By NICHOLAS BAKALAR Alzheimer’s disease is more common in people whose mothers had the illness than in those whose fathers had it — and the evidence can be found in the brains of people who are still healthy. Researchers studied 53 mentally healthy men and women over 60 years old. Ten had a father with Alzheimer’s, 11 a mother with the disease, and 32 had no family history of the illness. Each volunteer underwent an initial M.R.I. examination and was examined again two years later. All the volunteers were still cognitively normal at the two-year point, but those with a family history of Alzheimer’s had significantly more brain atrophy than those without a family history. And even after controlling for age and sex, the deterioration was significantly greater in those with a maternal history of Alzheimer’s than in those with a paternal one. The authors acknowledge that the study, published in Tuesday’s issue of Neurology, depended on volunteers reporting their parents’ illnesses accurately. Still, the lead author, Robyn A. Honea of the University of Kansas, said scientists were getting closer to quantifying risk with brain scans. “The goal is to do a scan on someone before they get the disease and be able to tell if they’re at higher risk or starting to deteriorate,” she said. “Can we do that now? No. We need more and larger studies.” © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 15055 - Posted: 03.01.2011

Cassandra Willyard On 17 February, retired American-football player Dave Duerson committed suicide. The 50-year-old former defensive back for the Chicago Bears left this haunting note for his family: "Please, see that my brain is given to the NFL's brain bank." Then he shot himself in the chest, leaving his brain intact. The brain bank Duerson referred to, located at Bedford VA Medical Center in Massachusetts, is funded by the US National Football League (NFL) and run by Ann McKee, co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University in Massachusetts. She and her colleagues have spent the past several years examining athletes' brains for signs of a neurodegenerative condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Whether Duerson had the disease is still unknown. But his note seems to imply that he feared the worst. Nature examines what researchers know about CTE, what they have yet to understand and what is being done to protect athletes. What is chronic traumatic encephalopathy? CTE is a neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated trauma to the head. "The head trauma usually occurs years, maybe even decades before the person become symptomatic," McKee says. © 2011 Nature Publishing Group,

Keyword: Brain Injury/Concussion
Link ID: 15054 - Posted: 02.26.2011

by Sara Reardon On an African savanna 10 million years ago, our ancestors awoke to the sun rising over dry, rolling grasslands, vast skies, and patterned wildlife. This complex scenery influenced the evolution of our eyes, according to a new study, guiding the arrangement of light-sensitive cone cells. The findings might allow researchers to develop machines with more humanlike vision: efficient, accurate, and attuned to the natural world. The human retina contains three types of light-sensitive cone cells—responding to red, green, or blue light—that are arranged in a mosaic pattern. This pattern isn't random. Previous studies suggest that the retina adapts to an animal's surroundings, evolving to extract the most information. For instance, the retinas of fish living at different depths of a lake have distinct patterns because they are attuned to detecting wavelengths of light filtered and distorted to varying degrees by the water. Physicist and lead author Gasper Tkačik of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) calls this the "efficient coding hypothesis." Are human eyes also efficiently coded? They don't seem to be. The sky and sea make up much of our natural scenes, yet only 6% of our cone cells detect blue, and they are mostly located around the edge of our retina. Of the remaining cones, the ratio of red to green cones varies wildly between individuals. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Vision; Evolution
Link ID: 15053 - Posted: 02.26.2011

By Tina Hesman Saey Infectious proteins that cause brain-wasting conditions like mad cow disease appear to build up in the brain long before initiating the cascade of deterioration that leads to dementia and death, a new study of mice finds. The findings suggest that other factors besides the misshapen infectious proteins characteristic of prion diseases may control the lethality of the disease. If scientists can determine what those factors are, future treatments may be able to prevent the infectious protein diseases — which include mad cow disease, scrapie in sheep and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in people — from progressing to a fatal stage. “We don’t know what’s going on here, but we do know there’s something interesting,” says John Collinge, director of the United Kingdom Medical Research Council Prion Unit in London, who headed the new study. Findings reported by Collinge and his colleagues in the Feb. 24 Nature contradict the idea that infectious versions of a normal brain protein called PrP accumulate slowly, gradually twisting all of the healthy copies of the protein into a disease-causing form. Researchers have thought that the disease-causing prions slowly build up to toxic levels that spell the death of brain cells. But the new study shows that the process is anything but gradual, and that infection and toxicity are independent stages of the disease. Prions quickly build up in the brains of mice over the course of a month or two, Collinge and his colleagues found, peaking at about 100 million infectious particles per brain. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Prions
Link ID: 15052 - Posted: 02.26.2011

