10/28/2009 - 3:42pm

Brain Training May Help The Blind-Sighted To See

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research have found that brain training may help people who are blind due to injury to the brain region responsible for vision, gain some vision.

Patients whose primary visual cortex has been damaged through a stroke or trauma cannot consciously see, but at some level their brains are still processing their visual environment. Through brain training, these patients may regain some conscious awareness of what their minds can see.

10/28/2009 - 3:15pm

Scientists Find How Brains Keep Track of Time

Keeping track of time and remembering things that happened in the past is one of the brain’s most important functions. A recent study has identified the neurons in primate brains that code time.

Neuroscientists have theorized that the brain “time stamps” events as they happen, allowing us to keep track of where we are and when past events occurred. Scientists were not able to find evidence that such time stamps existed. But a study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has now found that missing evidence.

10/27/2009 - 12:08pm

Scientists Find Way to Reverse Insomnia-Induced Cognitive Impairment

Sleep deprivation affects cognitive function and learning and memory are the cognitive functions most affected by lack of sleep. Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania have identified a molecular pathway in the brain that causes the cognitive impairment due to insomnia. They have also found that by reducing the concentration of a specific enzyme that builds up in the hippocampus, they can reduce the inability to focus, learn or memorize that is symptomatic of sleep deprivation.

10/26/2009 - 11:38am

Brain Trauma and Amateur Athletes

Recent news items have brought to light the increased incidence of Alzheimer’s and other brain-related diseases in retired professional football players. The high incidence of brain disorders and cognitive decline is thought to be caused by the many head traumas professional football players receive during their careers.

10/26/2009 - 9:38am

Music and the Brain

Several interesting studies about Music and the Brain were presented at the 158th Acoustical Society of America meeting that was held in San Antonio in October.

Music Can Train the Brain

One study of the brain’s electrical and magnetic signals showed that musical training changes the auditory cortex-the part of the brain where the processing of sound takes place.

10/19/2009 - 3:04pm

Different Types of Learning at a Molecular Level

A study conducted at the Montreal neurological institute and Hospital of McGill University has shown that training that occurs over time differs from training that takes place at short intervals and creates different types of memory.

Memory is very sensitive to not only the amount of training but also the pattern or frequency of training as well. It was found that training that was widely spaced generated long-term memory while intense training presented at short intervals generated short term memory.

09/17/2009 - 11:40am

Some Exercises Better Than Others For Your Brain

Research with laboratory mice in Taiwan has shed some interesting light on the link between exercise and improved brain function.

It seems mice that were allowed to do their usual exercise of running around their rodent wheels as much as possible, improved their brain function. But a second group of mice that were pushed harder on a mini-treadmill at a speed and duration controlled by the scientists, out-performed their lab mates in cognitive performance.

09/16/2009 - 11:41am

Sport Advantage- Players' Skill and Brains

We can all agree that professional sportsmen are better at their particular sport than you or I. Is it because of intense practice or are they simply born with better skills? Or is there perhaps something else at work there?

Swiss and British researchers have been looking into this matter and have come up with some interesting insights.

Any sport that involves moving objects (like tennis), requires three levels of response for timing:

09/09/2009 - 10:53am

Male Brains and Female Brains: Nature or Nurture?

Scientists have established that there are definitely anatomical differences between male and female brains. Are these differences caused by male/female behavior or do these differences cause the male/female behavior?

Using sophisticated MRI scanning, Peg Nopoulos, Jessica Wood and colleagues at the University of Iowa have been trying to shed light on the nature vs. nurture conundrum.

09/06/2009 - 2:17pm

New Brain Technology Helps Understanding Brain Function

A new way of using MRI scanners has been developed that will help doctors and scientists to understand how our brains function. The new technique is called Diffusion Tensor Imaging. DTI tracks the motion of water molecules in the brain which allows us to see where nerve fibers led and give scientists the ability to map the fiber bundles that are wiring together in the cortex of the brain, called connectomes. Until now, scientists have been using fMRI which doesn’t measure brain function directly.