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Tue, 10/11/2011 - 23:06 by Neka Sehgal
Looking at the bright side of things is often believed to have a positive impact on life, but unrealistic optimism may have a serious downside, finds a new study.
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Tue, 04/19/2011 - 12:35 by Jaspreet Virk
Do you often feel embarrassed? If so, cheer up, as it is one of the signs that your brain is still healthy, finds a new study.
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Mon, 12/27/2010 - 12:06 by Priyanka
Ever wondered how some people smoothly manage large and complex web of social contacts in their while others struggle with even few? According to a new study released recently, an almond-shaped nuclei group (called amygdala) situated in the medial temporal lobes of the brain might be the reason behind some people’s bustling social life.
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Tue, 11/23/2010 - 06:58 by Prince damin
Nashville -- A brain area critical to vision has regions that respond separately to color and to shape, U.S. researchers say, furthering our understanding of perception.
Vanderbilt University researchers found though these regions are physically separate, they work together to process visual information, ScienceDaily.com reported.
"In vision, objects are defined by both their shape and their surface properties, such as color and brightness," Anna Roe, professor of psychology, said.
"For example, to identify a red apple, your visual system must process both the shape of the apple and its color," she said.
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Wed, 11/03/2010 - 16:38 by Neha Gupta
Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), one of the main components of fish oil, is ineffective at slowing down progression of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a novel study.
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Wed, 11/03/2010 - 01:04 by Prince damin
Washington -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a drug to treat tumors caused by a rare genetic disorder, tuberous sclerosis.
The drug, Afinitor, is intended to treat slow-growing benign tumors associated with TS in the brain called subependymal giant cell astrocytomas, an FDA release said Monday.
Such tumors, SEGAs for short, are considered a major diagnostic feature of TS, seen in 6 percent to 9 percent of patients. The disease can be fatal for patients who develop complications with tumor growth on the brain.
Surgery can be used to remove the tumor growths in some patients, but Afinitor has been approved for cases that cannot be treated with surgery, the FDA says.
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Wed, 11/03/2010 - 01:04 by Prince damin
Washington -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a drug to treat tumors caused by a rare genetic disorder, tuberous sclerosis.
The drug, Afinitor, is intended to treat slow-growing benign tumors associated with TS in the brain called subependymal giant cell astrocytomas, an FDA release said Monday.
Such tumors, SEGAs for short, are considered a major diagnostic feature of TS, seen in 6 percent to 9 percent of patients. The disease can be fatal for patients who develop complications with tumor growth on the brain.
Surgery can be used to remove the tumor growths in some patients, but Afinitor has been approved for cases that cannot be treated with surgery, the FDA says.
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Fri, 10/22/2010 - 09:24 by Prince damin
Rome -- Italian researchers say they've identified two specific areas in the brain that allow people to remember particularly vivid dreams.
Italian scientists employing the latest neuroimaging techniques have managed to get down to the "deep microstructures" in two key brain areas, ANSA reported Wednesday.
"We've found the parts of the amigdala and hippocampus that are linked to bizarre and intense dreams, the ones people remember," Luigi De Gennaro of Rome University said.
"We think we've cracked why some people never remember their dreams and others have such a detailed memory you might almost call it film-like," De Gennaro said.
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Fri, 10/08/2010 - 22:48 by Prince damin
Philadelphia -- A tiny electrical shock administered to certain parts of the brain can improve memory recall, U.S. researchers say.
A study at Temple University in Philadelphia found the treatment stimulates certain neurons in the brain so when a person tries to remember a name they suddenly start working, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported.
The findings could lead to treatments for stroke victims and others who suffer memory loss from ailments or from old age, the newspaper said.
"We know a lot about how to make people's memory worse, but we don't know very much about how to make people's memory better," Ingrid Olson, a psychologist who led the study, said.
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Fri, 10/08/2010 - 11:07 by Prince damin
Washington -- People who have been blind from birth use a region of the brain normally involved in vision to refine their sense of sound and touch, a U.S. study has found.
Researchers led by neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center say this helps explain why the blind have such advanced perception of these senses, abilities that far exceed those of people who can see, a Georgetown release says.
The study suggests the different functional attributes that make up vision, such as analysis of space, patterns and motion, still exist in the visual cortex of blind individuals.
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Fri, 10/08/2010 - 10:57 by Prince damin
Palo Alto, Calif. -- The number of connections, or synapses, in a particular region of the brain varies between night and day and appears to be regulated by a gene, researchers say.
Stanford University scientists have been studying what happens in the brain while you sleep and how the circadian clock and sleep affect neuron-to-neuron connections, a university release says.
Why we need to sleep and how, exactly, sleep is restorative are unanswered questions in biology.
Using zebrafish, a popular aquarium fish that, like humans, are active during the day and sleep at night, they studied "synaptic plasticity," the ability of synapses to change strength and even form and erase.
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Wed, 09/15/2010 - 22:27 by Prince damin
Birmingham, England -- A British scientist says society must investigate the possible harmful effects on the brain of the Internet, social networking sites and computer games.
Neuroscientist Susan Greenfield said the issue was "almost as important as climate change," The Daily Telegraph reported Wednesday.
"I think the quality of our existence is threatened," she said. "We need discussions about this, we need debate, we need more of an effort put in."
She made her remarks at the British Festival of Science at Aston University in Birmingham.
Some "very good things" were coming out of burgeoning information technology, she said, but "we have got to be very careful about what price we are paying."
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