by Michael Marshall IN A memory contest between a chimpanzee and a bird, most of us would bet on the chimp. But if the bird in question were a scrub jay - and the task involved mental time travel - the chimp might just find itself outmatched. Episodic memories combine what happened, when and where. They are an essential part of visualising a different time, and were thought to be uniquely human until Nicola Clayton at the University of Cambridge proved that western scrub jays have simple episodic memories - allowing them to track how long it takes for food they have stashed to rot. Chimps can remember where they hid food, but it's not clear whether they can track the amount of time that has passed since a memory was formed. To investigate, Marusha Dekleva of Utrecht University in the Netherlands tested nine captive chimps on a task similar to the one Clayton used with scrub jays. She showed each chimp four containers: two were empty; one contained either apple sauce or yoghurt, which the chimps like; and one held red peppers, which they like less. Dekleva let the chimps pick a food container either 15 minutes, 1 hour or 5 hours later. But there was a twist: the apple sauce disappeared by the 1-hour mark, leaving the container empty, and by the 5-hour mark the yoghurt had gone, but the peppers were still available. Chimps are good learners and were expected to adjust their choice of containers over time. They didn't. Instead, they remembered which containers held more food early in the study, and picked those no matter how much time had passed. This got them some food, but far less than they could have obtained by adapting their behaviour (PLoS One, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016593). © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Evolution
Link ID: 15051 - Posted: 02.26.2011

by Aria Pearson Newly hatched sea turtles can sense their longitudinal position – something that took sailors hundreds of years and many lost ships to figure out. Surprisingly, they do so using the Earth's magnetic field. Recently, it was discovered that a handful of species – including older sea turtles and migratory birds – seem able to perceive longitude. But it was unclear what cues they could be using. The Earth's magnetic field, which animals can use to gauge latitude, was considered an unlikely candidate because of how little it varies in the east-west direction around the globe. However, in certain parts of the world at the same latitude there are subtle differences in the intensity and angle of the magnetic field. Could these be used by animals to figure out longitude? One such area is in the Atlantic Ocean, where Puerto Rico in the western Atlantic and the Cape Verde Islands in the eastern Atlantic have the same latitude but different longitudes. In between these locations is the North Atlantic Gyre. Loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) in Florida navigate the North Atlantic Gyre during their five to 10 year migration around the Atlantic Ocean. During this trip the turtles manage to avoid areas where they would get swept up by other currents and ejected out of the gyre. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Animal Migration
Link ID: 15050 - Posted: 02.26.2011

By Laura Sanders The polite term for what Alzheimer’s disease does to the brain is “neurodegeneration.” In reality, it’s more like violent, indiscriminate devastation. Alzheimer’s scrambles communication channels, incites massive inflammation and demolishes entire brain regions as once plump cells shrivel and die, burying memories in the wreckage. As the attack intensifies, Alzheimer’s gradually strips away a person’s mind, and ultimately the cognitive abilities that permit a conversation with a loved one, a smile or a taste of food. A couple of decades ago, some researchers thought they knew the root cause of this brain invasion — dangerous buildups of a protein called amyloid-beta. Get rid of these big, sticky globs and cure the disease, the reasoning went. But in recent years, a deeper understanding of the disease, along with a few disappointing clinical trials, has challenged long-held assumptions and forced a reevaluation of this strategy. Many researchers are convinced that A-beta is still a key target. A litany of damning evidence from genetics, pathology reports and lab experiments makes that case. Yet recent results show that A-beta is not the same foe it was originally thought to be. Smaller pieces of A-beta — not the large plaques that were formerly indicted — are likely to be malicious, capable of destroying nerve cell connections, several new studies show. Other data coming from sophisticated imaging techniques may illuminate how, when and where A-beta accumulates in the brain, and how this buildup might relate to diminished mental powers. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2011

