The cerebral cortex is a sheet of neural tissue that is outermost to the cerebrum of the mammalian brain. It plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness. It is constituted of up to six horizontal layers, each of which has a different composition in terms of neurons and connectivity. The human cerebral cortex is 2–4 mm (0.08–0.16 inches) thick. In preserved brains, it has a gray color, hence the name "grey matter". In contrast to gray matter that is formed from neurons and their unmyelinated fibers, the white matter below them is formed predominantly by myelinated axons interconnecting neurons in different regions of the cerebral cortex with each other and neurons in other parts of the central nervous system. The surface of the cerebral cortex is folded in large mammals, such that more than two-thirds of it in the human brain is buried in the grooves, called "sulci". The phylogenetically most recent part of the cerebral cortex, the neocortex (also called isocortex), is differentiated into six horizontal layers; the more ancient part of the cerebral cortex, the hippocampus (also called archicortex), has at most three cellular
Human and animal brains can represent events in time and space in fascinating ways, for instance, by accessing a chronology of events that happened in the past via stimuli perceived by the senses. In the human brain, spatial ...
When your attention shifts from one place to another, your brain blinks. The blinks are momentary unconscious gaps in visual perception and came as a surprise to the team of Vanderbilt psychologists who discovered the phenomenon ...
Nov 27, 2017
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By using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study the brains of infants who have older siblings with autism, scientists were able to correctly identify 80 percent of the babies who would be subsequently diagnosed with autism ...
Feb 15, 2017
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(Medical Xpress)—The smooth operation of the brain requires a certain robustness to fluctuations in its home within the body. At the same time, its extraordinary power derives from an activity structure poised at criticality. ...
A new study by researchers at UT Dallas' Center for Vital Longevity, Duke University, and the University of Michigan has found that the strength of communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain predicts ...
Aug 29, 2012
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A new study of people who speak many languages has found that there is something special about how the brain processes their native language.
Mar 10, 2024
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Folate is a B vitamin and a necessary nutrient to prevent neural tube defects, such as spina bifida. Folic acid, a synthetic form of folate, has been added to vitamins, breakfast cereals, and other products in the U.S. and ...
Jan 4, 2024
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Using advanced brain scanning technology, a team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a founding member of Mass General Brigham (MGB), have revealed insights into what happens in the brain during ...
Nov 8, 2023
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In lonely people, the boundary between real friends and favorite fictional characters gets blurred in the part of the brain that is active when thinking about others, a new study found.
Sep 28, 2023
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Human Brain Project (HBP) researchers from Forschungszentrum Jülich and the University of Cologne (Germany) have uncovered how neuron densities are distributed across and within cortical areas in the mammalian brain. They ...
Aug 22, 2023
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