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NEWS ABOUT: neuroscience

Girls Bond, Boys Compete: Brain Study

Scans confirm gender split on one-on-one interaction

(Newser) - Ever wonder why girls are so fixated on swapping friendship bracelets? They may just be wired that way, according to a new study. Using MRIs to look inside tweens' and teens' brains, researchers found that one-on-one interactions got girls’ synapses firing, Time reports. Boys focused less on other individuals than... More »

Real 'Thinking Cap' May Not Be So Far Off

Magnetic pulse boosts learning, study shows; headgear next?

(Newser) - A magnetic pulse directed at a certain area of the brain may enhance learning and memory, the Telegraph reports. Canadian researchers subjected volunteers to a test that required they track a dot moving on a computer screen with a joystick, and volunteers who received stimulation fared much better. More »

New Autism Research Tests Brain's 'Reflexes'

(Newser) - Scientists are taking a new approach to autism research using magnetic field generators that test the brain’s reflexes, the Boston Globe reports. Much like tapping a patient on the knee to gauge a physical reaction, trans-cranial magnetic stimulation triggers activity in specific areas of the brain through a charged... More »

Test for Early Alzheimer's in Development

Diagnosis could allow for treatment to slow disease's progression

(AP) - A research institute devoted to Alzheimer's and related diseases has teamed up with a major maker of diagnostic tests to speed development of what could be the first test to detect Alzheimer's in its early stages. If all goes well, the first commercial version of the test could be available... More »

Scientists Locate Brain's Sentimental Center

Same Spot as Sex Urges

(Newser) - It turns out sex and sentimentality are linked after all, reports Reuters. Scientists have pinpointed areas of the brain that determine an individual's warm and fuzzy feelings—which they say are the same regions that control sex and some food urges. Researchers hope the findings may help explain brain evolution... More »

Pentagon Project Aims to Create Telepathic Troops

DARPA boffins tasked with turning brain waves into silent words

(Newser) - The Pentagon has launched a project officials hope will help soldiers of the future read each other's minds on the battlefield, Wired reports. DARPA—dubbed the military's "mad scientist" division—has been given $4 million to develop technology that can detect and analyze brain waves that precede specific speech.... More »

Have an Itch? It's All In Your Spine

Urge to scratch comes from back not brain, researchers find

(Newser) - Scratching an itch may be an everyday activity, but it’s also a longstanding conundrum to scientists who have never been sure if the urge originated in the skin or the brain. Until now. A new study from University of Minnesota neuroscientists appears to show that both the itch, and... More »

Feds Probe Firebombing of Animal Researcher's Car

Attack targeted professor who used primates to study addiction

(Newser) - An federal anti-terror task force is probing the firebombing of a UCLA neuroscientist's car, the Los Angeles Times reports. An animal rights group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place outside the researcher’s house and caused no injuries. The professor targeted has been using primates for research... More »

Distracted Doodling Helps Us Focus, Study Shows

(Newser) - Doodling while listening actually increases retention of memory, LiveScience reports. A new study shows that subjects who “mindlessly” sketched while listening to a not-so-interesting phone message remembered key facts 29% more than others instructed to just listen. “It helps to keep us on track with a boring task,... More »

Facebook May 'Infantilize' Your Mind, Expert Warns

(Newser) - A British neuroscientist thinks the children of today, exposed to “instant new screen images flashing up with the press of a key,” will develop differently from past generations, and that’s not a good thing. Facebook, for instance provides an experience “devoid of cohesive narrative and long-term... More »

Scientist: Love's Just Brain Chemicals

...that could someday be reproduced in a lab

(Newser) - An American neurologist is determined to prove wrong the poets who say love is beyond understanding, reports the BBC. The Emory professor argues that neurochemical reactions in certain parts of the brain can explain love, raising the possibility that scientists could someday create drugs to bring love back to dying... More »

Japanese Scientists Can Read Your Mind

They find a way to extract images directly from the brain

(Newser) - The Thought Police could eventually exist in reality, if they can just figure out how to harness new technology developed by Japanese researchers, the Daily Yomuri reports. The team managed to re-create images that people were looking at—using only subjects' recorded brain activity. This is the first successful display... More »

Brain Pacemakers May Revolutionize Treatment

(Newser) - The precise application of electricity to certain areas of the brain—the same principles a pacemaker uses for the heart—is showing promise for people with an array of illnesses such as Parkinson's, severe depression, epilepsy, and Alzheimer's, the Chicago Tribune reports. The treatment, called deep brain stimulation, remains in... More »

Brains Get Noisier as They Age

Study finds neural complexity generates more cranial static

(Newser) - Just because you can't hear it doesn't mean your brain isn't making noise. It is, and scientists using high-tech gear to record it have now discovered that it increases as you mature, reports LiveScience. A comparison of noise generated by groups of children and young adults indicates that brain noise,... More »

That Irritating Itch? It May Just Be Your Brain

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

(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 »

Baby Birds' Babbling Suggests Intricate Brain

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

(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 »

Surgery for Depression? Yup.

Deep brain stimulation, used for years to fight Parkinson's, is spreading out

(Newser) - A type of brain surgery previously used to treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease may be effective in countering the debilitating effects of deep depression, CNN reports. A new study shows that deep brain stimulation, a process in which electrodes are inserted into problem areas in the brain and hooked... More »

Brain Training Can Boost Smarts

Mental gymnastics can strengthen general intelligence, study finds

(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 »

Cell Phones Worse Than Smoking, Study Says

Neurosurgeon warns that handsets double brain tumor risk

(Newser) - Cell phones may cause more deaths than smoking or asbestos, warns a new study in which an Australian neurosurgeon found that a decade of cell use can double brain tumor risk—an effect that he says will show in coming years. "We are currently experiencing a reactively unchecked and... More »

Why Girls Are Better at Language

Study finds brain wiring gives girls the edge

(Newser) - Study after study has found that girls have better language skills than boys, and scientists now think they've found a biological reason why, Scientific American reports. Researchers discovered that girls showed more activity in the language part of their brains, which deciphers abstract encoding, than boys. The boys had more... More »

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