By BENEDICT CAREY SAN DIEGO — The man who could not remember has left scientists a gift that will provide insights for generations to come: his brain, now being dissected and digitally mapped in exquisite detail. The man, Henry Molaison — known during his lifetime only as H.M., to protect his privacy — lost the ability to form new memories after a brain operation in 1953, and over the next half century he became the most studied patient in brain science. He consented years ago to donate his brain for study, and last February Dr. Jacopo Annese, an assistant professor of radiology at the University of California, San Diego, traveled across the country and flew back with the brain seated next to him on Jet Blue. Just after noon on Wednesday, on the first anniversary of Mr. Molaison’s death at 82 from pulmonary complications, Dr. Annese and fellow neuroscientists began painstakingly slicing their field’s most famous organ. The two-day process will produce about 2,500 tissue samples for analysis. A computer recording each sample will produce a searchable Google Earth-like map of the brain with which scientists expect to clarify the mystery of how and where memories are created — and how they are retrieved. “Ah ha ha!” Dr. Annese said, as he watched a computer-guided blade scrape the first shaving of gray matter from Mr. Molaison’s frozen brain. “One down, 2,499 more to go.” Dr. Annese carefully dropped the shaving into fluid. The procedure is being shown live online: thebrainobservatory.ucsd.edu/hm_live.php. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 13527 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Nathan Seppa Users of a popular club drug will be less than ecstatic to learn that the pill might be making it hard to breathe at night. Researchers report online December 2 and in the December 8 issue of Neurology that regular users of the drug known as ecstasy were more likely than nonusers to show the cardinal signs of sleep apnea — stoppage of breath and gasping for air — during deep sleep. In sleep apnea, muscle tone in the throat becomes unduly relaxed, resulting in airway blockage. An individual gasps for breath many times per hour of sleep, often leaving 10 seconds or more between breaths. Frequent gasping and arousal from sleep go unnoticed by the sleeper — until the next day. Sleep apnea can lead to daytime drowsiness, morning headaches, irritability, low energy and even driving accidents. It has also been associated with cognitive problems, stroke and heart disease. Ecstasy would seem to have little to do with sleep problems. The popular drug is a synthetic psychoactive compound called MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine), which brings on euphoria, emotional warmth, and distortions of time perception and tactile experiences, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which provided funding for scientists who worked on this study. But there is evidence that ecstasy is toxic to neurons in the brain that make serotonin, a multipurpose neurotransmitter. It has been hypothesized that serotonin-making neurons might somehow protect against sleep apnea, but how is unclear. © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2009

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Sleep
Link ID: 13526 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A group of European scientists said Wednesday they have successfully connected a robotic hand to an amputee, allowing him to feel sensations in the artificial limb and control it with his thoughts. The experiment lasted a month, and scientists say it was the first time a patient has been able to make complex movements using his mind to control a biomechanic hand connected to his nervous system. The Italian-led team said at a news conference Wednesday in Rome that last year it implanted electrodes into the arm of the patient who had lost his left hand and forearm in a car accident. WATCH VIDEO: A robotic arm lends a hand and interacts with foreign environments. The prosthetic was not implanted on the patient, only connected through the electrodes. During the news conference, video was shown of 26-year-old Pierpaolo Petruzziello as he concentrated to give orders to the hand placed next to him. "It's a matter of mind, of concentration," Petruzziello said. "When you think of it as your hand and forearm, it all becomes easier." During the month he had the electrodes connected, Petruzziello learned to wiggle the robotic fingers independently, make a fist, grab objects and make other movements. "Some of the gestures cannot be disclosed because they were quite vulgar," joked Paolo Maria Rossini, a neurologist who led the team working at Rome's "Campus Bio-Medico," a university and hospital that specialize in health sciences. © 2009 Discovery Communications, LLC

