http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Hours spent at the video gaming console not only train a player's hands to work the buttons on the controller, they probably also train the brain to make better and faster use of visual input, according to Duke University researchers. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-video-gamers.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:09:29 EST news290185763 A new brain imaging study of dyslexia shows that differences in the visual system do not cause the disorder, but instead are likely a consequence. The findings, published today in the journal Neuron, provide important insights into the cause of this common reading disorder and address a long-standing debate about the role of visual symptoms observed in developmental dyslexia. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-brain-imaging-differences-visual-function.html Neuroscience Thu, 06 Jun 2013 12:00:10 EST news289724471 Some people seem to pick up a second language with relative ease, while others have a much more difficult time. Now, a new study suggests that learning to understand and read a second language may be driven, at least in part, by our ability to pick up on statistical regularities. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-language-ability-patterns.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 28 May 2013 16:19:42 EST news288976775 Clenching your right hand may help form a stronger memory of an event or action, and clenching your left may help you recollect the memory later, according to research published April 24 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Ruth Propper and colleagues from Montclair State University. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-clenching-memories-left-recall-words.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:00:01 EST news286037919 (Medical Xpress)—Optical illusions abound in human visual perception, as demonstrated by the following well-known examples. Although many are static illusions, motion illusions also occur. Recently, scientists at Université Paris Descartes and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, University of Reading, United Kingdom, and Kyushu University, Japan discovered and investigated a new illusory motion effect, termed high phi by the authors, in which we perceive conspicuous large illusory jumps when presentation of motion signals are followed by brief visual stimuli free of detectable motion signals. The researchers found that the size of the illusory jump does not depend on the speed of the motion signals presented, but rather on spatial frequency and transient duration while jump duration depends on motion signal duration. The study's authors conclude that their findings demonstrate that existing explanations for this illusion – namely, the loss of coherent motion perception above an upper limit and the preference for minimal motion – are incomplete at best. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-motion-perception-revisited-high-phi.html Neuroscience Tue, 23 Apr 2013 15:20:01 EST news285947828 (Medical Xpress)—A new study by scientists in France and Denmark has identified a neurological marker in the brain of babies as young as five months that is associated with visual consciousness, or the ability to process and remember images they have seen. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-babies-visual-consciousness-months.html Neuroscience Fri, 19 Apr 2013 06:23:59 EST news285571424 (Medical Xpress)—It has long been held that in a new environment, visual adaptation should improve visual performance. However, evidence has contradicted this expectation: Adaptation sometimes not only decreases sensitivity for the adapting stimuli, but can also change sensitivity for stimuli very different from the adapting ones. Recently, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Schepens Eye Research Institute formulated and tested the hypothesis that these results can be explained by a process that optimizes sensitivity for many stimuli, rather than changing sensitivity only for those stimuli whose statistics have changed. By manipulating stimulus statistics – that is, measuring visual sensitivity across a wide range of spatiotemporal luminance modulations while varying the distribution of stimulus speeds – the researchers demonstrated a large-scale reorganization of visual sensitivity. This reorganization formed an orderly pattern of sensitivity gains and losses predicted by a theory describing how visual systems can optimize the distribution of receptive field characteristics across stimuli. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-visual-economist-neural-resource-allocation.html Neuroscience Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:38:40 EST news283865771 Infants at 7 months of age who go on to develop autism are slower to reorient their gaze and attention from one object to another when compared to 7-month-olds who do not develop autism, and this behavioral pattern is in part explained by atypical brain circuits. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-atypical-brain-circuits-slower-shifting.html Autism spectrum disorders Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:01 EST news282938650 A region of the brain known to play a key role in visual and spatial processing has a parallel function: sorting visual information into categories, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Chicago. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-region-functions-brain-cells-multitasking.html Neuroscience Wed, 06 Mar 2013 12:00:01 EST news281792565 Supposedly 'primitive' reflexes may involve more sophisticated brain function than previously thought, according to researchers at Imperial College London. