ALCOHOL DISRUPTS CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS

Dateline - September 1, 2009 - Chronic alcohol consumption blunts the biological clock’s ability to synchronize daily activities to light, disrupts natural activity patterns and continues to affect the body’s clock (circadian rhythms).  Read More →

PEOPLE WITH LOTS OF WORKING MEMORY NOT EASILY DISTRACTED

Dateline - August 10, 2009  Adverse reaction to undesired distraction may signal a person’s low working-memory capacity.  Read More →

PROCESSED SUGAR IMPAIRS MEMORY

Dateline:  August 1, 2009   Researchers at Georgia State University have found that diets high in fructose — a type of sugar found in most processed foods and beverages — impaired the spatial memory of adult rats.  Read More →

WHY MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE CANNOT BE DEFINED AS BRAIN ACTIVITY

Dateline - July 17, 2009  In discussions of whether brain activity indeed causes mystical experience or whether it simply runs parallel with it, one controversial issue has been the definition of mystical experience and how one confirms it. On the one hand, Metacrock argues that 1) researchers are not confirming in their work that their subjects are indeed having religious experiences – mystical experiences should be defined by use of the M-scale... Read more

ACTIN REORGANIZATION AND LONG-TERM MEMORY

Dateline  July 14, 2009     The assembly of actin filaments is crucial for long-term potentiation, an increase in synapse activity which scientists believe helps store memories.  Actin reorganization occurs in two stages that are controlled by different pathways, a discovery that helps explain why it is easy to encode new memories but hard to hold onto them. Image from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/FluorescentCells.jpg  Read More →

CALCIUM IS KEY TO HONEYBEE MEMORY

Long-term memory formation in honeybees is instigated by a calcium ion cascade. Researchers have shown that calcium acts as a switch between short- and long-term storage of learned information. Image from http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_xs9T-jlzwhA/Rqwy3IHBQbI/AAAAAAAAAv4/-PWiwdEOPKg/s320/honeybee_sm.jpg  Read More →

PROTEIN AIDS IN RECYCLING OF SYNAPTIC VESICLES

Brain cells, or neurons, transmit electrical signals efficiently only when they recycle tiny cellular sacs that store signaling chemicals called neurotransmitters.   When a neuron is stimulated, the sacs are expelled into the synapse—the tiny junction between nerve cells—where they release the chemicals, which neighboring cells in turn soak up. Researchers report that the recycling of these sacs, or vesicles, is controlled by a protein whose... Read more

LARGER POPULATIONS TRIGGERED STONE AGE LEARNING

The flowering of intelligence that brought sophisticated tools, better weapons and art came about because of population density: More people started living in bigger communities. Image from http://www.aasd.k12.wi.us/staff/boldtkatherine/images/stoneage.jpg  Read More →

NEW STUDY QUESTIONS TIMING OF NEURON FIRING

A new study argues that the long-held assumption that theta oscillations - the type of brain rhythm that orchestrates neuronal activity  - are “in sync” across the hippocamus, timing the firing of neurons -  needs to be revised.   Theta oscillations actually sweep along the length of the hippocampus as traveling waves. Image from http://www.qualityhealthblends.com/alpha-GPCh/images/active-neuron.jpg  Read More →

MICE WITH FOXP2 SHOW CHANGES IN SPEECH BRAIN CIRCUITS

One important difference between humans and chimpanzees they have studied are two amino acid substitutions in FOXP2. Those changes became fixed after the human lineage split from chimpanzees and earlier studies have yielded evidence that the gene underwent positive selection. That evolutionary change is thought to reflect selection for some important aspects of speech and language.  Mice with the human FOXP2 show changes in brain circuits that have... Read more

Next Page »