http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. (Medical Xpress)—Whether we're listening to Bach or the blues, our brains are wired to make music-color connections depending on how the melodies make us feel, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley. For instance, Mozart's jaunty Flute Concerto No. 1 in G major is most often associated with bright yellow and orange, whereas his dour Requiem in D minor is more likely to be linked to dark, bluish gray. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-bach-blues-emotions-music.html Psychology & Psychiatry Thu, 16 May 2013 15:02:21 EST news287935254 Functional loss of limb control in individuals with spinal cord injury or stroke can be caused by interruption of the neural pathways between brain and spinal cord, although the neural circuits located above and below the lesion remain functional. An artificial neural connection that bridges the lost pathway and connects brain to spinal circuits has potential to ameliorate the functional loss. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-paretic-function-artificial-neural-bridging.html Neuroscience Thu, 11 Apr 2013 02:00:01 EST news284837726 Dalhousie neurosurgeon and scientist Dr. Rob Brownstone and postdoctoral fellow Dr. Tuan Bui have identified the spinal cord circuit that controls the hand's ability to grasp. This breakthrough finding opens the door to the possibility of restoring hand function with treatments that target this spinal cord circuit. The world's leading neuroscience journal, Neuron, will publish the researchers' finding online at 12 noon EST on Wednesday, April 10. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-function-spinal-cord-circuit-ability.html Neuroscience Wed, 10 Apr 2013 10:03:41 EST news284807007 A study from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine offers new insights into how the nervous system processes hot and cold temperatures. The research led by neuroscientist Mark J. Zylka, PhD, associate professor of cell biology and physiology, found an interaction between the neural circuits that detect hot and cold stimuli: cold perception is enhanced when nerve circuitry for heat is inactivated. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-hot-cold-interact.html Neuroscience Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:54:41 EST news284655275 Scientists have identified a key molecule responsible for triggering the chemical processes in our brain linked to our formation of memories. The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Neural Circuits, reveal a new target for therapeutic interventions to reverse the devastating effects of memory loss. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-scientists-brain-molecular-memory.html Neuroscience Thu, 28 Mar 2013 09:36:25 EST news283682136 (Medical Xpress)—Neuroscientists face a multitude of challenges in their efforts to better understand the human brain. If not for model organisms such as the rat, they might never know what really goes on inside our heads. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-rats-brains-scientists-previously-thought.html Neuroscience Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:31:55 EST news283595506 (Medical Xpress)—With every sunrise and sunset, our eyes make note of the light as it waxes and wanes, a process that is critical to aligning our circadian rhythms to match the solar day so we are alert during the day and restful at night. Watching the sun come and go sounds like a peaceful process, but Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that behind the scenes, millions of specialized cells in our eyes are fighting for their lives to help the retina set the stage to keep our internal clocks ticking. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-cell-death-retina-tune-internal.html Neuroscience Tue, 05 Mar 2013 17:56:25 EST news281728538 A new study that found the common plastic ingredient bisphenol A (BPA) may harm a baby's brain development in-utero has been described as 'misleading' and 'not relevant' by Australian experts. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-experts-criticise-linking-chemical-bpa.html Health Tue, 26 Feb 2013 08:06:12 EST news281088356 A new finding in neuroscience for the first time points to a developmental mechanism linking the disease-causing mutation in an autism-related disorder, Timothy syndrome, and observed defects in brain wiring, according to a study led by scientist Ricardo Dolmetsch and published online yesterday in Nature Neuroscience. These findings may be at the heart of the mechanisms underlying intellectual disability and many other brain disorders. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-discovery-autism-related-disorder-reveals-key.html Neuroscience Mon, 14 Jan 2013 09:08:08 EST news277376881 New research published in Psychological Science investigates the ways in which the physical state of our bodies may play a role in shaping what we think, feel, and perceive. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-covert-simulations-aesthetic-artworks.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 10 Dec 2012 09:16:55 EST news274353366 A team of IRCM researchers, led by Dr. Frédéric Charron, recently uncovered a nerve cell's internal clock, used during embryonic development. The discovery was made in collaboration with Dr. Alyson Fournier's laboratory at the Montreal Neurological Institute. Published today in the prestigious scientific journal Neuron, this breakthrough could lead to the development of new tools to repair and regenerate nerve cells following injuries to the central nervous system. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-regenerating-nerve-cells.html Neuroscience Wed, 21 Nov 2012 14:07:48 EST news272729260 Having a drink after a stressful day at work may seem like a natural response for some, but can your neural circuits predict when a drink or two will become problem drinking? A study published in BioMed Central's open-access journal Biology of Mood & Anxiety Disorders suggests that may be the case. The study describes a highly novel mechanism predicting problem drinking in college students from fMRI data measuring individual differences in the functioning of reward and threat circuits in the brain. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-threat-reward-stress-problem.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 13 Nov 2012 20:00:01 EST news272047513 (Medical Xpress)—Although less than half the size of a walnut and weighing one gram, the brain of a songbird is fully capable of generating complex learned behaviors. Songbirds are one of the few groups of animals other than humans that actually learn the sounds used for their vocal communication and for that reason are fascinating to study. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-neural-circuit-songbird-brain-encodes.html Neuroscience Mon, 12 Nov 2012 07:38:09 EST news271928277 Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have identified a new pathway that appears to play a major role in information processing in the brain. Their research also offers insight into how imbalances in this pathway could contribute to cognitive abnormalities in humans. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-scientists-uncover-pathway-brain.html Neuroscience Fri, 09 Nov 2012 16:33:42 EST news271701213 Researchers supported by the Wellcome Trust have discovered that we use a different part of our brain to learn about social hierarchies than we do to learn ordinary information. The study provides clues as to how this information is stored in memory and also reveals that you can tell a lot about how good somebody is likely to be at judging social rank by looking at the structure of their brain. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-dog-reveals-brain-social.html Neuroscience Thu, 08 Nov 2012 12:44:57 EST news271601089 A team of neuroscientists has proposed a new and potentially revolutionary way of obtaining a neuronal connectivity map (the "connectome") of the whole brain of the mouse. The details are set forth in an essay published October 23 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-neuroscientists-revolutionary-dna-based-approach-wiring.html Neuroscience Tue, 23 Oct 2012 17:10:01 EST news270224877 The whiskers of newborn rats twitch as they sleep, and that could open the door to new understandings about the intimate connections between brain and body. The discovery reinforces the notion that such involuntary movements are a vital contributor to the development of sensorimotor systems, say researchers who report their findings along with video of those whisker twitches on October 18 in Current Biology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-twitching-whiskers-babes-naptime-behavior.html Neuroscience Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:00:05 EST news269779425 If only there were a way to forget that humiliating faux pas at last night's dinner party. It turns out there's not one, but two opposite ways in which the brain allows us to voluntarily forget unwanted memories, according to a study published by Cell Press October 17 in the journal Neuron. The findings may explain how individuals can cope with undesirable experiences and could lead to the development of treatments to improve disorders of memory control. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-ways-brain-voluntarily-unwanted-memories.html Neuroscience Wed, 17 Oct 2012 12:00:05 EST news269676277 In the quest to understand how the brain turns sensory input into behavior, Harvard scientists have crossed a major threshold. Using precisely-targeted lasers, researchers have been able to take over an animal's brain, instruct it to turn in any direction they choose, and even to implant false sensory information, fooling the animal into thinking food was nearby. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-precisely-targeted-lasers-neurons-worms-brains.html Neuroscience Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:08:19 EST news267700090 Ben W. Strowbridge, PhD, Professor of Neurosciences and Physiology/Biophysics, and Robert A. Hyde, a fourth year MD/PhD student in the neurosciences graduate program at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, have discovered how to store diverse forms of artificial short-term memories in isolated brain tissue. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-short-term-memories-in-vitro.html Neuroscience Mon, 10 Sep 2012 12:48:07 EST news266500080 Korean scientists have used tiny stars, squares and triangles as a toolkit to create live neural circuits in a dish. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-triangles-neural-circuits-dish.html Neuroscience Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:00:02 EST news261932412 Molecular imbalance lies at the root of many psychiatric disorders. Current EU-funded research has discovered a major RNA molecular player in neurogenesis and has characterised its action and targets in the zebrafish embryo. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-brain-machinery.html Neuroscience Fri, 08 Jun 2012 08:17:34 EST news258362246 McGill physiology research team sheds light on how the brain processes what we sense. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-revealing.html Neuroscience Wed, 25 Apr 2012 09:07:06 EST news254563598 What characterizes many people with depression, schizophrenia and some other mental illnesses is anhedonia: an inability to gain pleasure from normally pleasurable experiences. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-brain-mechanism-reward-enjoyment.html Neuroscience Wed, 21 Mar 2012 12:44:37 EST news251552669 Stop exercising, eat as much as you want ... and still lose weight? It sounds impossible, but UC Irvine and Italian researchers have found that by blocking a natural, marijuana-like chemical regulating energy metabolism, this can happen, at least in the lab. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-blocking-natural-marijuana-like-chemical-brain.html Medical research Tue, 06 Mar 2012 12:48:26 EST news250260485 For the first time, researchers have scanned the brains of children watching funny videos to examine which of their brain regions are active as their sense of humor develops. The new findings from the Stanford University School of Medicine show that some parts of the brain network that respond to humor in adults already exist in 6- to 12-year-olds, though the neural circuits become more sophisticated as kids grow. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-imaging-humor-kids-brain-regions.html Neuroscience Wed, 01 Feb 2012 04:17:31 EST news247292230 There's a 3-D world in our brains. It's a landscape that mimics the outside world, where the objects we see exist as collections of neural circuits and electrical impulses. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-scientists-frontiers-vision.html Neuroscience Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:13:39 EST news245077991 (Medical Xpress) -- After birth, the developing brain is largely shaped by experiences in the environment. However, neurobiologists at Yale and elsewhere have also shown that for many functions the successful wiring of neural circuits depends upon spontaneous activity in the brain that arises before birth independent of external influences. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-key-proper-wiring-brain.html Neuroscience Mon, 19 Dec 2011 06:40:01 EST news243499091 Like a gardener who stakes some plants and weeds out others, the brain is constantly building networks of synapses, while pruning out redundant or unneeded synapses. Researchers at The Jackson Laboratory led by Assistant Professor Zhong-wei Zhang, Ph.D., have discovered a factor in synapse-building, also showing that the building and pruning processes occur independent of each other. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-uncover-synapse-pruning.html Neuroscience Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:56:33 EST news240681383 (Medical Xpress) -- A University of Michigan biologist and his colleagues have found that the strategies used by the tiny C. elegans roundworm to control its motions are remarkably similar to those used by the human brain to command movement of eyes, arms and legs. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-tiny-worms-human-like-neural-circuits.html Neuroscience Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:24:20 EST news240240251