Skip to: Content
Skip to: Site Navigation
Skip to: Search
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2009
| Subscribe to Newser's RSS feeds RSS | Follow Newser on Twitter Twitter

NEWS ABOUT: brain

brain stories: 106 news summaries

61 - 80 of 106 Stories | << Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next >>

Switch to grid view »

 Multitasking 
 Can Melt 
 Your Brain 

Scientists warn of dangers of doing too much at once

Oct 11, 08 8:17 AM CDT
(Newser) - Multitasking isn’t as productive as you may think—in fact, our brains just can’t handle it. Scientists say working on many tasks at once slows all of them down, NPR reports. “No matter how good you have become at multitasking, you’re still going to suffer hits... More »

MORE ABOUT:
mental health • brain • multitask

 Autism-Reversing 
 Drugs Show Promise 

MIT scientists stumbled onto workaround for misfiring brain system

Sep 24, 08 12:50 PM CDT
(Newser) - MIT scientists have discovered one of the mechanisms of Fragile X Syndrome, one cause of autism, and are developing drugs to treat it, NPR reports. The disorder, triggered by a genetic mutation, interferes with the normal links between brain cells, making those networks something like a car without a brakes.... More »

MORE ABOUT:
medical breakthrough • mental health • autism • MIT • brain • neurons • scientific research • Fragile X Syndrome

 'Social Siberia' 
 Isn't Just a Metaphor 

Icy behavior cools body temperatures: study

Sep 16, 08 2:22 PM CDT
(Newser) - Icy stares and chilly receptions can leave you feeling—well, cold. Metaphors about social behavior, like "warm welcome" and "cold shoulder," seem to relate to physical reality, new research finds. People who had experienced and recalled social rejection perceived a 5-degree temperature drop in the lab and... More »

MORE ABOUT:
behavior • brain • human behavior • personality • social behavior

Low B12 Levels Tied to Brain Shrinkage, Memory Loss

Many adults deficient in crucial nutrient

Sep 9, 08 1:22 PM CDT
(Newser) - Vitamin B12 deficiency can cause memory loss, particularly in the elderly, reports the BBC. People short on the nutrient were 6 times more likely than individuals with normal levels to experience brain shrinkage, which is strongly linked to dementia, a new study shows. Forty percent of people are believed to... More »

MORE ABOUT:
health • elderly • dementia • brain • memory loss • scientific study • vitamin B • health study • Alzheimer's Disease

(Newser) - Does thinking make us fat? Researchers say that intellectual activity just might cause us to pig out, LiveScience reports. Volunteers who performed a series of problem-solving tasks in a study consumed almost 30% more calories afterward than those who just sat around and took it easy. One theory: The body... More »

MORE ABOUT:
health • hunger • science • brain • calories • health research • medical study

Brain Doesn't Remember Events—It Relives Them

Study records evidence supporting long-suspected memory pathway

Sep 5, 08 9:19 AM CDT
(Newser) - Scientists for the first time have observed how brain cells drum up a memory, and the findings buttress the notion that our minds don't so much remember events as relive them. When recalling short film clips they had seen, patients' brains repeated the same pattern of neuron activity they experienced... More »

MORE ABOUT:
memory • brain • scientific study • neurons • brain scans • Alzheimer's Disease

Children Can Count Without Numbers

Study suggests
that kids have innate
math abilities

Aug 19, 08 8:30 AM CDT
(Newser) - A study sure to fan a fiery disagreement among developmental psychologists has found that children can count objects even if their language lacks words for the numbers involved. Researchers found that Australian Aboriginal children, who know words for only a few small numbers, did just as well as English-speaking children... More »

MORE ABOUT:
Australia • Aborigines • brain • psychology • language • mathematics • psychological research

Staying Sharp While Aging:
It Has a Price

Exercising the brain can stem tide of memory loss

Aug 17, 08 5:25 PM CDT
(Newser) - Fighting the aging process is more about hard work than anti-wrinkle cream and hair dye, Jonah Lehrer writes in the Washington Post. The issue for most of us is not to dance like Madonna or swim like US Olympian Dara Torres; it's to remember names and places and find the... More »

MORE ABOUT:
memory • aging • brain • cognitive decline • cognitive behavioral therapy

Roots of Speech Found in Humming Fish

All vocalizing creatures share common brain circuit, researchers find

Jul 18, 08 3:13 AM CDT
(Newser) - The songs of birds, the hums and grunts of toadfish, and the lofty speech of humans all use the same ancient brain circuit, despite an evolutionary split 400 million years ago, reports National Geographic. Researchers have discovered that the base of the hindbrain and upper spinal cord is the starting... More »

MORE ABOUT:
evolution • fish • brain • nature • speech • amphibians • animal

That Irritating Itch? It May Just Be Your Brain

In fact, our noodles could be inventing 90% of what we call real

Jun 24, 08 3:17 PM CDT
(Newser) - A woman suffers from an itch so severe that she scratches right through to her brain—yet doctors find no medical ailment. War victims feel the sensations of a real limb—but from phantom appendages. What does it all add up to? Perhaps a new understanding of how our brains... More »

MORE ABOUT:
medicine • science • brain • neuroscience • pain • itch • phantom limb • scratch

