By Nikhil Swaminathan Aha! Eureka! Bingo! "By George, I think she's got it!" Everyone knows what it's like to finally figure out a seemingly impossible problem. But what on Earth is happening in the brain while we're driving toward mental pay dirt? Researchers eager to find out have long been on the hunt, knowing that such information could one day provide priceless clues in uncovering and fixing faulty neural systems believed to be behind some mental illnesses and learning disabilities. Researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London report in the journal PLoS ONE that they monitored action in the brains of 21 volunteers with electroencephalography (EEG) as they tackled verbal problems in an attempt to uncover what goes through the mind—literally—in order to observe what happens in the brain during an "aha!" moment of problem solving. "This insight is at the core of human intelligence … this is a key cognitive function that the human can boast to have," says Joydeep Bhattacharya, an assistant professor in Goldsmiths's psychology department. "We're interested [in finding out] whether—there is a sudden change that takes place or something that changes gradually [that] we're not consciously aware of," he says. The researchers believed they could pin down brain signals that would enable them to predict whether a person could solve a particular problem or not. © 1996-2007 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Attention; Intelligence
Link ID: 11243 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Shauna Rempel Name: Jennifer Gutsell Program: First-year master's student in psychology at the University of Toronto. Research: Prejudice and the Mirror Neuron System. The goal: "I'm looking for the reason why people are prejudiced," says Gutsell. While it's understood that people are capable of prejudice, and that they are more likely to exhibit bias toward people who are different from themselves, little is known about how the brain contributes to these feelings. The mirror neuron system: This recently discovered system in the brain may have something to do with prejudice. The mirror neuron system is so named because researchers think it explains why humans and some animals "mirror" the behaviour that they see in others. This system, which is linked to feelings of empathy, may also offer a clue as to why prejudice evolved – by looking at situations where people are less empathetic to some people and more empathetic to others. "The mirror neuron system is less responsive to people we don't like," says Gutsell. In other words, you're less likely to shed a tear if you see your enemy sobbing than if you saw your best friend crying. Research on prejudice shows that people tend to show bias toward ethnic and racial groups that are not our own, and Gutsell decided to see if the mirror neuron system was involved. © Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2008

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 11242 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Premature babies who receive morphine may grow up to be more sensitive to pain, a study on rats suggests. US researchers found rodents given the drug just after birth later needed higher doses of morphine to kill pain than counterparts in a placebo group. Morphine is a standard part of care for premature babies, who may need hundreds of painful treatments and tests. The study reported in New Scientist, raises questions, if not answers, about the practice, experts say. Researchers at the University of South Carolina treated newborn rats with morphine injections for the first nine days of life and tested their pain responses a few weeks later. Rats are born so immature that their early development is comparable with that of a premature baby. After nearly six weeks, broadly equivalent to a human becoming a teenager, the morphine rat appeared to be more sensitive to be pain than the rat given the placebo. For instance it withdrew it paws more readily when these were heated with a lamp, and when pain was induced appeared to need more morphine to quell it. About 3% of babies in the US and UK are born so prematurely they need treatments which in turn are believed to require pain relief. Their pain is judged on their physical response, and the drug is administered accordingly. (C)BBC

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 11241 - Posted: 01.25.2008

The Democratic Republic of Congo's Virunga National Park and the surrounding Virunga volcanoes region are home to more than half of the world's population of mountain gorillas. To ensure the long-term survival of this threatened species, teams of rangers monitor and patrol the park's Gorilla Sector. Two of the rangers, Diddy and Innocent, have been keeping a weekly diary for the BBC News website that offers an insight into life on the frontline of conservation. Here, they also share video footage that they have been recording over the past few months. MEET THE GORILLAS Here is footage of some of the park's gorilla groups, known as "families", which are named after the dominant male or "silverback". Innocent, head of gorilla monitoring, is able to recognise every gorilla within the sector. Each animal has a unique "nose print" that enables rangers to tell them apart. (C)BBC

