Brain | Page 419 | Science Codex

How music class can spark language development

EVANSTON, Ill. - Music training has well-known benefits for the developing brain, especially for at-risk children. But youngsters who sit passively in a music class may be missing out, according to new Northwestern University research.

In a study designed to test whether the level of engagement matters, researchers found that children who regularly attended music classes and actively participated showed larger improvements in how the brain processes speech and reading scores than their less-involved peers after two years.

Mild memory & thinking issues: What works, what doesn't? U-M experts weigh the evidence

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- For up to one in five Americans over age 65, getting older brings memory and thinking problems- along with the embarrassment of not being as "sharp" as they once were, and the worry that it will get much worse.

They might just call it "getting older". But officially, when memory or cognitive problems don't interfere significantly with daily living, doctors call them mild cognitive impairment, or MCI.

The sense of smell uses fast dynamics to encode odors

Neuroscientists from the John B. Pierce Laboratory and Yale School of Medicine have discovered that mice can detect minute differences in the temporal dynamics of the olfactory system, according to research that will be published on December 16 in the open access journal PLOS Biology.

Which dot will they hunt?

This news release is available in German.

This news release is available in German.

Naming people and objects in baby's first year may offer learning benefits years later

AMHERST, Mass. - In a follow-up to her earlier studies of learning in infancy, developmental psychologist Lisa Scott and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are reporting that talking to babies in their first year, in particular naming things in their world, can help them make connections between what they see and hear, and these learning benefits can be seen as much as five years later.

Political extremists less susceptible to common cognitive bias than moderates

People who occupy the extreme ends of the political spectrum, whether liberal or conservative, may be less influenced by outside information on a simple estimation task than political moderates, according to psychologists.

The research, conducted by psychological scientists Mark J. Brandt and Anthony Evans of Tilburg University and Jarret T. Crawford of The College of New Jersey, suggests that because political extremists hold their own beliefs to be superior to the beliefs of others, they may be more resistant to the so-called anchor bias, even for non-political information.

Cracking the code of brain development

BALTIMORE, MD (Dec. 16, 2014)--With a unique, multi-faceted approach, researchers at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development (LIBD) have quantified the effect of previously unidentified anomalies in genetic expression that determine how the human brain develops from its earliest stages. Their work, published online December 15th in Nature Neuroscience, offers a novel technique for identifying biological markers in brain development that associate with risk for neurodevelopmental disorders such as schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

New technology advances eye tracking as biomarker for brain function and brain injury

NEW YORK, NY -- Researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have developed new technology that can assess the location and impact of a brain injury merely by tracking the eye movements of patients as they watch music videos for less than four minutes, according to a study published Friday on-line in the Journal of Neurosurgery.

The study suggests that the use of eye tracking technology may be a potential biological marker for assessing brain function and monitoring recovery for patients with brain injuries.

Good from bad smells - how your brain knows

Whether an odor is pleasant or disgusting to an organism is not just a matter of taste. Often, an organism's survival depends on its ability to make just such a discrimination, because odors can provide important information about food sources, oviposition sites or suitable mates. However, odor sources can also be signs of lethal hazards. Scientists from the BMBF Research Group Olfactory Coding at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, have now found that in fruit flies, the quality and intensity of odors can be mapped in the so-called lateral horn.

Testing numerical competence in animals

People discriminate between quantities - armies are less likely to want to attack when the defense outnumbers them, whereas lions, chimpanzees and hyenas will not attack at all if they don't have superior numbers. These animals use numerical information to make decisions about their social life.

Testing numerical competence

'Radiogenetics' seeks to remotely control cells and genes

It's the most basic of ways to find out what something does, whether it's an unmarked circuit breaker or an unidentified gene -- flip its switch and see what happens. New remote-control technology may offer biologists a powerful way to do this with cells and genes.

A team at Rockefeller University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is developing a system that would make it possible to remotely control biological targets in living animals -- rapidly, without wires, implants or drugs.

Targeting inflammatory pathway reduces Alzheimer's disease in mice

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia and is characterized by the formation of β-amyloid plaques throughout the brain. Proteins known as chemokines regulate inflammation and the immune response. In both patients with AD and mouse AD models, the chemokine CXCL10 is found in high concentrations in the brain and may contribute to AD. A new study in the Journal of Clinical Investigation indicates that activation of the CXCL10 receptor, CXCR3, contributes to AD pathology.

Female sexual arousal: Facilitating pleasure and reproduction

Despite numerous studies, publications, and commentaries on human female sexual arousal and orgasm, there is still so much to study and understand about women's sexual pleasure.

A new review deals critically with many aspects of the genital anatomy of the human female in relation to inducing sexual arousal and its relevance to both procreation and recreation. A number of questions remain, including why there are so many sites for arousal, why multiple orgasms occur, and how sexual stimulation affects the brain.

CCNY psychologist links burnout and depression

Research by City College of New York psychology Professor Irvin Schonfeld in the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership suggests a strong connection between burnout and depression.

In a study of more than 5,500 school teachers to estimate the prevalence of depressive disorders in workers with burnout, 90% of the subjects identified as burned out met diagnostic criteria for depression.

Making sense through order

"Most researchers have treated the order in which the information is shown as a nuisance that can bias the interpretation of data," said Ting Qian, lead author and a former graduate student in brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. But as Qian's co-author and thesis advisor, Professor Richard Aslin explained, "We see it as a part of the natural statistics of the real world, and therefore a signal--or cue--that can be the basis of rational decisions."