As our brains take in information about the world and use it to steer our actions, two key principles guide our choices: seek pleasure and avoid pain. Researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have zeroed in on ...
Dec 31, 2019
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Since the 1950s at least, researchers have speculated that the brain is a kind of computer in which neurons make up complex circuits that perform untold numbers of calculations every second. Decades later, neuroscientists ...
Dec 13, 2019
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A team of researchers led by Pierre Vanderhaeghen and Vincent Bonin (VIB-KU Leuven, Université libre de Bruxelles and NERF) showed how human nerve cells can develop at their own pace, and form highly precise connections ...
Nov 21, 2019
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How does the brain translate information from the outside world into something we remember? An international team of researchers working in the Human Brain Project have zoomed in on the neuronal circuits in the striatum, ...
Nov 8, 2019
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Mammalian brains, with their unmatched number of nerve cells and density of communication, are the most complex networks known. While methods to analyze neuronal networks sparsely have been available for decades, the dense ...
Oct 25, 2019
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Many people have experienced stressful situations that trigger a particular mood and also change certain feelings toward food. An international team led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine looked into the possibility ...
Sep 5, 2019
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Although psychiatric disorders can be linked to particular genes, the brain regions and mechanisms underlying particular disorders are not well-understood. Mutations or deletions of the SHANK3 gene are strongly associated ...
Jul 27, 2019
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What happens when we give up? Inside the brain, a group of cells known as nociceptin neurons get very active before a mouse's breakpoint. They emit nociceptin, a complex molecule that suppresses dopamine, a chemical largely ...
Jul 25, 2019
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People who are blind use part of their visual cortex for language and semantic processing. The visual cortex is the paradigm case of a "modality-specific" brain region, being devoted exclusively to visual perceptual processes ...
Jul 8, 2019
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Effective weight-loss strategies call for eating less food, burning more calories—or ideally, both. But for the more than 90 million Americans who suffer from obesity, a disease that contributes to conditions ranging from ...
Jun 27, 2019
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