Keyword: Animal Communication; Language
Link ID: 11240 - Posted: 01.25.2008

David Perlman The human mind does strange and wondrous things: Its 100 billion nerve cells packed into a single, lumpy gray organ called the brain can think faster than a computer, ponder the mysteries of life with excruciating slowness, control every movement of the body and command it to fight, flee or stand its ground in defiance. Now, at San Francisco's Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina, a team of neuroscientists, artists, mechanics and builders has created a varied collection of exhibits - many weird as can be - that allow visitors to watch their own minds at work. The interactive exhibits will have visitors use their minds for speed-thinking competitions, to catch a liar in a simulated poker game, to conceal their thoughts when they themselves lie, or to react to emotional conflicts: One, for example encourages visitors to drink from a water fountain that's actually a toilet. A major feature of the show is the first public showing ever of a black-and-white movie that Paul Ekman, the famed UCSF psychologist, made 40 years ago in New Guinea to prove that Charles Darwin was right and modern anthropologists like famed Margaret Mead were wrong when they argued that facial expressions of human emotions differed among people in different cultures. Darwin published his seminal book, "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals," in 1872 and argued that human facial expressions mirrored emotions regardless of the culture in which a person lived. They were part of humanity's evolutionary endowment, Darwin maintained. © 2008 Hearst Communications Inc

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 11239 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Nikhil Swaminathan Blood racing through a brain region's web of vessels is a sign that nerve cells in that locale have kicked into action. The blood rushes to active areas to supply firing neurons with the oxygen and glucose they need for energy. It is this blood flow, which can last up to a minute, that scientists track in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to determine which brain areas are responding to different stimuli. But a new theory could pave the way for a reinterpretation of fMRI images, elevating their measurements to the evaluation of actual neuronal processing rather than the subsequent blood flow that indirectly indicates it, and thereby enhancing the fMRI's usefulness in diagnosing neurological problems. Christopher Moore, an assistant neuroscience professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's McGovern Institute for Brain Research, detailed his hypothesis in a recent article published in the Journal of Neurophysiology. In essence, it suggests blood's role in the cortex (a key brain processing center), specifically, is more than just bringing nutrients to the cell, it can also alter the activity of local neuronal circuits. For instance, in experiments in his lab, Moore has seen that there is more blood flow can arrive in an area that processes information from a presented stimulus to a certain sense (e.g. touch, visual, auditory) prior to the appearance of the stimulus, implying that the flow can prime a circuit for activity, as well. © 1996-2007 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Brain imaging; Alzheimers
Link ID: 11238 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Mason Inman Passport and ID card photos could be more effective if they were averages of several snapshots, say researchers who have shown that approach allows facial recognition software to spot familiar faces as well humans do. Psychologists Rob Jenkins and Mike Burton of the University of Glasgow, UK, were inspired by studying how we recognize familiar faces. They found humans are much better at recognizing averaged faces than if shown an individual photo. The duo argues that as we see a person from different angles and in varied lighting, we build a mental image of their face that averages out all those experiences. They went on to show that averaging multiple photos of a person can also help facial recognition software work better. The researchers plugged individual photos of male celebrities into an online genealogy service, MyHeritage.com. The website allows people to compare their photos against a large database of celebrity images to see which famous people they most closely resemble. The site is powered by a facial recognition program called FaceVACS. It is one of the best available, according to a 2006 test by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 11237 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Matt Kaplan Male lark buntings don't know what to expect from the ladies.Alexis ChaineMost animals look for the same things in a mate year after year: the peahen wants the peacock with the most extravagant tail, the doe opts for the stag with the biggest antlers, and the blue-footed booby looks for the bluest feet. But things are more complicated for male lark buntings. Each year the females seem to be after a different sort of mate. Evolutionary theory says that females can drive the evolution of some sexual characteristics in males by consistently selecting one characteristic in a mate. The peacock tail is a prime example, as the biggest and brightest feathers are indicative of the healthiest and 'best' males. Now a study by Alexis Chaine and Bruce Lyon at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has revealed a situation in which this theory does not apply. During their 5-year study, Chaine and Lyon noted the plumage and size characteristics of 384 lark buntings (an average of about 80 per year) in Colorado. They tracked how these physical characteristics related to male reproductive success by monitoring the male’s offspring each year, with genetic tests to confirm paternity. They expected to find only one or two characteristics that were selected above all others, but they report in Science that the characteristics that were selected changed from year to year1. © 2008 Nature Publishing Group

