Neuroscience News

Brain mapping helps neuroscientists understand how specific areas function and how to create new drugs and targeted treatments. Image credit: Jim Stanis and Tyler Ard, USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute.

Neuroscientists Create Most Detailed Map Ever of Hippocampus

Oct 12, 2018 by News Staff

A team of neuroscientists at the University of Southern California Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute has produced the most detailed...

Brain areas reflecting choice set value: areas shown in red to yellow exhibit a linear increase in fMRI activity as a function of S during the exposure stage of the pooled choice trials. Image credit: Reutskaja et al, doi: 10.1038/s41562-018-0440-2.

Neuroscientists Identify Brain Areas Responsible for Choice Overload

Oct 8, 2018 by News Staff

Scientists have long known that we are overwhelmed by too many choices. Now, Caltech Professor Colin Camerer and co-authors have discovered what’s happening...

Dr. David Ferrier’s monkey brain map, 1874: the highlighted area labeled ‘EF’ is the area he observed to cause eye and head movements when electrically stimulated.

Neuroscientists Find Brain Area Linked to High-Risk Behavior

Sep 26, 2018 by News Staff

Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) who learned how to gamble have helped neuroscientists locate an area of the brain linked to risky behavior. The findings,...

Microscopy image of OLM cells. Scale bar - 20 µm. Image credit: Mikulovic et al, doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-05907-w.

Neuroscientists Find ‘Bravery Neurons’ in Hippocampus

Sep 10, 2018 by News Staff

An international group of neuroscientists from Sweden and Brazil has found that some cells in a brain area called hippocampus play a key role in risk-taking...

In people with bipolar disorder, the left side of the amygdala is less active and less connected with other parts of the brain than in people with depression. Image credit: Westmead Institute for Medical Research.

Amygdala Neurons Could Hold Key to Accurately Diagnosing Unipolar Depression, Bipolar Disorder

Sep 6, 2018 by News Staff

A team of scientists, led by Dr. Mayuresh Korgaonkar of the Westmead Institute for Medical Research and the University of Sydney, used MRI scanning to...

Drivers of brain aging. Image credit: Daniel G. Amen.

Scientists Identify Drivers of Brain Aging

Aug 30, 2018 by News Staff

In a large brain imaging study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, a team of neuroscientists and psychiatrists evaluated over 60,000 brain...

A reconstruction of a rosehip neuron. Image credit: Tamas Lab, University of Szeged.

New Type of Human Neuron Discovered: Rosehip Neuron

Aug 29, 2018 by News Staff

An international team of neuroscientists from the United States and Hungary has uncovered a new type of human brain cell that has never been seen in mice...

Men and women show surprising differences in seeing motion. Image credit: Free-Photos.

New Research Finds Differences in Ways Men and Women See Motion

Aug 22, 2018 by News Staff

A study led by the Universities of Rochester and Washington shows that on average, men pick up on visual motion significantly faster than women do. Men...

Romeo et al suggest talking with children from early age could promote language skills regardless of socioeconomic status. Image credit: Sasin Tipchai.

Study: Adult-Child Conversations Strengthen Language Regions of Developing Brain

Aug 22, 2018 by News Staff

Children who are regularly engaged in conversation by adults may have stronger connections between Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas — brain regions...

Poor sleep triggers loneliness and social rejection. Image credit: Patrica J. Joslin.

Study: Lack of Sleep Leads to Social Withdrawal and Loneliness

Aug 17, 2018 by News Staff

A new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, has demonstrated that sleep-deprived individuals feel lonelier and less inclined to engage...

Dr. Dunn and Dr. Smaers report a positive correlation between vocal repertoire size and the relative size of cortical association areas in non-human primates. Image credit: Herbert Aust.

Primate Study Offers Important Insight into Evolution of Human Speech

Aug 14, 2018 by News Staff

A new study published in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience has found a link between vocal repertoire and relative size of key regions of the brain. Dr....

In an experiment examining how monkeys respond to sound, Caruso et al found that a single neuron can encode information from two different sounds by switching between the signal associated with one sound and the signal associated with the other sound. Image credit: Irfan Ullah.

Individual Neurons Can Carry Multiple Signals at a Time, Neuroscientists Find

Aug 7, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers from Duke and Rockefeller Universities has found that individual neurons can encode information about multiple stimuli simultaneously,...

The fruit fly brain contains roughly 100,000 neurons, which can now be traced in detail using a dataset that includes roughly 21 million images Zheng et al traced the paths of neurons (colored threads) that reach out to the mushroom body, a region involved in memory and learning. Image credit: Zheng et al, doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.06.019.

Fruit Fly Brain Imaged at Synaptic Resolution

Jul 23, 2018 by News Staff

A team of neuroscientists at Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus has taken detailed pictures of the whole brain of an adult female...

Abnormal accumulations of a protein called tau can collect inside neurons, forming tangled threads and eventually harming the synaptic connection between neurons. Image credit: National Institute on Aging / National Institutes of Health.

Neuroscientists Find Alzheimer’s ‘Big Bang’

Jul 18, 2018 by News Staff

A team of researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, the University of Delaware and Washington University in St. Louis has discovered...

Three scans (from the front, side and above) of two different brains (pictured on the left and on the right) belonging to twins; the furrows and ridges are different in each person. Image credit: Lutz Jäncke, University of Zurich.

Our Brains are as Unique as Our Fingerprints, Neuroscientists Say

Jul 13, 2018 by News Staff

Every individual has a unique brain anatomy, according to new research from the University of Zurich in Switzerland; and this uniqueness is the result...

Gutiérrez-Ibáñez et al found that SpM is greatly enlarged in parrots. Image credit: Edmond Lafoto.

Researchers Identify Brain Circuit Responsible for Cognition in Parrots

Jul 5, 2018 by News Staff

A group of neuroscientists from the Universities of Lethbridge and Alberta, both in Canada, has identified a neural circuit that may underlay intelligence...

Gelbard-Sagiv et al studied the activity of human single neurons in the medial temporal and frontal lobes while patients were engaged in binocular rivalry. Image credit: John Hain.

New Study Brings Neuroscientists One Step Closer to Understanding Consciousness

Jun 18, 2018 by News Staff

Consciousness is everything people experience, from the taste of chocolate to the pain of a migraine. But the origin and nature of consciousness have puzzled...

This illustration depicts a 3D computer-generated image of a group of Escherichia coli. Image credit: James Archer / CDC.

Bacterial Infection Induces Delirium in Healthy, Aging Rats, Study Says

May 30, 2018 by News Staff

Activation of the immune system by the Escherichia coli infection may temporarily disrupt formation of long-term memories in older rats by reducing levels...

Novel drugs could one day protect astronauts on deep-space missions from dangerous cosmic radiation. Image credit: Jonny Lindner.

New Drug Prevents Memory Impairment in Mice Exposed to Simulated Deep Space Radiation

May 23, 2018 by News Staff

A team of neuroscientists from the University of California, San Francisco, and Loma Linda University has identified the first potential treatment for...