Brain and mind news and Brain Teasers

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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