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 11236 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Winter got you feeling like you don't want to get out of bed? That's probably nothing to worry about — unless you find your mood slipping around the time the clocks go back in October until they spring ahead in March. You could be suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a form of depression that follows a seasonal pattern. The Canadian Mental Health Association estimates that one to three per cent of Canadians suffer from cases of SAD that are bad enough to affect their ability to cope with life. Of patients suffering from a major depression, 11 per cent are also likely to develop SAD as the longer daylight hours of spring and summer fade into autumn and winter's longer hours of darkness. "As the days get shorter, you are more vulnerable," Dr Roger McIntyre, head of the mood disorders unit at the University Health Network in Toronto, told CBC News. "It is not the cold weather." SAD was recognized as a disorder in the early 1980s, but researchers have been aware of its symptoms for 150 years. One of the problems with diagnosing SAD is that its symptoms are similar to other types of depressions. © CBC 2008

Keyword: Depression; Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 11235 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jennifer Viegas -- Want to produce a clone? If so, you would have the best chance if you were a rare, aquatic plant living in an undisturbed, geographically marginal habitat, according to a new study on asexual reproduction. Since the combination of circumstances is so narrow, the findings suggest that sexual failure winds up being the key component for cloning success. "I suggest that clonal reproduction is not a substitute for success, but merely prolongs the time to extinction when sex is absent," Jonathan Silvertown wrote in his paper, which has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Plant Sciences. Silvertown, a professor of ecology at the Open University in Milton Keynes, England, told Discovery News that both plants and animals can become natural clones. Certain sharks and lizards, for example, may reproduce asexually, as can microscopic organisms called rotifers. Corals, sponges and other "modular animals" can also break off into clones. Plants, however, represent the vast majority of clones, "because growth in plants takes place in a modular way, so modules, such as stems, twigs, shoots, and repeated units like that are half-way to cloning," he said. © 2008 Discovery Communications

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 11234 - Posted: 06.24.2010

A Montreal researcher has received a prestigious Alberta prize for his work on how a parent's touch can help shape a child's ability to cope with stress. Michael Meaney was awarded the inaugural $100,000 Lougheed Prize from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Wednesday morning in Calgary. Meaney's research with rodents suggests how parents groom and care for their offspring can change the chemistry of the DNA in certain genes involved in the body's responses to stress. Meaney, a professor at McGill University, said rats who were frequently licked by their mothers were calmer and less fearful while those who did not receive as much attention were nervous and cautious. The research also concluded rats who received plenty of grooming and stroking from their moms were able to perform certain tasks better. Sabina Harris-Lucier already knows how quickly her own mother's touch can affect her 16-month-old daughter, Solah. © CBC 2008

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Pain & Touch
Link ID: 11233 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Charles Q. Choi The area of the brain that controls whether you keep rooting around the refrigerator or actually start chowing down has now been discovered. This brain region — which seems to help govern the "eureka" moment or turning point between exploration and mulling over one's discovery — is also linked to urges that malfunction in addiction and certain mental disorders, scientists added. The scientists presented two rhesus monkeys with a choice of four targets on a computer touch screen. The animals spent time exploring which target would trigger a juice reward by trial and error. Once the monkeys found the right target, the researchers then gave the monkeys a few seconds, during which they could repeatedly touch the rewarding target, exploiting their discovery to get more juice. The experiments mimicked nature, where an animal might search "which hole is hiding food, and then go back to that hole if it proved to be a good source," said researcher Emmanuel Procyk, a neuroscientist at the University of Lyon in France. During the experiments, Procyk and his colleagues recorded the electrical activity of hundreds of neurons in the anterior cingulate cortex. This brain region helps assess the rewards and costs of an action. © 2008 LiveScience.com.

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 11232 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Catherine Brahic Male guppies may sexually harass females of another fish species to prevent them from reproducing, researchers suggest. They believe the guppies – which have invaded Mexican rivers and lakes – are using sex as a way of suppressing one native fish population. The researchers also think the guppies may physically harm the native females so they are unable to reproduce with males of their own species, or shy away from further interactions with males. Guppies, originally from Trinidad, invaded Mexican waters in the 1950s. The pet trade is generally blamed for introducing them around the world as aquarium owners wanting to get rid of fish, sometimes dump them into rivers. In Mexico and elsewhere, the released guppies rapidly reproduced. "Male guppies are very sexually active," explains Alejandra Valero at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, who led the new study. She says guppies are "like sex machines". One species that suffered from the invasion of the guppies was Skiffia bilineata, a fish native to Mexican waters which is threatened with extinction. Female skiffia look like female guppies, so Valero and her colleagues wanted to find out if this was contributing to the species' decline. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 11231 - Posted: 06.24.2010