Keyword: Alzheimers; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 15049 - Posted: 02.26.2011

By PAM BELLUCK In the Oscar-nominated movie “The King’s Speech,” King George VI begins stuttering at 4 and struggles with it throughout his life. But he rarely talks like the stereotypical stutterer, Porky Pig, rapidly repeating letter sounds; usually the king has trouble getting sounds out from the get-go, blocked by sputtering pauses. His stutter is aggravated by stressful situations, like confronting his brother or addressing the public. He speaks better when playing with his daughters, singing words or inserting profanity, or when music blaring in his ears keeps him from hearing himself. These are complicated symptoms, but experts say these details, devised by a screenwriter who stuttered, mirror many aspects of actual stuttering. In that complexity are clues to this often devastating disorder’s cause, say scientists who are starting to untangle the underpinnings of stuttering in hopes of finding better treatment. Dispelling longstanding misconceptions that the underlying causes of stuttering are language problems or psychological problems like anxiety or trauma, researchers say stuttering is really a speech-production problem: a snag in the cascade of steps that our brains and bodies undertake to move the proper muscles to produce words. “People who stutter have motor difficulties in producing fluent speech,” said Luc De Nil, a speech-language pathologist at the University of Toronto. “They don’t have difficulty developing words or syntax, although they may process language differently. They have difficulty with efficient coordination of motor movements, and speech is such a high-demand fine-motor skill that requires extremely fast sequencing and timing.” © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Language
Link ID: 15048 - Posted: 02.26.2011

By Linda Carroll With disturbing before and after photos of drug users’ faces, a new anti-drug campaign may succeed where others have failed, grabbing teens’ attentions by appealing to their vanity. The pairs of mug shots, which graphically display the damage drugs can do to the face, were collected by the sheriff’s office in Multnomah County, Ore. Faces that were normal — even attractive — in initial photos, shot when addicts were first arrested, metamorphose over years, and sometimes just months, into gaunt, pitted, even toothless wrecks. The photos are part of a 48-minute documentary called “From Drugs to Mugs,” created by Deputy Bret King. King hopes that the documentary, which is available on a DVD along with a CD of mug shots, will help scare kids straight by showing them concrete evidence of damage that can occur within months from using meth, heroin or cocaine. “The thinking is that this will give kids a tangible image of what can happen if they get involved in using hard drugs,” King says. “We did want to appeal to their sense of vanity.” King understands the power of that teen vanity. “I remember in high school you had to have the right clothes, the right shoes, the right look,” he says. Perhaps the most stunning feature of the photos is how quickly the face is damaged. © 2011 msnbc.com.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 15047 - Posted: 02.26.2011

By MARIA CHENG LONDON — You are awake, aware and probably unable to move or talk — but you are not necessarily unhappy, says the largest study of locked-in syndrome ever conducted. A surprising number of patients with the condition say they are happy, despite being paralyzed and having to communicate mainly by moving their eyes. Most cases are caused by major brain damage, often sustained in traumatic accidents. As part of the study — published in the online journal BMJ Open on Wednesday, Dr. Steven Laureys of the Coma Science Group at the University Hospital of Liege in Belgium and colleagues sent questionnaires to 168 members of the French Association for Locked-in Syndrome, asking them about their medical history, their emotional state and views on euthanasia. Sixty-five patients used a scale to indicate their sense of well-being, with 47 saying they were happy and 18 unhappy. They were also asked a variety of questions about their lives, including their ability to get around or participate in social functions, or if they had ever considered euthanasia. Only a handful of patients said they often had suicidal thoughts. The patients responded to questions largely by blinking. Adrian Owen, a neuroscientist at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, said of the results: "We cannot and should not presume to know what it must be like to be in one of these conditions... Many patients can find happiness in ways that we simply cannot imagine," he said via e-mail. He was not linked to the study. Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 15046 - Posted: 02.24.2011

