Cortex News and Research

RSS

Brain has more than one pathway along which visual information can be sent

Visual information can be processed unconsciously when the area of the brain that records what the eye sees is temporarily shut down, according to research at Rice University in Houston.

1 Nov 2005

Search for genes responsible for anxiety disorders

Increasing the activity of two enzymes better known for their role in oxidative stress metabolism turns normally relaxed mice into "Nervous Nellies," according to research conducted at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and reported in the early online edition of Nature.

30 Oct 2005

Research has important implications for autism

New research from Melbourne's Howard Florey Institute helps to explain why children with autism spectrum disorders (autism) have problem-solving difficulties.

24 Oct 2005

Teens with missing part of a chromosome confirm genetic role in schizophrenia

A study in youth who are missing part of a chromosome is further implicating a suspect gene in schizophrenia.

23 Oct 2005

Dopamine link to psychiatric and neurological disorders

A gene that regulates dopamine levels in the brain is involved in the development of schizophrenia in children at high risk for the disorder, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and the University of Geneva.

23 Oct 2005

Neurobiologists gain new insights into brain and memory

We often make unwise choices although we should know better. Thunderstorm clouds ominously darken the horizon. We nonetheless go out without an umbrella because we are distracted and forget. But do we?

19 Oct 2005

Short course of rTMS can increase finger sensitivity

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has emerged as an intriguing technique for exploring brain function, and a promising, though still unproven, form of therapy.

18 Oct 2005

Protein involved in 'mad cow' disease

The journal Brain Research has recently published the results of research work by scientists from the University of Navarra.

18 Oct 2005

Pathological liars found to have less gray matter

In a new study Dr. Adrian Raine and Yaling Yang of the University of Southern California, and colleagues found that individuals who habitually lied and cheated had less gray matter and more white matter in their prefrontal cortex than normal people.

18 Oct 2005

Brain injury can cause detrimental functional changes in brain regions far from the site of the actual injury

A study of patients who have difficulty paying attention to the left side of their environment has provided some of the first direct evidence that brain injury can cause detrimental functional changes in brain regions far from the site of the actual injury.

17 Oct 2005

New way to measure the impact of AIDS on the living brain

A new University of California - Los Angeles/University of Pittsburgh imaging study for the first time shows the selective pattern of destruction inflicted by AIDS on brain regions that control motor, language and sensory functions. High-resolution 3-D color scans created from magnetic resonance images (MRI) vividly illustrate the damage.

10 Oct 2005

The cocktail party problem

Known as "the cocktail party problem," the ability of the brain's auditory processing centers to sort a babble of different sounds, like cocktail party chatter, into identifiable individual voices has long been a mystery.

5 Oct 2005

Discovery has implications for research on restoring mobility to people who have lost motor functions due to spinal cord injury

Yale School of Medicine researchers report in Science this week genetic evidence for the hypothesis that myelination, or formation of a protective sheath around a nerve fiber, consolidates neural circuitry by suppressing plasticity in the mature brain.

3 Oct 2005

Brain abnormalities in people who habitually lie

While previous research has shown that there is heightened activity in the prefrontal cortex - the area of the brain that enables most people to feel remorse or learn moral behavior - when normal people lie, this is the first study to provide evidence of structural differences in that area among pathological liars.

3 Oct 2005

First direct clues about how the brain alters the state of consciousness during sleep

In the human brain, cells talk to one another through the routine exchange of electrical signals. But when people fall into a deep sleep, the higher regions of the brain - regions that during waking hours are a bustling grid of neural dialogue - apparently lose their ability to communicate effectively, causing consciousness to fade.

3 Oct 2005

Possibility of tailored treatments for addiction based on how a person's genes behave

Scientists have learned how a genetic variation long suspected in making some people susceptible to alcoholism and narcotic drug addiction actually does so.

27 Sep 2005

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have identified three new genetic mutations in brain tumors

...a discovery that could pave the way for more effective cancer treatments.

27 Sep 2005

First-of-its kind atlas of the folds of the cerebral cortex

Neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have assembled a first-of-its kind atlas of the folds of the cerebral cortex, the wrinkled surface layer of the brain credited with many of the higher cognitive functions that make us human.

26 Sep 2005

Smaller prefrontal cortex is associated with early-onset drinking

Previous research has shown that alcohol-use disorders (AUDs) are associated with abnormalities of the prefrontal cortex, thalamus and the cerebellar hemispheres in adults.

26 Sep 2005

Failure to block out inappropriate sensory stimulation activity in Alzheimer disease

Some people close their eyes when they listen to music, others wear earplugs when they read in noisy places. Both serve to block out inappropriate sensory stimulation, something that happens automatically when we concentrate.

21 Sep 2005