Keyword: Robotics; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 13525 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Melissa Healy >>> Rina Silverman's refrigerator is almost always empty. She keeps it that way to avert episodes of frantic food consumption, often at night after a full meal, in which she tastes nothing and feels nothing but can polish off a party-sized bag of chips or a container of ice cream, maybe a whole box of cereal. The food she's eating at these moments hardly matters. In short order, the nothing that Silverman feels and tastes will give way to nauseating fullness, and a bitter backwash of guilt, shame and self-reproach. The fullness, in time, passes. But the corrosive shame and self-reproach are always there. Silverman, a 43-year-old executive assistant from Sherman Oaks, is one of the 145 million Americans who are overweight or obese. But the frenzies of consumption put her in a far smaller category of Americans, not all of whom are even overweight. Silverman is a binge eater, one who is slowly inching her way toward recovery. She and as many as 1 in 30 Americans -- roughly 7.3 million adults -- are at the center of a psychiatric debate over whether and how to recognize binge eating as a mental disorder. A decision on the matter is expected early next year, as the American Psychiatric Assn. updates the diagnostic manual that guides the mental health profession. In light of new research and a seemingly growing population of patients who fit the broad description of binge eaters, psychiatrists must decide whether "binge eating disorder" should stand alongside anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa as a separate psychiatric condition -- identifiable by a distinct set of symptoms, a recognizable pattern of progression and a track record of response to certain treatments. © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 13524 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By CLAUDIA DREIFUS Laurence Steinberg, a developmental psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia, is one of the leading experts in the United States on adolescent behavior and adolescent brain biology. Dr. Steinberg, 57, has won the $1 million Klaus J. Jacobs Research Prize, which will be awarded to him at a ceremony in early December in Switzerland. Here is an edited version of two conversations with Dr. Q. YOU HEAR PARENTS SOMETIMES SAY, “I’M LIVING WITH AN INSANE PERSON. MY CHILD IS A TEENAGER.” ARE THEY BEING HYPERBOLIC? A. I’m not one of those people who labels adolescence as some sort of mental illness. Teenagers are not crazy. They’re different. When it comes to crime, they are less responsible for their behavior than adults. And typically, in the law, we don’t punish people as much who are less responsible. We know from our lab that adolescents are more impulsive, thrill-seeking, drawn to the rewards of a risky decision than adults. They tend to not focus very much on costs. They are more easily coerced to do things they know are wrong. These factors, under the law, make people less responsible for criminal acts. The issue is: as a class, should we treat adolescents differently? Q. IS THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM BEGINNING TO TAKE THESE DIFFERENCES INTO ACCOUNT DURING SENTENCING? A. It’s been coming up in cases. I went to Washington in November to watch the oral arguments in two related cases before the Supreme Court that ask: should someone who committed a crime as a teen be subjected to life imprisonment without a chance for parole, ever? Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Aggression
Link ID: 13523 - Posted: 06.24.2010

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - For years, no one on Crest Drive paid much attention to the little white house with pink trim. The front yard was overgrown with shrubs and three cars sat motionless in the driveway. Neighbors on the quiet street knew the owner, a retired psychologist named Carina DeOcampo, was an odd, private person — even her family would leave bags of food on the front steps, then quickly drive away. But folks here were shocked in early October when police forced their way into the home and discovered the 72-year-old DeOcampo dead, surrounded by six feet of garbage that packed the house. DeOcampo was a hoarder. “She had trails throughout the house, from her chair to the kitchen to her bedroom,” said neighbor David Collins, who peered in the front door after DeOcampo’s body was removed. “It was unbelievable.” This year, compulsive hoarders are in the spotlight. Books, movies and TV’s “Hoarders” — a popular A&E reality show that begins its second season Nov. 30 — have all brought the disorder out of its shame-filled past. Some hoarding experts worry that the media sensationalizes the problem while making solutions seem tidier than they really are. But they concede any attention may entice people who suffer from the disorder to obtain help. © 2009 The Associated Press.