US scientists have developed a gene therapy treatment which they hope could revolutionise pain relief. Pain vanished for at least three months in rats who were injected in the spine with a gene that triggers endorphins, the body's natural pain killer. The therapy did not affect the rest of the nervous system, including the brain, potentially preventing the main side-effects of current pain relief. Studies suggest drugs do not relieve cancer pain in as many as 66% of cases. The research appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Chronic pain patients often do not experience satisfactory pain relief from available treatments due to poor efficacy or intolerable side effects like extreme sleepiness, mental clouding and hallucinations," said Andreas Beutler, part of the team who conducted the study at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He said that in some circumstances, patients preferred to continue suffering some pain in order to preserve lucidity. There is also a potential risk of addiction to opiate drugs. The team used a disabled cold virus to carry the gene into the spinal fluid of the rats, which had been developed to suffer from chronic pain. By blocking the pain impulses travelling up to their brains, the rats remained pain-free for at least three months, the researchers wrote. "Although this research is at a very early stage, the concept of using gene therapy to deliver pain relief is interesting because it could potentially have fewer side effects than conventional pain relief," said Josephine Querido of Cancer Research UK. (C)BBC

Keyword: Pain & Touch; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 11230 - Posted: 01.22.2008

By John Tierney Before I reveal the Figaro Factotum regimen for greater personal productivity, let me explain how it came about. Maintaining a blog while doing other things has reminded me of how bad I am at juggling different jobs. I’ve tried to excuse this as a consequence of my gender. I’ve tried consoling myself with the theories of evolutionary psychologists who say that male hunters on the savanna needed to focus intently on one job — kill or be killed — while women evolved to be better multitaskers because the survival of the species depended on their being able to keep an eye on children while doing other work. But now I fear I just have a lazy untrained brain. Some other men — musical conductors — multitask just fine, and it’s possible that this skill can be learned if you’re just diligent enough to rewire your brain, according to a study published in NeuroReport by researchers at Wake Forest University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging to map the brains of musical conductors and non-musicians who tried to distinguish musical tones while also being shown visual images. The scans showed that non-musicians had to turn off more of their visual sense than the conductors did in order to focus on the task. One of the researchers, Dr. Hodges, director of the Music Research Institute at UNC- Greensboro, says there are two possible interpretations of the results: One is that the brains of musicians are wired this way, and that’s why they became musicians. The other is that they train their brains for rewiring. Because conductors have to be able to hear a bad note, then identify who did it, perhaps they rewire their brains to combine their visual and auditory senses. Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Attention
Link ID: 11229 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By NATALIE ANGIER As the candidates have shown us in the succulent telenovela that is the 2008 presidential race, there are many ways to parry for political power. You can go tough and steely in an orange hunter’s jacket, or touchy-feely with a Kleenex packet. You can ally yourself with an alpha male like Chuck Norris, befriend an alpha female like Oprah Winfrey or split the difference and campaign with your mother. You can seek the measured endorsement of the town elders or the restless energy of the young, showily handle strange infants or furtively slam your opponents. Just as there are myriad strategies open to the human political animal with White House ambitions, so there are a number of nonhuman animals that behave like textbook politicians. Researchers who study highly gregarious and relatively brainy species like rhesus monkeys, baboons, dolphins, sperm whales, elephants and wolves have lately uncovered evidence that the creatures engage in extraordinarily sophisticated forms of politicking, often across large and far-flung social networks. Male dolphins, for example, organize themselves into at least three nested tiers of friends and accomplices, said Richard C. Connor of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, rather like the way human societies are constructed of small kin groups allied into larger tribes allied into still larger nation-states. The dolphins maintain their alliances through elaborately synchronized twists, leaps and spins like Blue Angel pilots blazing their acrobatic fraternity on high. Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Intelligence
Link ID: 11228 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Drake Bennett WHEN YOU READ something confusing, or work a crossword puzzle, or try to remember where you put your keys, what do you do with your body? Do you sit? Do you stand? Do you pace? Do you do anything with your hands? Do you move your eyes in a particular pattern? Discuss Do you use movement to think better? more stories like thisHow you answer questions like these, it turns out, may determine how long it will take for you to decipher what you're reading, solve your puzzle, or get your keys back. The brain is often envisioned as something like a computer, and the body as its all-purpose tool. But a growing body of new research suggests that something more collaborative is going on - that we think not just with our brains, but with our bodies. A series of studies, the latest published in November, has shown that children can solve math problems better if they are told to use their hands while thinking. Another recent study suggested that stage actors remember their lines better when they are moving. And in one study published last year, subjects asked to move their eyes in a specific pattern while puzzling through a brainteaser were twice as likely to solve it. The term most often used to describe this new model of mind is "embodied cognition," and its champions believe it will open up entire new avenues for understanding - and enhancing - the abilities of the human mind. © 2008 NY Times Co.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 11227 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Temma Ehrenfeld Forget about mind-blowing fun. Nowadays the kids who came of age in the '60s are turning 60. And they'd rather keep their minds intact, thank you. With that wave of elder boomers looming, scientists are hard at work on ways to prevent dementia and ordinary mental decline. The research is beginning to bear fruit: it's clear that a healthy lifestyle and mental exercise can measurably improve cognitive functioning. So the next time you hear yourself refer to "what's his name" or find yourself wandering a parking lot in search of your car, resolve to start a brain-fitness program. Here are six brain-sharpening recommendations that mindful folks of any age can follow. (Why not start early?) 1. Go Aerobic More than 60 percent of seniors don't exercise, according to surveys by the Centers for Disease Control. That's a big mistake, since an impressive lineup of research suggests that exercise promotes new neurons in the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for some aspects of memory, and new connections between them. Neuroscientist Arthur Kramer and colleagues at the University of Illinois found that after only six months people over 60 who exercised three times a week for an hour had the brain volumes of people three years younger. In 2006 the Annals of Internal Medicine reported a six-year project involving 1,740 people 65 and up that linked even moderate exercise to reduced risk of dementia. So get your heart pumping so it brings more blood and oxygen to your brain. 2. Be a Player Software has been used for years to help people who have suffered strokes or traumatic brain injuries regain specific mental abilities. © 2008 Newsweek, Inc

