http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Most people equate "gray matter" with the brain and its higher functions, such as sensation and perception, but this is only one part of the anatomical puzzle inside our heads. Another cerebral component is the white matter, which makes up about half the brain by volume and serves as the communications network. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-white-dogs.html Neuroscience Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:49:22 EST news267724155 MRI brain scans no longer just show the various regions of brain activity; nowadays the networks in the brain can now be imaged with ever greater precision. This will make functional MRI (fMRI) increasingly powerful in the coming years, leading to tools that can be used in cognitive neuroscience. This is the claim made by Prof. David Norris in his inaugural lecture as Professor of Neuroimaging at the University of Twente on 13 September. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-imaging-network-traffic-brains.html Neuroscience Tue, 18 Sep 2012 08:20:09 EST news267175200 (Medical Xpress)—Long before babies can talk—even before they can sit up on their own—they are mentally forming categories for objects and animals in a way that, for example, sets apart squares from triangles and cats from dogs, psychologists say. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-babies-gender-months.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:50:01 EST news266571064 (Medical Xpress)—Professional ball game players report the sensation of the ball 'slowing-down' just before they hit it. Confirming these anecdotal comments, a new study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows that time is perceived to slow down during the period of action preparation, as the result of an increased intake of visual information. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-ready-steady-sportsmen-ball.html Neuroscience Fri, 07 Sep 2012 06:50:57 EST news266219450 (Medical Xpress)—Like a melody that keeps playing in your head even after the music stops, researchers at the University of Illinois's Beckman Institute have shown that the beat goes on when it comes to the human visual system. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-brain-visual-entrained-future-events.html Neuroscience Tue, 28 Aug 2012 14:33:54 EST news265383222 Severe psychological and physical neglect produces measurable changes in children's brains, finds a study led by Boston Children's Hospital. But the study also suggests that positive interventions can partially reverse these changes. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-mri-social-deprivation-effect-brain.html Neuroscience Mon, 23 Jul 2012 15:00:21 EST news262261678 Neuroscientists have found strong evidence that vivid memory and directly experiencing the real moment can trigger similar brain activation patterns. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-vivid-memory-real-perceptual-mental.html Neuroscience Mon, 23 Jul 2012 12:26:51 EST news262265200 Scientists at The University of Nottingham are leading research that will develop the world's first 'atlas' of the Asian brain. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-road-mapping-asian-brain.html Neuroscience Tue, 03 Jul 2012 10:22:13 EST news260529727 The hormone oxytocin - often referred to as the "trust" hormone or "love hormone" for its role in stimulating emotional responses - plays an important role in Williams syndrome (WS), according to a study published June 12, 2012, in PLoS One. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-hormone-oxytocin-heart-rare-genetic.html Neuroscience Fri, 22 Jun 2012 15:05:41 EST news259596331 When grabbing a coffee mug out of a cluttered cabinet or choosing a pen to quickly sign a document, what brain processes guide your choices? http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-brain-visual-perception-unconsciously-affects.html Neuroscience Wed, 23 May 2012 10:04:53 EST news256986216 New research with monkeys sheds light on how the drug methylphenidate may affect learning and memory in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-effects-doses-adhd-drug-higher.html Attention deficit disorders Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:06:01 EST news250441490 Professor Jason Mattingley, Foundation Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience at The University of Queensland, released his findings into ‘brain waves' at the Australian Neuroscience Society's (ANS) annual conference last week. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-links-brain-cognition-attention-disorders.html Neuroscience Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:16:35 EST news247817783 Children at risk for dyslexia show differences in brain activity on MRI scans even before they begin learning to read, finds a study at Children's Hospital Boston. Since developmental dyslexia responds to early intervention, diagnosing children at risk before or during kindergarten could head off difficulties and frustration in school, the researchers say. Findings appear this week in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-brain-mris-early-diagnostic-marker.