Keyword: OCD - Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
Link ID: 13522 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Daniel Cressey The full structure of a fiendishly complicated and important brain protein has been determined by researchers, potentially enabling the development of new treatments for a wealth of neurological disorders. Eric Gouaux and his colleagues undertook the difficult task of mapping the structure of a glutamate receptor, a protein that mediates signalling between neurons in the brain and elsewhere in the nervous system. The receptor is also thought to be crucial to processes such as memory and learning. The resulting picture "tells us things about the organization of the receptor that were just completely unanticipated" says Gouaux, a protein crystallographer at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. The work appears online today in Nature1. The researchers studied a rat glutamate receptor known as GluA2. They grew a crystal of many such proteins, then exposed this to a beam of X-rays. By watching how X-rays scattered from the crystal, they were able to produce an atomic-level picture of a single protein. In humans, these receptors work as relays for the central nervous system. When the neurotransmitter glutamate binds to the receptor, this opens an 'ion channel' in the neuronal membrane, allowing ions to flow across the membrane. This results in the transmission of an electrical pulse down the nerve. © 2009 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 13521 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ANAHAD O’CONNOR THE FACTS It has long been said that regular physical activity and better sleep go hand in hand. Burn more energy during the day, the thinking goes, and you will be more tired at night. But only recently have scientists sought to find out precisely to what extent. One extensive study published this year looked for answers by having healthy children wear actigraphs — devices that measure movement — and then seeing whether more movement and activity during the day meant improved sleep at night. The results should be particularly enlightening to parents. The study found that sleep onset latency — the time it takes to fall asleep once in bed — ranged from as little as roughly 10 minutes for some children to more than 40 minutes for others. But physical activity during the day and sleep onset at night were closely linked: every hour of sedentary activity during the day resulted in an additional three minutes in the time it took to fall asleep at night. And the children who fell asleep faster ultimately slept longer, getting an extra hour of sleep for every 10-minute reduction in the time it took them to drift off. Studies on adults have reached generally similar results, showing that an increase in physical activity improves sleep onset and increases sleep duration, particularly in people who have trouble sleeping. THE BOTTOM LINE Studies suggest that being more physically active can lead to better sleep. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 13520 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By TARA PARKER-POPE When Cami Walker of Los Angeles learned three years ago that she had multiple sclerosis, her health and her spirits plummeted — until she got an unusual prescription from a holistic health educator. Ms. Walker, now 36, scribbled the idea in her journal. And though she dismissed it at first, after weeks of fatigue, insomnia, pain and preoccupation with her symptoms, she decided to give it a try. The treatment and her experience with it are summed up in the title of her new book, “29 Gifts: How a Month of Giving Can Change Your Life” (Da Capo Press). Ms. Walker gave a gift a day for 29 days — things like making supportive phone calls or saving a piece of chocolate cake for her husband. The giving didn’t cure her multiple sclerosis, of course. But it seems to have had a startling effect on her ability to cope with it. She is more mobile and less dependent on pain medication. The flare-ups that routinely sent her to the emergency room have stopped, and scans show that her disease has stopped progressing. “My first reaction was that I thought it was an insane idea,” Ms. Walker said. “But it has given me a more positive outlook on life. It’s about stepping outside of your own story long enough to make a connection with someone else.” And science appears to back her up. “There’s no question that it gives life a greater meaning when we make this kind of shift in the direction of others and get away from our own self-preoccupation and problems,” said Stephen G. Post, director of the Center for Medical Humanities, Compassionate Care and Bioethics at Stony Brook University on Long Island and a co-author of “Why Good Things Happen to Good People” (Broadway, 2007). “But it also seems to be the case that there is an underlying biology involved in all this.” Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Emotions; Neuroimmunology
Link ID: 13519 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers at the University of British Columbia are shining a new light on a condition that affects children's ability to print, tie their shoes or play sports. Called developmental co-ordination disorder (DCD), it affects about six per cent of school-aged children. For the first time, researchers have shown that the brains of children with DCD are different from other kids. According to researcher Jill Zwicker, a PhD candidate in rehabilitation sciences at UBC, DCD often leads to struggles in school, partly because the kids find it physically difficult to print or write. Researchers performed scans to see how the brains of children with DCD were functioning while trying to trace objects on a piece of paper. "We can see that the children with developmental co-ordination disorder are not activating the same brain areas as typically developing children," Zwicker told CBC News. "We need to do more research to flesh that out a bit more, but it's the first evidence to show that these kids are different at this level as far as their brain activity." Zwicker says the research may help lessen the stigma around the condition, which people often believe is just a lack of co-ordination. "Many people just think that it's clumsy kids and there's nothing wrong with them and they'll outgrow it," she said. But cumulative research has shown that these children are struggling and this is the first evidence to show that they are neurobiologically different." © CBC 2009