By Matt Walker Capuchin monkeys have what at first glance appears to be an odd habit: they urinate onto their hands then rub their urine over their bodies into their fur. Now scientists think they know why the monkeys "urine wash" in this way. A new study shows that the brains of female tufted capuchins become more active when they smell the urine of sexually mature adult males. That suggests males wash with their urine to signal their availability and attractiveness to females. Details of the finding are published in the American Journal of Primatology. A number of New World monkey species, including mantled howler monkeys, squirrel monkeys and the few species of capuchins, regularly "urine wash", urinating into the palm of the hand, then vigorously rubbing the urine into the feet and hindquarters. Several hypotheses have been put forward as to why they do it, including that it may somehow help maintain body temperature or allow other monkeys to better identify an individual by smell. Most studies into the behaviour have been inconclusive. "But one study reported that when being solicited by a female, adult males increased their rate of urine-washing," said Dr Kimberley Phillips, a primatologist at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, US. BBC © MMXI

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 15045 - Posted: 02.24.2011

by Greg Miller Only a small minority of people who fall victim to a violent attack or witness a bloody accident suffer the recurring nightmares, hypervigilance, and other symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Women seem to be twice as susceptible as men, but otherwise researchers know virtually nothing about who is most at risk or why. Now a study has linked a genetic mutation and blood levels of a particular peptide—a compound made from a short string of the same building blocks that make up proteins—to the severity of PTSD symptoms in women. The finding could lead to tests to identify people who may need extra help after a traumatic event. In the new study, researchers led by Kerry Ressler, a psychiatrist and molecular neurobiologist at Emory University in Atlanta, focused on a peptide thought to play a role in cells' response to stress: pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP). The team measured levels of PACAP in the blood of 64 patients who volunteered for their study at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. The vast majority of volunteers were from poor neighborhoods in the city, and Ressler says more than 90% reported having witnessed or suffered from a traumatic event such as gun violence or physical or sexual assault in the past. The researchers found a correlation between PACAP levels and scores on a standard scale of PTSD symptoms in women—but no such correlation in men. In a second group of 74 women, the researchers found a similar correlation between PACAP levels and symptom severity. Ressler estimates that with all else being equal, women with high PACAP levels are up to five times as likely as women with low levels to have symptoms severe enough to meet the diagnostic criteria for PTSD. © 2010 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Stress; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 15044 - Posted: 02.24.2011

Scientists are eyeing a rare genetic glitch for clues to improved treatments for some people with schizophrenia (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/schizophrenia/index.shtml) — even though they found the mutation in only one third of 1 percent of patients. In the study, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, schizophrenia patients were 14 times more likely than controls to harbor multiple copies of a gene on Chromosome 7. The mutations were in the gene for VIPR2, the receptor for vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) — a chemical messenger known to play a role in brain development. An examination of patients' blood confirmed that they had overactive VIP activity. Discovery of the same genetic abnormality in even a small group of patients buoys hopes for progress in a field humbled by daunting complexity in recent years. The researchers’ previous studies (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/science-news/2008/rates-of-rare-mutations-soar-three-to-four-times-higher-in-schizophrenia.shtml) had suggested that the brain disorder that affects about 1 percent of adults might, in many cases, be rooted in different genetic causes in each affected individual, complicating prospects for cures. "Genetic testing for duplications of the VIP receptor could enable early detection of a subtype of patients with schizophrenia, and the receptor could also potentially become a target for development of new treatments," explained Jonathan Sebat, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Diego, who led the research team. "The growing number of such rare duplications and deletions found in schizophrenia suggests that what we have been calling a single disorder may turn out, in part, to be a constellation of multiple rare diseases."

