Centre for Brain and Mind at The University of Western Ontario in London, Canada has found a way of actually measuring covert attention. January 2, 2008

Sleep Chemical Central To Effectiveness Of Deep Brain Stimulation - A brain chemical that makes us sleepy also appears to play a central role in the success of deep brain stimulation to ease symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease and other brain disorders. January 1, 2008

Walking And Moderate Exercise Help Prevent Dementia - ST. PAUL, Minn. - People age 65 and older who regularly walk and get other forms of moderate exercise appear to significantly lower their risk of developing vascular dementia, the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's disease, according to a study published in the December 19, 2007, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. December 27, 2007

Mental Health Linked to Amputation Risk in Diabetic Veterans - For U.S. veterans with diabetes, lower scores on a test of mental health functioning are associated with an increased risk of major amputations, reports a study in the November/December issue of the journal General Hospital Psychiatry. December 25, 2007

Sex Education Linked To Delayed Teen Intercourse - Sex education greatly boosts the likelihood that teens will delay having intercourse, according to a new study that is the first of its kind in years. December 24, 2007

New Brain Mechanism Identified For Interpreting Speech - In conversation, humans recognize words primarily from the sounds they hear. However, scientists have long known that what humans perceive goes beyond the sounds and even the sights of speech. December 20, 2007

New Hope For Sleep Disorders - University of California, Irvine researchers have identified the chemical switch that triggers the genetic mechanism regulating our internal body clock. December 19, 2007

People With Body Image Issue See World Differently - Although they look normal, people suffering from body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) perceive themselves as ugly and disfigured. New imaging research reveals that the brains of people with BDD look normal, but function abnormally when processing visual details. December 14, 2007

New High-tech Tool For Brain Disorders, Gamma Knife - The most advanced noninvasive, radiosurgery tool for treating a variety of brain disorders - including tumors - is now being used by specialists at UCSF Medical Center. December 13, 2007

Neuron Firing Reveals What You Are Looking At - Following ground-breaking research showing that neurons in the human brain respond in an abstract manner to particular individuals or objects, University of Leicester researchers have now discovered that ... December 12, 2007

This Is Your Brain On Violent Media - Violence is a frequent occurrence in television shows and movies, but can watching it make you behave differently? December 11, 2007

Young Chimps Top Adult Humans In Numerical Memory - Young chimpanzees have an "extraordinary" ability to remember numerals that is superior to that of human adults, researchers report. December 10, 2007

Smaller Babies More Prone To Depression, Anxiety Later On - Turns out there might be some truth to the popular wisdom that plump babies are happy babies. December 6, 2007

Disguising Environmental Harm Eases Only Our Conscience - We can disguise environmentally harmful practices and dress them up in words to help ease our consciences, argues Albert Bandura of the Department of Psychology at Stanford University, but such practices will have a negative impact on the planet and the quality of life of future generations, no matter how we label them. December 5, 2007

Happiness Comes Cheap - Even For Millionaires - A bar of chocolate, a long soak in the bath, a snooze in the middle of the afternoon, a leisurely stroll in the park. These are the things that make us the most happy, according to new research from The University of Nottingham. December 4, 2007

Lighting Up The Human Brain At Work - The human brain uses light not just to support vision but also to support alertness and cognitive tasks. Which colours of light are most effective and where in the brain these non-visual effects can be seen was previously not known. December 3, 2007

Pedophilia May Be The Result Of Faulty Brain Wiring - Pedophilia might be the result of faulty connections in the brain, according to new research released by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). November 30, 2007

Violent TV, Games Pack A Powerful Public Health Threat - Watching media violence significantly increases the risk that a viewer or video game player will behave aggressively in both the short and long term. November 29, 2007

How The Brain Controls What The Eyes See - Vase or face? When presented with the well known optical illusion in which we see either a vase or the faces of two people, what we observe depends on the patterns of neural activity going on in our brains. November 28, 2007

Key Nerve Navigation Pathway Identified - Newly launched nerve cells in a growing embryo must chart their course to distant destinations, and many of the means they use to navigate have yet to surface. November 27, 2007

Is The Beauty Of A Sculpture In The Brain Of The Beholder? - Is there an objective biological basis for the experience of beauty in art? Or is aesthetic experience entirely subjective? This question has been addressed in a new article by Cinzia Di Dio, Emiliano Macaluso and Giacomo Rizzolatti. November 26, 2007

Mapping The Selective Brain - Researchers have added a new piece to the puzzle of how the brain selectively amplifies those distinctions that matter most from the continuous cascade of sights, sounds, and other sensory input. November 22, 2007

Researchers Find Memory Can Be Manipulated By Photos - The camera may not lie, but doctored photos do according to new research into digitally altered photos and how they influence our memories and attitudes toward public events. November 21, 2007

How Do We Make Sense Of What We See? - M.C. Escher’s ambiguous drawings transfix us: Are those black birds flying against a white sky or white birds soaring out of a black sky? Which side is up on those crazy staircases? November 20, 2007