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Movement Disorders
Link ID: 13518 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Carolyn Y. Johnson Research into an unusual sleep disorder is unraveling what goes awry in the brains of people who fall prey to daytime sleep attacks - and shedding light on everything from addiction to appetite. Work that began in sleepy dogs and mice has led to a significant advance in understanding narcolepsy, providing new insight into the ways in which sleep and wakefulness, eating, and addictive behaviors are linked. The work is pointing to potential therapies not only for people who are chronically sleepy, but also for the much larger numbers who have trouble sleeping at all. At the root of this work is a fundamental brain chemical called orexin. Research over the past decade has shown that narcolepsy is caused by the loss of a type of brain cell that produces orexin. Scientists have found that the chemical also helps determine when we are asleep and awake and plays a role in regulating appetite and addiction. Orexin “was only discovered in 1998,’’ said Dr. Tom Scammell, a neurologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “A lot of the work is related to sleep, but it’s also opened up these other areas.’’ His lab teases out the nuances of narcolepsy with some unconventional techniques - including tickling sleepy mice to keep them awake and feeding them Froot Loops. The anticipation of the sugary cereal triggers one of the most striking symptoms of the disease: a temporary loss of muscle control called cataplexy, causing mice to drop in their tracks. Using gene therapy, he restored orexin to the brains of mice who lacked it and found that it improves their ability to stay awake and reduces cataplexy. © 2009 NY Times Co.

Keyword: Narcolepsy; Sleep
Link ID: 13517 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By BENEDICT CAREY If a friend is someone who laughs at our stories, then a good friend is one who enjoys them even the second time around. But anyone who gasps with delight on hearing a story for the third time is faking it. Or, it’s a relative: some poor nephew Will or aunt Emily, sitting captive at the holiday table, being polite, perhaps covering a shudder of dread that life is caught in some endless loop where the punch lines never change. It is not an entirely irrational fear, either, according to new research published in the journal Psychological Science. “You hear people of all ages, not just elderly people, say, ‘Stop me if I’ve told you this before,’ ” said Nigel Gopie, a postdoctoral fellow at the Rotman Research Institute, in Toronto, who has a paper in the current issue of the journal on these memory lapses. “We often have a hard time remembering who we told things to, and clearly it starts early.” In their long study of memory, psychologists have made important distinctions between the short-term and long-term varieties. They have documented crucial differences between explicit memories, like for faces and vocabulary, and the implicit kind, like for driving skills. They have published hundreds of studies on autobiographical memory, false memories and so-called source memory — the ability to recall where a fact was learned, whether from the radio or a book, from a work colleague or the neighborhood gossip. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 13516 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NICHOLAS WADE What is the essence of human nature? Flawed, say many theologians. Vicious and addicted to warfare, wrote Hobbes. Selfish and in need of considerable improvement, think many parents. But biologists are beginning to form a generally sunnier view of humankind. Their conclusions are derived in part from testing very young children, and partly from comparing human children with those of chimpanzees, hoping that the differences will point to what is distinctively human. The somewhat surprising answer at which some biologists have arrived is that babies are innately sociable and helpful to others. Of course every animal must to some extent be selfish to survive. But the biologists also see in humans a natural willingness to help. When infants 18 months old see an unrelated adult whose hands are full and who needs assistance opening a door or picking up a dropped clothespin, they will immediately help, Michael Tomasello writes in “Why We Cooperate,” a book published in October. Dr. Tomasello, a developmental psychologist, is co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The helping behavior seems to be innate because it appears so early and before many parents start teaching children the rules of polite behavior. “It’s probably safe to assume that they haven’t been explicitly and directly taught to do this,” said Elizabeth Spelke, a developmental psychologist at Harvard. “On the other hand, they’ve had lots of opportunities to experience acts of helping by others. I think the jury is out on the innateness question.” Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Development of the Brain; Emotions
Link ID: 13515 - Posted: 06.24.2010

