http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. With their whiskers rats can detect the texture of objects in the same way as humans do using their fingertips. A study, in which some scientists of SISSA have taken part, shows that it is possible to understand what specific object has been touched by a rat by observing the activation of brain neurons. A further step towards understanding how the brain, also in humans, represents the outside world. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-decoding.html Neuroscience Tue, 23 Apr 2013 08:02:40 EST news285922953 A University of Illinois study has established a possible link between high-fat diets and such childhood brain-based conditions as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and memory-dependent learning disabilities. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-link-childhood-obesity-adhd-disabilities.html Attention deficit disorders Tue, 19 Feb 2013 12:30:01 EST news280496481 (Medical Xpress)—The ease and immediacy with which we recognize familiar objects escapes our notice. However, a novel, ambiguous, or highly complex object requires practice to achieve such perceptual facility. Past perceptual learning research found a wide range of rates at which these object recognition skills are acquired. Recently, however, scientists at Harvard University and New York University have devised a way to distinguish feature detection and feature combination, and moreover have determined the rate at which these two steps improve during perceptual learning. The researchers found that while detection is inefficient and learned slowly, combination is learned at a rate four to seven times greater. In addition, they show how this clarifies the diverse results obtained in previous perceptual learning studies. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-feature-combination-perceptual-identification.html Neuroscience Fri, 11 Jan 2013 12:29:03 EST news277129713 (Medical Xpress)—Women are better than men at recognizing living things and men are better than women at recognizing vehicles. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-sex-guys-cars-women-birds.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:40:49 EST news267118839 Certain brain injuries can cause people to lose the ability to visually recognize objects — for example, confusing a harmonica for a cash register. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-neuroscientists-uncover-neural-mechanisms-recognition.html Neuroscience Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:22:54 EST news229778543