Keyword: Schizophrenia; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 15043 - Posted: 02.24.2011

By TARA PARKER-POPE Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have found that less than an hour of cellphone use can speed up brain activity in the area closest to the phone antenna, raising new questions about the health effects of low levels of radiation emitted from cellphones. The researchers, led by Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, urged caution in interpreting the findings because it is not known whether the changes, which were seen in brain scans, have any meaningful effect on a person’s overall health. But the study, published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, is among the first and largest to document that the weak radio-frequency signals from cellphones have the potential to alter brain activity. “The study is important because it documents that the human brain is sensitive to the electromagnetic radiation that is emitted by cellphones,” Dr. Volkow said. “It also highlights the importance of doing studies to address the question of whether there are — or are not — long-lasting consequences of repeated stimulation, of getting exposed over five, 10 or 15 years.” Although preliminary, the findings are certain to reignite a debate about the safety of cellphones. A few observational studies have suggested a link between heavy cellphone use and rare brain tumors, but the bulk of the available scientific evidence shows no added risk. Major medical groups have said that cellphones are safe, but some top doctors, including the former director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Center and prominent neurosurgeons, have urged the use of headsets as a precaution. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 15042 - Posted: 02.24.2011

By THE NEW YORK TIMES Dr. Russell Barkley, clinical professor of psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina, responds. Perhaps most frustrating to me is that some days I am completely “on” and “in the zone,” whereas other days, I can’t even buy my own attention, let alone anyone else’s. Are such drastic fluctuations common in A.D.D/A.D.H.D. patients? TK, Atlanta Dr. Barkley responds: A.D.H.D. symptoms do vary in different situations, as well as from day to day. The daily fluctuations may be related to the various activities one is doing on any given day. If the tasks required on a specific day demand lots of self-control and organization as well as time management and persistence, then those with A.D.H.D. will generally report that their symptoms are worse that day. If, on the other hand, it is a vacation or weekend day and they could do more of the things they enjoyed, they often report that their symptoms were less pronounced that day. People with A.D.H.D. tend to report less difficulty with their symptoms when they are in novel situations, are engaged in one-on-one interactions, are doing something they enjoy, are able to move about more while doing the activity, and do not have to do a lot of planning and preparation for the situation at hand. Of course, in the opposite circumstances, those with A.D.H.D. tend to report considerable trouble, especially in situations that demand self-restraint, time management, preparation and organization, and controlling their emotions more than usual. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: ADHD; Attention
Link ID: 15041 - Posted: 02.24.2011

Daniel Cressey In the past five years animal-rights activists have perpetrated a string of violent attacks. In February 2008, the husband of a breast-cancer biologist in Santa Cruz, California, was physically assaulted at the front door of their home. In the same month, the biomedical research institute at Hasselt University in Diepenbeek, Belgium, was set on fire. In the summer of 2009, activists desecrated graves belonging to the family of Daniel Vasella, then chief executive of the pharmaceutical company Novartis, based in Basel, Switzerland, and torched his holiday home. A poll of nearly 1,000 biomedical scientists, conducted by Nature, reveals the widespread impact of animal-rights activism. Extreme attacks are rare, and there does not seem to have been any increase in the rate of their incidence in the past few years, but almost one-quarter of respondents said that they or someone they know has been affected negatively by activism. More than 90% of respondents agreed that the use of animals in research is essential, but the poll also highlights mixed feelings on the issue. Nearly 16% of those conducting animal research said that they have had misgivings about it, and although researchers overwhelmingly feel free to discuss these concerns with colleagues, many seem less at ease with doing so in public. More than 70% said that the polarized nature of the debate makes it difficult to voice a nuanced opinion on the subject, and little more than one-quarter said that their institutions offer training and assistance in communicating broadly about the importance of animal research (see 'Assessing the threats'). © 2011 Nature Publishing Group,