The Brain's Processing Speed Is Significantly Faster Than Real Time - Scientists at The University of Arizona have added another piece of the puzzle of how the brain processes memory. November 19, 2007

How Violent Video Games Are Exemplary Aggression Teachers - Like other fathers and sons, Douglas Gentile and his father have spent many hours arguing about video games. What makes them different is that Douglas, an Iowa State University assistant professor of psychology, is one of the country's top researchers on the effects of media on children. November 16, 2007

Certain Mature Neurons Can Retain A Youthful Form Of Plasticity - It's a general belief that the circuitry of young brains has robust flexibility but eventually gets "hard-wired" in adulthood. November 15, 2007

Men Talk More Than Women Overall, But Not In All Circumstances - A Gallup poll recently confirmed that men and women both believe that it is women who are most likely to possess the gift of gab. Some even believe that women are biologically built for conversation. November 14, 2007

How The Brain Sends Eyeballs Bouncing - All vision, including reading this sentence, depends on a constant series of infinitesimal jumps by the eyeball that centers the retina on target objects - words or phrases in the case of reading. Such jumps, or saccades, are critical to vision because only ... November 12, 2007

New Technology Can Be Operated By Thought - Neuroscientists have significantly advanced brain-machine interface (BMI) technology to the point where severely handicapped people who cannot contract even one leg or arm muscle now can independently compose and send e-mails and operate a TV in their homes. November 9, 2007

Mirror Neurons, Self-understanding And Autism Research - Recent findings are rapidly expanding researchers' understanding of a new class of brain cells - mirror neurons - which are active both when people perform an action and when they watch it being performed. November 8, 2007

New Fluorescent Label Sheds Light On Brain Diseases - In an advance that may speed progress toward new diagnostic tests for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (AD), scientists in New York are reporting development of the first direct method for measuring a key enzyme implicated in both of those chronic brain disorders. November 7, 2007

Ears Ringing? Cells In Developing Ear May Explain Tinnitus - Brain scientists at Johns Hopkins have discovered how cells in the developing ear make their own noise, long before the ear is able to detect sound around them. November 6, 2007

Rosemary Chicken Protects Your Brain From Free Radicals - Rosemary not only tastes good in culinary dishes such as Rosemary chicken and lamb, but scientists have now found it is also good for your brain. November 5, 2007

Ten Minutes Of Talking Improves Memory And Test Performance - Spending just 10 minutes talking to another person can help improve your memory and your performance on tests, according to a University of Michigan study to be published in the February 2008 issue of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. November 2, 2007

Nap Now, Sleep Tonight - And Think Better Tomorrow - Concerned that a midday snooze might ruin a good night's sleep? Fret not; ongoing research from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center indicates that napping has little effect on sleep onset - and that a nap today may be beneficial for mental processing tomorrow. November 1, 2007

Brain Circuits That Control Hunger Identified - Researchers at UCLA have determined the brain circuits involved in hunger that are influenced by a hormone called leptin. October 31, 2007

What Are The Early Warning Signs Of Autism? - Two new clinical reports from the American Academy of Pediatrics will help pediatricians recognize autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) earlier and guide families to effective interventions, which will ultimately improve the lives of children with ASDs and their families. October 30, 2007

Scientists Find New Causes For Neurodegeneration - Diseases that cause neurons to break-down, such as Alzheimer's, Multiple Sclerosis and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (Mad Cow Disease), continue to be elusive to scientists and resistant to treatments. October 29, 2007

Hearing Changes How We Perceive Gender - Think about the confused feelings that occur when you meet someone whose tone of voice doesn't seem to quite fit with his or her gender. October 26, 2007

Religion And Healthcare Should Mix, Study Says - Research shows that religion and spirituality are linked to positive physical and mental health; however, most studies have focused on people with life threatening diseases. October 25, 2007

Faced With Death, Our Minds Turn To Happier Thoughts - Philosophers and scientists have long been interested in how the mind processes the inevitability of death, both cognitively and emotionally. October 24, 2007

Insulin's Brain Impact Links Drugs And Diabetes - Insulin, long known as an important regulator of blood glucose levels, now has a newly appreciated role in the brain. October 23, 2007

Mental Disorders Are Disorders Of The Brain - Depression, anxiety disorders such as panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorders, alcohol and drug dependence, dementia and Parkinson's disease are just a few examples of "disorders of the brain." October 22, 2007

The Mind May Help Restore Movement To The Immobile - Moving objects just by thinking. That's something people do almost every time they move their bodies. Scientific work over the last 20 years has shown how neurons in the brain behave when we move our arms. October 19, 2007

Intelligence: More Nature Than Nurture? - While showing an impressive growth prenatally, the human brain is not completed at birth. There is considerable brain growth during childhood with dynamic changes taking place in the human brain throughout life, probably for adaptation to our environments. October 18, 2007

How And Where Do We Process Attractiveness? - Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but according to research conducted by a UBC medical student, eye candy fails to find a sweet tooth in patients with a rare disorder. October 17, 2007