There is a tiny period of time between the registration of a visual stimulus by the unconscious mind and our conscious recognition of it — between the time we see an apple and the time we recognize it as an apple. Our minds lag behind our eyes, but by how long? And how does this affect our reactions to the world around us? Some estimates say the time delay lasts only 100 milliseconds, others say 500 milliseconds. A new study by Tel Aviv University psychologists says that the answer is somewhere close to the latter, but can vary depending on the complexity of the stimulus. Researcher Moti Salti and his supervisors Dominique Lamy and Prof. Yair Bar-Haim of TAU's Department of Psychology reported their findings in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. "We are hunting for the brain activity associated with conscious perception," says Salti. "When you wander through this world, you see and hear things that may reveal themselves to your conscious mind — and others that don't. We are interested in what cues the brain gives us to open that unconscious perception to the conscious mind — what makes our conscious mind tick." This basic science, Salti says, won't immediately provide marketers with the basis for a new and advanced kind of subliminal advertising. But it may answer long-debated questions about the mysterious nexus between our conscious and unconscious minds. © 2002-2009 redOrbit.com.

Keyword: Vision; Attention
Link ID: 13514 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Jessica Hamzelou DEPRESSION really does change the way you see the world. People with the condition find it easy to interpret large images or scenes, but struggle to "spot the difference" in fine detail. The finding hints at visual training as a possible treatment. Depressed people have a shortage of a neurotransmitter called GABA; this has also been linked to a visual skill called spatial suppression, which helps us suppress details surrounding the object our eyes are focused on - enabling us to pick out a snake in fallen leaves, for instance. Now Julie Golomb and colleagues at Yale University are trying to link this ability with major depressive disorder (MDD). Golomb asked 32 people to watch a brief computer animation of white bars drifting over a grey and black background, and say which way they were moving. A quicker response gave a higher score. Half of the group had good mental health, while the rest had recently recovered from depression. The latter were chosen so that medication would not interfere with the results, but Golomb thinks results from people with MDD would be similar because the condition is thought to have genetic factors. When the image was large, the recovered volunteers found the task easier, which means they would do better in the forest scenario. But they performed less well than the other group when looking at a small image. "Their ability to discriminate fine details was impaired, which is the sort of perception that we tend to use on a daily basis," says Golomb (Journal of Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1003-09.2009). © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Depression; Attention
Link ID: 13513 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Lindsey Tanner CHICAGO - The first rigorous study of behavior treatment in autistic children as young as 18 months found two years of therapy can vastly improve symptoms, often resulting in a milder diagnosis. The study was small - just 48 children evaluated at the University of Washington - but the results were so encouraging it has been expanded to several other sites, said Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer of the advocacy group Autism Speaks. Dawson, a former University of Washington professor, led the research team. Early autism treatment has been getting more attention, but it remains controversial because there’s scant rigorous evidence showing it really works. The study is thus “a landmark of great import,’’ said Tony Charman, an autism education specialist at the Institute of Education in London. There’s also a growing emphasis on diagnosing autism at the earliest possible age, and the study shows that can pay off with early, effective treatment, said Laura Schreibman, an autism researcher at the University of California at San Diego. The National Institute of Mental Health funded the study, which was published online today in Pediatrics. Children age 18 months to 30 months were randomly assigned to receive behavior treatment called the Early Start Denver model from therapists and parents, or they were referred to others for less comprehensive care. © 2009 NY Times Co.