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 15040 - Posted: 02.24.2011

By LAURAN NEERGAARD WASHINGTON — Call them brain pacemakers, tiny implants that hold promise for fighting tough psychiatric diseases — if scientists can figure out just where in all that gray matter to put them. Deep brain stimulation, or DBS, has proved a powerful way to block the tremors of Parkinson's disease. Blocking mental illness isn't nearly as easy a task. But a push is on to expand research into how well these brain stimulators tackle the most severe cases of depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and Tourette's syndrome — to know best how to use them before too many doctors and patients clamor to try. "It's not a light switch," cautions Dr. Michael Okun of the University of Florida. Unlike with tremor patients, the psychiatric patients who respond to DBS tend to improve gradually, sometimes to their frustration. And just because the tics of Tourette's fade or depression lightens doesn't mean patients can abandon traditional therapy. They also need help learning to function much as recipients of hip replacements undergo physical therapy, says Dr. Helen Mayberg of Emory University. "Once your brain is returned to you, now you have to learn to use it," she told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Copyright 2011 The Associated Press

Keyword: Depression; Tourettes
Link ID: 15039 - Posted: 02.22.2011

by Ferris Jabr People who are relatively ambivalent about which hand they use may also have moods that are more susceptible to suggestion. So says Ruth Propper at Montclair State University, New Jersey, and colleagues, who discovered that "inconsistent-handers" – those who favour neither their right nor left hand – are more easily persuaded to feel a certain way than consistent right-handers. Almost 90 per cent of the world's population remains loyal to the right hand, whether brushing their teeth, flipping through TV channels or whipping up some brownies. The remaining 10 per cent is divided between people who consistently prefer the left hand and those who switch between right and left. To see whether handedness had any relationship to emotional stability, Propper attempted to influence the moods of inconsistent-handers and right-handed individuals by asking them think happy, sad or anxious thoughts while listening to different kinds of classical music. Inconstant moods Proper found that inconsistent-handers not only reported that as soon as they walked into the lab they had more negative feelings, suggesting their moods were more immediately influenced by their surroundings, but were also far more likely to report slipping into a new mood during the experiment. The right-handers proved more resistant to suggestion, reporting less flux in emotion. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Laterality; Emotions
Link ID: 15038 - Posted: 02.22.2011

US researchers defended animal testing, telling a small group at one of the biggest science conferences in the United States that not doing animal research would be unethical and cost human lives. The researchers, who are or have been involved in animal research, told a symposium at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) that testing on animals has led to "dramatic developments in research that have improved and affected the quality of human life." "To not do animal testing would mean that we would not be able to bring treatments and interventions and cures in a timely way. And what that means is people would die," Stuart Zola of Emory University, which is home to the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, told AFP after the symposium. Treatments for diseases such as diabetes and polio were made possible through animal research, the researchers said, and animals are currently being used in hepatitis-, HIV- and stem cell-related research, among others. But animal rights activists continue to bring pressure on laboratories that use animals to develop drugs and vaccines, urging them to stop the practice and use other means to develop the next wonder drug, treatment or cure. Animal rights activists also insist they will never use medications developed through animal testing, but the researchers said they probably already have done. © 2011 Discovery Communications, LLC.

Keyword: Animal Rights
Link ID: 15037 - Posted: 02.22.2011

By SINDYA N. BHANOO The part of the brain thought to be responsible for processing visual text may not require vision at all, researchers report in the journal Current Biology. This region, known as the visual word form area, processes words when people with normal vision read, but researchers found that it is also activated when the blind read using Braille. “It doesn’t matter if people are reading with their eyes or by their hands,” said Amir Amedi, a neuroscientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and one of the study’s authors. “They are processing words.” The research counters the textbook belief that the brain is a sensory organ, in which various regions govern activities of the different senses, like sight, sound and touch. Instead, Dr. Amedi said, the brain is a task machine. “What we suggest is that what this area is doing is building the shape of the words, even though we call it the visual word form area,” he said. Dr. Amedi and his colleagues ran functional M.R.I. scans on eight adults with congenital blindness as they read using Braille. He and his colleagues belong to a small community of neuroscientists who are trying to demonstrate that the brain’s regions are multisensory. Although the theory has not become mainstream, it has been gaining acceptance in the past decade. © 2011 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Language; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 15036 - Posted: 02.22.2011