Humans Perceive Others' Fear Faster Than Other Emotions - You may not be fully dressed without a smile, but a look of horror will make a faster first impression. Vanderbilt University researchers have discovered that the brain becomes aware of fearful faces more quickly than those showing other emotions. October 16, 2007

Brain Circuits Used In Sensation Of Touch Identified - The ability to tactually recognize fine spatial details, such as the raised dots used in braille, is especially important to those who are blind. October 15, 2007

Why It Is Impossible For Some To 'Just Say No' - Drug abuse, crime and obesity are but a few of the problems our nation faces, but they all have one thing in common - people’s failure to control their behavior in the face of temptation. While the ability to control and restrain our impulses is one of the defining features of the human animal ... October 12, 2007

The Mysteries Of Brain Folding During Embryonic Development - Folding is very important in human brain development because some of the worst neurological problems such as schizophrenia, autism and lissenchephaly (smoothness of the cortex, found with severe retardation) are associated with abnormal brain folding. October 11, 2007

Body-mind Meditation Boosts Performance, Reduces Stress - A team of researchers from China and the University of Oregon have developed an approach for neuroscientists to study how meditation might provide improvements in a person's attention and response to stress. October 10, 2007

Brain Images Make Cognitive Research More Believable - People are more likely to believe findings from a neuroscience study when the report is paired with a colored image of a brain as opposed to other representational images of data such as bar graphs, according to a new Colorado State University study. October 9, 2007

Brain's 'Social Enforcer' Centers Identified - Researchers have identified brain structures that process the threat of punishment for violating social norms. October 8, 2007

Why Don't Painkillers Work For People With Fibromyalgia? - People who have the common chronic pain condition fibromyalgia often report that they don't respond to the types of medication that relieve other people's pain. October 4, 2007

Goal Oriented People May Avoid Alzheimer's Disease - Individuals who are more conscientious - in other words, those with a tendency to be self-disciplined, scrupulous and purposeful - appear less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease, according to a new report. October 3, 2007

Autism Symptoms Can Improve Into Adulthood - Hallmarks of autism are characteristic behaviors - repetitive motions, problems interacting with others, impaired communication abilities - that occur in widely different combinations and degrees of severity among those who have the condition. October 1, 2007

The Matrix Of Autism - Autistic children are doubly stigmatized. On the one hand, they are often dismissed as low functioning or mentally retarded, especially if they have poor speaking skills as many do. September 28, 2007

Simulation Reveals How Body Repairs Balance After Damage - Your body goes to a lot of trouble to make sure you stay upright. But when the brain’s neural pathways are impaired through injury, age or illness, muscles are deprived of the detailed sensory information they need to perform the constant yet delicate balancing act required for normal movement and standing. September 26, 2007

New Understanding Of Basic Units Of Memory - A molecular "recycling plant" permits nerve cells in the brain to carry out two seemingly contradictory functions - changeable enough to record new experiences, yet permanent enough to maintain these memories over time. September 25, 2007

Brain Center For 'Sound Space' Identified - While the visual regions of the brain have been intensively mapped, many important regions for auditory processing remain terra incognita. Now, researchers have identified the region responsible for a key auditory process - perceiving "sound space," the location of sounds. September 24, 2007

Brain Network Related To Intelligence Identified - A primary mystery puzzling neuroscientists – where in the brain lies intelligence? – just may have a unified answer. September 20, 2007

Study Shows The Power Of Attraction - Whether we are seeking a mate or sizing up a potential rival, good-looking people capture our attention nearly instantaneously and render us temporarily helpless to turn our eyes away from them. September 19, 2007

Brain's Messengers Could Be Regulated, Researchers Find - Researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have found that tiny, spontaneous releases of the brain's primary chemical messengers can be regulated, potentially giving scientists unprecedented control over how the brain is wired. September 18, 2007

'Fetal' Neurons Play Role In Adult Brain - Subplate neurons - once thought to die after directing the wiring of the cerebral cortex or gray matter - remain in the white matter of the adult brain in small numbers and maintain activity, communicating with other neurons in the brain ... September 13, 2007

Reversing The Signs Of Alzheimer's - Scottish scientists are one step further to finding a cure for Alzheimer's, thanks to the development of a compound which reverses signs of the disease. September 12, 2007

3-D Brain Centers Pinpointed - In studies with monkeys, researchers have identified in detail the brain regions responsible for the unique ability of primates, including humans, to process visual 3D shapes to guide their sophisticated manipulation of objects. September 10, 2007

Adult Brain Can change, Study Confirms - It is well established that a child's brain has a remarkable capacity for change, but controversy continues about the extent to which such plasticity exists in the adult human primary sensory cortex. September 6, 2007

Work Time Is Largest Influence To Duration Of Person's Sleep - Work time is the primary lifestyle factor with the largest reciprocal relationship to a person's sleep time - the more hours a person works, the less sleep that he or she gets, according to a study published in the September 1 issue of the journal Sleep. September 5, 2007

Why We Are Unable To Distinguish Faces Of Other Races - There's a troubling psychological phenomenon that just about everyone has experienced but few will admit to; having difficulty distinguishing between people of different racial groups. September 4, 2007

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