Useful Information on the Brain

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Girls who are raised in their first year by parents struggling with stress are more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety as teens.

Newly generated, or newborn neurons in the adult hippocampus are critical for memory retrieval, according to a study led by Stony Brook University researchers to be published in the November 11 advanced online edition of Nature Neuroscience.

Teenagers born prematurely may suffer brain development problems that directly affect their memory and learning abilities.

Information and support for depression and related mental health issues.

Photos reveal unique features of genius’s cerebral cortex.

The neural correlates of creativity are poorly understood. Freestyle rap provides a unique opportunity to study spontaneous lyrical improvisation, a multidimensional form of creativity at the interface of music and language. Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging to characterize this process. Task contrast analyses indicate that improvised performance is characterized by dissociated activity in medial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, providing a context in which stimulus-independent behaviors may unfold in the absence of conscious monitoring and volitional control. Connectivity analyses reveal widespread improvisation-related correlations between medial prefrontal, cingulate motor, perisylvian cortices and amygdala, suggesting the emergence of a network linking motivation, language, affect and movement. Lyrical improvisation appears to be characterized by altered relationships between regions coupling intention and action, in which conventional executive control may be bypassed and motor control directed by cingulate motor mechanisms. These functional reorganizations may facilitate the initial improvisatory phase of creative behavior.

Freestyle rappers such as Eminem and Philadelphia's Cassidy make up and bust out rhymes on the spot — a hugely challenging art form. Now, however, researchers have learned how the brain does it.

Diet has long been used in the prevention high cholesterol, heart disease and other diseases. Now dementia specialist Dr. Marwan Sabbagh is applying that same strategy in the fight against Alzheimer's disease.

It is an extraordinary moment when Dr. Adrian Owen slides his patient into an FMRI machine, a man who has been in a vegetative state for a dozen years, suddenly able to communicate basic information with thoughts that register as activity in a brain scan. Adrian Owen has found a

Women with migraines did not appear to experience a decline in cognitive ability over time compared to those who didn’t have them, according to a nine-year follow up study funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The brain activity waxes and wanes. Researchers have found that this influences the way people listen as hearing abilities oscillate and depend on the exact timing of one’s brain rhythms.

Researchers turn brain activity into music using EEG in the first two clips, and a combination of EEG and functional magnetic resonance imaging in the final tune.

Despite two recent studies about omega-3 fatty acids recent months, there’s plenty of other research showing that fish oil is good for memory and mental sharpness

Researchers have discovered a new gene they say helps explain how humans evolved from chimpanzees. The gene, called miR-941, appears to have played a crucial role in human brain development.

UCLA scientists discover sleeping brain behaves as if it's remembering something / UCLA Newsroom

Research news from leading universities

Rats, like humans, can deduce an impressive amount of information about their physical surroundings with their sense of touch. Humans do this most effectively with their hands and fingertips, while a rat experiences a significant portion of its tactile sensation via its whiskers.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University are hopeful about a new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. The surgical procedure involves placing a pacemaker-type device in the brain. The procedure has been used effectively on Parkinson’s patients and doctors are now implanting the device in Alzheimer’s patients for the first time. Dr. Paul Rosenberg, an Alzheimer’s specialist at... Read More

New research suggests age-related changes in the brain make it harder to detect suspicious body language and other warning signs that people may be untrustworthy.

Toxoplasma is a common 'cat parasite', and has previously been in the spotlight owing to its observed effect on risk-taking and other human behaviors. To some extent, it has also been associated with mental illness. A study led by researchers in Sweden now demonstrates for the first time how the parasite enters the brain to influence its host.