Keyword: Autism; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 13512 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By DANIEL BERGNER At her group therapy sessions for women despairing of low sexual desire, Lori Brotto likes to pass around a plastic tub of raisins. The women, usually six to a group, sit around two pushed-together beige tables in a fluorescently lighted conference room at the British Columbia Center for Sexual Medicine in Vancouver. A little potted tree is jammed randomly in one corner. Ragged holes scar one wall where a painting used to hang. The décor doesn’t speak of sensuality. That is the job of the raisin. Brotto asks each woman to take a single raisin from the small tub. A slender, elegant 34-year-old psychologist, a mother of two with a third child on the way, she began her career studying the libidos of rats. She is now one of the world’s leading specialists in what is known as hypoactive sexual desire disorder in women. She is in charge of defining the condition’s criteria for the next Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, commonly called the D.S.M, which the American Psychiatric Association is preparing to publish in 2012 or 2013. The book is the bible of psychiatric diseases, from autism to sleepwalking, relied on by researchers and clinicians throughout the United States and Canada. Studies suggest that around 30 percent of young and middle-aged women go through extended periods of feeling dim desire — or of feeling no wish for sex whatsoever. “Black raisins,” Brotto said, laughing at her own arbitrary preference as she described her methods. “I don’t like brown raisins or green raisins or cooked raisins.” Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 13511 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Michelle Roberts US scientists are testing a radical new theory that multiple sclerosis (MS) is caused by blockages in the veins that drain the brain. The University of Buffalo team were intrigued by the work of Italian researcher Dr Paolo Zamboni who claims 90% of MS is caused by narrowed veins. He says the restricted drainage, visible on scans, injures the brain leading to MS. He has already widened the blockages in a handful of patients. The US team want to replicate his earlier work before treating patients. Experts welcomed the research saying it was important to confirm the basic science before evaluating any therapy. MS is a long-term inflammatory condition of the central nervous system which affects the transfer of messages from the nervous system to the rest of the body. The Buffalo team, led by Dr Robert Zivadinov, plan to recruit 1,100 patients with MS and 600 other volunteers as controls who are either healthy or have neurological diseases other than MS. Using Doppler ultrasound, they will scan the patients to see if they can find any blockages within the veins of the neck and brain. BBC © MMIX

Keyword: Multiple Sclerosis
Link ID: 13510 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Jody Bourton Why do hammerhead sharks have such a famously strange-shaped head? One hypothesis is that having eyes on either side of such a wide 'hammer' allows the sharks to see better. But even this idea divides scientific opinion, as researchers argue over whether the hammerhead design makes it more or less difficult to see. The mystery may now be solved by a study showing that a hammerhead gives sharks outstanding binocular vision and an ability to see through 360 degrees. The finding is published in the Journal of Experimental Biology. Debate over why hammerheads are shaped as they are goes back centuries, and arguments over their visual capabilities goes back decades, says Dr Michelle McComb from Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, US. For example, in 1948, zoologist Gordon Walls, a leading authority on vertebrate eye evolution, suggested that the position of a hammerhead shark's eye precluded it from having binocular vision. Yet in 1984, leading shark expert Leonard Campagno countered by suggesting that the distance between a hammerhead's eyes would actually give it excellent binocular vision. Binocular vision occurs when the fields of two eyes overlap, allowing the accurate perception of depth and distance. It is especially important for predators which need to judge the distance to their prey. BBC © MMIX

Keyword: Vision; Evolution
Link ID: 13509 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Jessica Hamzelou Sounds played as you sleep can reinforce memories, suggest Ken Paller and his colleagues at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. They asked people to memorise which images and their associated sounds – such as a picture of a cat and a miaow – were associated with a certain area on a computer screen and then to take a nap. They played half the group the sounds in their sleep, and these people were better at remembering the associations than the rest when they woke up. Paller hopes sounds can be used to improve all kinds of memory and next he'll be figuring out if we can learn languages while we snooze. But before you nod off, New Scientist helps you get the most out of your shut-eye. How can you boost your sleep learning capacity? As a rule, hit the hay after learning something new – late-night TV and Xbox marathons are a no-no. That is, of course, unless the skill you hope to learn is a computer game: when Sidarta Ribeiro of the Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute of Neuroscience in Natal, Brazil, got people to play shoot-'em-up video game Doom before bed, those who dreamed about the game during their sleep were better players the next day. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 13508 - Posted: 06.24.2010