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:00:08 EST news246550076 Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have, for the first time, identified an intracellular signaling enzyme that regulates the wake-sleep cycle, which could help lead to the development of more effective sleep aid medications. Subimal Datta, PhD, director and principle investigator at the Laboratory of Sleep and Cognitive Neuroscience at BUSM, led the study, which points to a specific enzyme inside neurons in the brain that trigger an important shift in consciousness from sleep to wakefulness and wakefulness to sleep. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-molecular-mechanism.html Sleep apnea Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:24:48 EST news241205082 Skilled readers can recognize words at lightning fast speed when they read because the word has been placed in a visual dictionary of sorts, say Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) neuroscientists. The visual dictionary idea rebuts the theory that our brain "sounds out" words each time we see them. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-skilled-readers-brain-visual-dictionary.html Neuroscience Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:00:07 EST news240491075 A team of neuroscientists at Dartmouth College has shown that different individuals' brains use the same, common neural code to recognize complex visual images. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-neuroscientists-brain-codes.html Neuroscience Thu, 20 Oct 2011 12:00:01 EST news238330299 Magnetic resonance tractography (MRT) is a valuable, noninvasive imaging tool for studying human brain anatomy and, as MRT methods and technologies advance, has the potential to yield new and illuminating information on brain activity and connectivity. Critical information about the promise and limitations of this technology is explored in a forward-looking review article in the groundbreaking new neuroscience journal Brain Connectivity, a bimonthly peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-magnetic-resonance-tractography-human-brain.html Medical research Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:33:22 EST news236262771 Starting just days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, MIT neuroscientist John Gabrieli (who was then at Stanford University) and colleagues around the country undertook a large-scale survey of how people remembered the attacks. For decades, psychologists have theorized that such traumatic events become imprinted into the brain, creating memories much more vivid than our usual everyday ones. However, some studies have shown that these memories are not as accurate as we may believe them to be. Here, Gabrieli, the Grover Hermann Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Cognitive Neuroscience, discusses what the 9/11 study tells us about such “flashbulb” memories. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-john-gabrielli-traumatic-memories.html Psychology & Psychiatry Fri, 09 Sep 2011 07:01:44 EST news234770407 Men and women differ in the way they anticipate an unpleasant emotional experience, which influences the effectiveness with which that experience is committed to memory, according to new research. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-women-negative-differently-men.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:28:32 EST news233339296 Every day we make thousands of tiny predictions — when the bus will arrive, who is knocking on the door, whether the dropped glass will break. Now, in one of the first studies of its kind, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are beginning to unravel the process by which the brain makes these everyday prognostications. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-everyday-clairvoyance-brain-near-future.html Neuroscience Wed, 17 Aug 2011 15:48:14 EST news232814852 Inhibitory control can be boosted with a mild form of brain stimulation, according to a study published in the June 2011 issue of Neuroimage, Elsevier's Journal of Brain Function. The study's findings indicate that non-invasive intervention can greatly improve patients' inhibitory control. Conducted by a research team led by Dr Chi-Hung Juan of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Central University in Taiwan, the research was sponsored by the National Science Council in Taiwan, the UK Medical Research Council, the Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award, and a Fulbright Award. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-noninvasive-brain-curb-impulsivity.html Neuroscience Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:27:51 EST news227359629 Birds do it. Bees do it. Even little kids picking strawberries do it. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-deep-seated-brain-function.html Neuroscience Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:01:05 EST news226594152 Moral responses change as people age says a new study from the University of Chicago. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-moral-responses-people-age.html Psychology & Psychiatry Fri, 03 Jun 2011 05:27:36 EST news226297633 (PhysOrg.com) -- At the April 4, 2011 annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society the subject of moral dilemmas and what people would really do was addressed. In a study presented by Oriel FeldmanHall of Cambridge University shows that when it comes to moral studies, hypothetical scenarios do not work to determine the complexities of what people’s real decisions would be. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-people-money.html Psychology & Psychiatry Fri, 08 Apr 2011 05:40:01 EST news221454423