Keyword: Learning & Memory; Alzheimers
Link ID: 11226 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Clara Moskowitz It's no secret culture influences your food preferences and taste in music. But now scientists say it impacts the hard-wiring of your brain. New research shows that people from different cultures use their brains differently to solve basic perceptual tasks. Neuroscientists Trey Hedden and John Gabrieli of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research asked Americans and East Asians to solve basic shape puzzles while in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. They found that both groups could successfully complete the tasks, but American brains had to work harder at relative judgments, while East Asian brains found absolute judgments more challenging. Previous psychology research has shown that American culture focuses on the individual and values independence, while East Asian culture is more community-focused and emphasizes seeing people and objects in context. This study provides the first neurological evidence that these cultural differences extend to brain activity patterns. "It's kind of obvious if you look at ads and movies," Gabrieli told LiveScience. © 2008 LiveScience.com.

Keyword: Brain imaging
Link ID: 11225 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Frank Eltman, -- Now that surgeons have operated on Stacey Gayle's brain, her favorite musician no longer makes her ill. Four years after being diagnosed with epilepsy, Gayle recently underwent brain surgery at Long Island Jewish Medical Center to cure a rare condition known as musicogenic epilepsy. Gayle, a 25-year-old customer service employee at a bank in Alberta, Canada, was suffering as many as 10 grand mal seizures a day, despite being treated with medications designed to control them. The condition became so bad she eventually had to quit her job and leave the church choir where she sang. Eighteen months ago, she began to suspect that music by reggae and hip-hop artist Sean Paul was triggering some of her seizures. She recalled being at a barbecue and collapsing when the Jamaican rapper's music started playing, and then remembered having a previous seizure when she heard his music. Her suspicions were confirmed on a visit to the Long Island medical center last February, when she played Paul's hit "Temperature" on her iPod for doctors. Soon after, she suffered three seizures. © 2008 Discovery Communications, LLC

Keyword: Epilepsy; Hearing
Link ID: 11224 - Posted: 06.24.2010