Brains Look Alike in Gay Men, Straight Women

Findings add to evidence that sexual orientation is innate

Jun 17, 08 12:24 PM CDT
(Newser) - Gay men and straight women have similarly shaped brains, new research shows. Homosexual men and heterosexual women both have relatively symmetrical brains, while heterosexual men and lesbians have significantly larger right hemispheres, reports the Guardian. The research provides new evidence that sexual orientation is hardwired into the brain. More »

MORE ABOUT:
brain • homosexuality • MRI

Dude! Harsh! Weed Shrinks Your Brain

Long-term smokers show abnormalities, damage to emotions

Jun 3, 08 9:09 PM CDT
(Newser) - Heavy marijuana use over a number of years can cause significant brain abnormalities, damage memory and emotional processing, and even shrink parts of the brain, the Age reports. All cannabis smokers—not just high-risk groups such as the young and those susceptible to mental illness—can experience effects equivalent to... More »

MORE ABOUT:
drugs • smoking • brain • marijuana • scientific study • weed

New Trust Drug: Good for Shyness, Bad for Investing

Natural hormone makes people dumb with their money in experiment

May 22, 08 9:46 AM CDT
(Newser) - Scientists have created a nasal spray that makes its users more trusting, the BBC reports. Made up mostly of oxytocin, alternatively nicknamed the “love hormone” or “cuddle chemical,” the spray decreases social fears by lowering activity in the amygdala. That should be great news for social phobics;... More »

MORE ABOUT:
psychiatry • hormones • brain • medical research • oxytocin • trustworthiness

 How Bad Is It, Doc? 

Kennedy's glioma, depending on size of tumor, could affect speech, memory, movement

May 20, 08 3:52 PM CDT
(Newser) - While doctors know that Sen. Ted Kennedy has the most common form of brain cancer, the positioning, type and size of the tumor will determine the degree of danger and side effects from surgery, CNN reports. Kennedy’s glioma is in the left parietal lobe, which is involved in speaking... More »

MORE ABOUT:
cancer • Congress • Senate • Ted Kennedy • brain • tumor • brain damage • brain cancer • glioma

Baby Birds' Babbling Suggests Intricate Brain

How our feathered friends learn, play back song may hold answers for human speech

May 5, 08 4:54 PM CDT
(Newser) - Being bird-brained might not be much of an insult: New MIT research paints a more intricate portrait of how songbirds learn to sing, with one part of the brain used for learning and another for singing itself. Rather than maturing from babbling to birdsong, the independent but overlapping pathways work... More »

MORE ABOUT:
science • birds • brain • neuroscience • language • science experiment • speech


 Brain Training Can Boost Smarts 

Mental gymnastics can strengthen general intelligence, study finds

Apr 29, 08 3:13 AM CDT
(Newser) - Software claiming to improve intelligence has met with market success in recent years— along with plenty of skepticism—but sales could now get a boost with the discovery that it really is possible to improve general intelligence with mental gymnastics. Researchers had thought so-called "fluid intelligence" was purely genetic,... More »

MORE ABOUT:
intelligence • software • brain • neuroscience • human intelligence

 Study Links Sex and Gambling 

Financial risk-taking lights up brain's pleasure center

Apr 5, 08 7:46 AM CDT
(Newser) - Taking risks with money lights up the same parts of the brain as sexual arousal, a "neuroeconomics" study has found. Men shown sexy pictures gambled more daringly than those shown scary pictures—spiders and snakes—or neutral pictures, reports the AP. The study of 15 heterosexual Stanford students focused... More »

MORE ABOUT:
evolution • gambling • brain • neurology • risky trading • scientific research

Botox May
Move from
Face to Brain

Anti-wrinkle toxin traveled to rats' central nervous system

Apr 3, 08 10:23 AM CDT
(Newser) - Botox can spread from the face to the brain, scientists who injected rats with the anti-wrinkle treatment say. Traces of the toxin turned up in the rats' brain stems three days after it was injected into their whisker muscles, Bloomberg reports. A dermatologist says the findings call for further investigation,... More »

MORE ABOUT:
rats • wrinkles • brain • toxin • Botox • cosmetic treatments • scientific research

A Coffee a Day May Keep Dementia Away: Study

Daily caffeine helps protect the brain from damaging cholesterol

Apr 3, 08 4:52 AM CDT
(Newser) - A daily fix of caffeine helps shield the brain from the damaging effects of cholesterol, which is apparently the way coffee helps reduce the risk of dementia, new research suggests. The "blood-brain barrier" protects the brain from toxins in the bloodstream, but scientists have discovered that cholesterol makes it... More »

MORE ABOUT:
dementia • coffee • cholesterol • caffeine • brain • medical research • Alzheimer's Disease

Pesticides Linked to Parkinson's

Risk is greater to home gardeners than via  exposure at work

Mar 30, 08 2:18 PM CDT
(Newser) - People exposed to pesticides ran a 1.6 times higher risk of developing the neurological disease Parkinson’s, reports a new study of 600 participants. "Recreational pesticide use in the home and garden was more of a source of exposure than occupational use,” says one researcher. Experts now... More »

MORE ABOUT:
health • Parkinson's disease • brain • organic • neurological disorder • chemical • health research • pesticide

61 - 80 of 106 Stories | << Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next >>


from our news partners

PopEater.com