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-primitive-reflexes-sophisticated.html Neuroscience Thu, 14 Feb 2013 10:00:03 EST news280057552 (Medical Xpress)—Even with a constant task, human performance fluctuates in time-scales from seconds to minutes in a fractal manner. In a recent study a Finnish research group found that the individual variability in the brain dynamics as indexed by the neuronal scaling laws predicted the individual behavioral variability and the conscious detection of very weak sensory stimuli. These data indicate that individual neuronal dynamics underlie the individual variability in human cognition and performance. Results may also have a strong impact in understanding the neuronal mechanism of neuropsychiatric diseases in which behavioral dynamics are abnormal. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-memories-brain-streaks-individual-behaviour.html Neuroscience Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:46:37 EST news279909984 (Medical Xpress)—Driving through his hometown, a war veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder may see roadside debris and feel afraid, believing it to be a bomb. He's ignoring his safe, familiar surroundings and only focusing on the debris; yet, when it comes to the visual cortex, a recent study at the University of Florida suggests this is completely normal. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-factor-brain-response-scary-stimuli.html Neuroscience Fri, 08 Feb 2013 06:29:06 EST news279527338 The journal PLOS ONE has recently published a study which provides new data around attention and visual perception. The article "A role of eye vergence in covert attention" was authored by researchers from the Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour (IR3C) the University of Barcelona. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-eye-vergence-visual-attention.html Psychology & Psychiatry Thu, 07 Feb 2013 10:48:02 EST news279456474 In experiments on rats outfitted with tiny goggles, scientists say they have learned that the brain's initial vision processing center not only relays visual stimuli, but also can "learn" time intervals and create specifically timed expectations of future rewards. The research, by a team at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sheds new light on learning and memory-making, the investigators say, and could help explain why people with Alzheimer's disease have trouble remembering recent events. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-pavlov-rats-rodents-link-rewards.html Neuroscience Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:00:08 EST news278160769 New research led by Shigeru Tanaka of the University of Electro-Communications and visiting scientist at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute has shown that the responses of cells in the visual cortex can be 're-tuned' by experience. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-re-tuning-responses-visual-cortex.html Neuroscience Fri, 21 Dec 2012 09:00:37 EST news275302830 To make information transmission to the brain reliable, the retina first has to "digitize" the image. Until now, it was widely believed that this step takes place in the retinal ganglion cells, the output neurons of the retina. Scientists in the lab of Thomas Euler at the University of Tübingen, the Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience and the Bernstein Center Tübingen were now able to show that already bipolar cells can generate "digital" signals. At least three types of mouse BC showed clear evidence of fast and stereotypic action potentials, so called "spikes". These results show that the retina is by no means as well understood as is commonly believed. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-dogma-bipolar-cells-action-potentials.html Medical research Wed, 19 Dec 2012 09:23:27 EST news275131395 A team of researchers led by Hiroyuki Nakahara and Shinsuke Suzuki of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute has identified a set of brain structures that are critical for predicting how other people make decisions. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-brain-decision-making-circuits-simulate-people.html Neuroscience Fri, 14 Dec 2012 08:44:04 EST news274697030 That snake heading towards you may be further away than it appears. Fear can skew our perception of approaching objects, causing us to underestimate the distance of a threatening one, finds a study published in Current Biology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-skew-spatial-perception.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 22 Oct 2012 04:10:18 EST news270097809 A few minutes of exercise can help children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder perform better academically, according to a new study led by a Michigan State University researcher. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-school-kids-adhd.html Attention deficit disorders Tue, 16 Oct 2012 13:17:43 EST news269612118 Spending too much time looking at high heels may influence how a viewer perceives the gender of an androgynous face, according to new research published Sep. 26 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Amir Homayoun Javadi of Technische Universität, Dresden and his colleagues. The study sheds new light on how the objects surrounding us may influence our perceptions of gender. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-viewing-gender-specific-perception-gender-identity.html Psychology & Psychiatry Wed, 26 Sep 2012 17:00:01 EST news267895250 An innovative multi-modal treatment programme for tinnitus will be trialled by researchers from the Centre for Brain Research at The University of Auckland, in a study made possible by a donation from Link Research and Grants. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-aims-auditory-tinnitus.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 18 Sep 2012 09:08:36 EST news267178009 People who bear the genetic mutation for Huntington's disease learn faster than healthy people. The more pronounced the mutation was, the more quickly they learned. This is reported by researchers from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and from Dortmund in the journal Current Biology. The team has thus demonstrated for the first time that neurodegenerative diseases can go hand in hand with increased learning efficiency. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-faster-neurodegenerative-disease.html Neuroscience Fri, 14 Sep 2012 09:48:24 EST news266834895 (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 Eating cocoa flavanols daily may improve mild cognitive impairment, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Hypertension. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-consuming-flavanol-rich-cocoa-brain-function.html Cardiology Mon, 13 Aug 2012 16:00:05 EST news264091961 The visual information from eyes is sent into the brain unconsciously even if you are not aware. One of examples of unconscious seeing is a phenomenon of "blindsight" [Subjects have no awareness, but their brains can see ] in subjects with visual impairment, caused by the damage of a part of the brain called the visual cortex. Although it is already reported that the patients with damage in the visual cortex, who were not aware of seeing, can walk and avoid obstacles, it was not proved whether this was really blindsight. In this new study, the international collaborative research team including Assistant Professor Masatoshi Yoshiday and Professor Tadashi Isa from The National Institute for Physiological Sciences, The National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Japan and Professor Laurent Itti from the University of Southern California demonstrated that blindsight in monkeys is available not only under the specific conditions of the laboratory, but also in everyday environments. This research result will appear in Current Biology as an electronic version on June 28, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-scientists-blindsight-everyday-life-scenes.html Neuroscience Thu, 28 Jun 2012 14:40:01 EST news260112179 (Medical Xpress) -- It's a chilling thought--losing the sense of sight because of severe injury or damage to the brain's visual cortex. But, is it possible to train a damaged or injured brain to "see" again after such a catastrophic injury? Yes, according to Tony Ro, a neuroscientist at the City College of New York, who is artificially recreating a condition called blindsight in his lab. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-visual-cortex.html Neuroscience Tue, 03 Apr 2012 08:25:54 EST news252660339 Our ability to ignore some, but not other stimuli, allows us to focus our attention and improve our performance on a specific task. The ability to respond to visual stimuli during a visual task hinges on altered brain processing of responses within the visual cortex at the back of the brain, where visual information is first received from the eyes. How this occurs was recently demonstrated by an international team of researchers led by Justin Gardner at the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Wako, Japan. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-human-attention-portion-image-brain.html Neuroscience Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:50:01 EST news252318429 Researchers have long known that specific parts of the brain activate when people view particular images. For example, a region called the fusiform face area turns on when the eyes glance at faces, and another region called the parahippocampal place area does the same when a person looks at scenes or buildings. However, it's been unknown whether such specialization also exists for visual working memory, a category of memory that allows the brain to temporarily store and manipulate visual information for immediate tasks. Now, scientists have found evidence that visual working memory follows a more general pattern of brain activity than what researchers have shown with initial visual activity, instead activating a more diffuse area in the front of the brain for all categories of visual stimuli. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-visual-memory-specialized-brain-encoding.html Neuroscience Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:17:21 EST news247767426 Different ingredients in marijuana appear to affect regions of the brain differently during brain processing functions involving responses to certain visual stimuli and tasks, according to a report in the January issue of Archives of General Psychiatry. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-effects-marijuana-ingredients-brain-functioning.html Psychology & Psychiatry Mon, 02 Jan 2012 16:00:08 EST news244731206 Precision tinted lenses have been used widely to reduce visual perceptual distortions in poor readers, and are increasingly used for migraine sufferers, but until now the science behind these effects has been unclear. Now research published in the journal Cephalalgia, published by SAGE, uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for the first time to suggest a neurological basis for these visual remedies. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-tinted-specs-real-migraine-relief.html Neuroscience Thu, 26 May 2011 03:20:18 EST news225598790