http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Dawn triggers basic biological changes in the waking human body. As the sun rises, so does heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature. The liver, the kidneys and many natural processes also begin shifting from idle into high gear. Then as daylight wanes and darkness descends, these processes likewise begin to subside, returning to their lowest levels again as we sleep. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-rhythm.html Medical research Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:11:05 EST news290754654 A cross-disciplinary collaboration of researchers in the School of Science at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) explores the neural synchrony between circuits in the brain and their behavior under simulated drug addiction. The two-year study could have broad implications for treating addiction and understanding brain function in conditions such as Parkinson's disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-neuroscience-neural-synchronization-patterns-addiction.html Neuroscience Tue, 04 Jun 2013 11:20:06 EST news289563599 Humans often synchronize their movements when, for example, we cooperate to move a piece of furniture. We also synchronize gestures and facial expressions when we interact. Coordinated actions are in fact surprisingly common in the animal kingdom, as exemplified by the flocking of birds and the schooling of fish. Such behaviors, however, have to date only been observed in the wild. Yasuo Nagasaka and colleagues from the Laboratory for Adaptive Intelligence at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute have now devised the first method for observing coordination under experimental conditions. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-experimental-method-spontaneous-synchronization-arm.html Neuroscience Thu, 02 May 2013 08:00:01 EST news286699319 Slow oscillations in brain activity, which occur during so-called slow-wave sleep, are critical for retaining memories. Researchers reporting online April 11 in the Cell Press journal Neuron have found that playing sounds synchronized to the rhythm of the slow brain oscillations of people who are sleeping enhances these oscillations and boosts their memory. This demonstrates an easy and noninvasive way to influence human brain activity to improve sleep and enhance memory. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-memory.html Neuroscience Thu, 11 Apr 2013 12:00:17 EST news284898573 New research sheds light on how the brain encodes objects with multiple features, a fundamental task for the perceptual system. The study, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggests that we have limited ability to perceive mixed color-shape associations among objects that exist in several locations. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-limits-brain-ability-multifeatured.html Psychology & Psychiatry Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:27:34 EST news280070840 (Medical Xpress)—When modern-day crooner Trey Songz sings, "Cause girl, my heart beats for you," in his romantic ballad, "Flatline," his lyrics could be telling a tale that's as much physiological as it is emotional, according to a University of California, Davis, study that found lovers' hearts indeed beat for each other, or at least at the same rate. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-lovers-hearts-sync.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 11 Feb 2013 06:30:29 EST news279786615 One of the biggest puzzles in neuroscience is how our brains encode thoughts, such as perceptions and memories, at the cellular level. Some evidence suggests that ensembles of neurons represent each unique piece of information, but no one knows just what these ensembles look like, or how they form. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-brain-encode-behavior.html Neuroscience Wed, 21 Nov 2012 12:00:12 EST news272714326 (Medical Xpress)—Many animal species transmit information via chemical signals, but the extent to which these chemosignals play a role in human communication is unclear. In a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researcher Gün Semin and colleagues from Utrecht University in the Netherlands investigate whether we humans might actually be able to communicate our emotional states to each other through chemical signals. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-nose-chemosignals-human-emotions.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 05 Nov 2012 13:05:30 EST news271343121 (Medical Xpress)—Long stretches of DNA once considered inert dark matter appear to be uniquely active in a part of the brain known to control the body's 24-hour cycle, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-dark-dna-brain-day-night.html Medical research Mon, 24 Sep 2012 08:14:29 EST news267693255 Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine have been able to switch on, and then switch off, social-behavior deficits in mice that resemble those seen in people with autism and schizophrenia, thanks to a technology that allows scientists to precisely manipulate nerve activity in the brain. In synchrony with this experimentally induced socially aberrant behavior, the mice exhibited a brain-wave pattern called gamma oscillation that has been associated with autism and schizophrenia in humans, the researchers say. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-social-deficits-autism-schizophrenia-mice.html Medical research Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:30:26 EST news230992205