http://www.physorg.com/ en-us Physorg.com internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Using a "neurologger" specially designed to record the brain activity of pigeons in flight, researchers reporting online on June 25th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have gained new insight into what goes through the birds' minds as they fly over familiar terrain. The study is the first to simultaneously record electrical brain activity integrated with large-scale navigational movements of free-flying birds, according to the researchers. http://www.physorg.com/news165152728.html Biology Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:46:07 EST news165152728 New imaging research in the June 24 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience helps explain why sleep deprivation affects some people more than others. After staying awake all night, those who are genetically vulnerable to sleep loss showed reduced brain activity, while those who are genetically resilient showed expanded brain activity, the study found. The findings help explain individual differences in the ability to compensate for lack of sleep. http://www.physorg.com/news165064828.html Medicine & Health Wed, 24 Jun 2009 12:21:06 EST news165064828 A recent neuroimaging study reveals that the ability to distinguish true from false in our daily lives involves two distinct processes. Previous research relied heavily on the premise that true and false statements are both processed in the left inferior frontal cortex. Carried out by researchers from the Universities of Lisbon and Vita-Salute, Milan, the June Cortex study found that we use two separate processes to determine the subtle distinctions between true and false in our daily lives. Deciding whether a statement is true involves memory; determining one is false relies on reasoning and problem-solving processes. http://www.physorg.com/news164454142.html Medicine & Health Wed, 17 Jun 2009 10:42:44 EST news164454142 High levels of brain energy are required to maintain consciousness, a finding which suggests a new way to understand the properties of this still mysterious state of being, Yale University researchers report. http://www.physorg.com/news164337334.html Medicine & Health Tue, 16 Jun 2009 03:19:16 EST news164337334 In an attempt to investigate why some brains are more intelligent than others, researchers have found that efficient wiring between different brain regions is associated with a higher IQ. This understanding could potentially lead to the development of drugs that could improve IQ by improving the brain's network efficiency. http://www.physorg.com/news163824097.html Medicine & Health Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:10:01 EST news163824097 The fuzzy pale mold that lines the glass tubes in Dr. Yi Liu's lab doesn't look much like a clock. But this fungus has an internal, cell-based timekeeper nearly as sophisticated as a human's, allowing UT Southwestern Medical Center physiologists to study easily the biochemistry and genetics of body clocks, or circadian rhythms. http://www.physorg.com/news163700594.html Medicine & Health Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:24:15 EST news163700594 Portions of the brain that activate when people view pictures of objects compared to scrambled images can also be activated by touch alone, confirms a new report published online on May 28th in Current Biology. http://www.physorg.com/news162744208.html Medicine & Health Thu, 28 May 2009 15:44:06 EST news162744208 Sleep apnea has long been known to be associated with obesity. But a new study published in the June issue of Diabetes Care finds that the disorder is widely undiagnosed among obese individuals with type 2 diabetes - nearly 87 percent of participants reported symptoms, but were never diagnosed. http://www.physorg.com/news162107392.html Medicine & Health Thu, 21 May 2009 06:50:31 EST news162107392 Any child confronting an outraged parent demanding to know "What were you thinking?" now has a new response: "Scientists have discovered that my brain is organized differently than yours." http://www.physorg.com/news161605421.html Medicine & Health Fri, 15 May 2009 11:24:17 EST news161605421 Improving the environment in which rats are reared can significantly strengthen the physiological process of wound healing, according to a report in the online, open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE. http://www.physorg.com/news161412752.html Medicine & Health Wed, 13 May 2009 05:52:59 EST news161412752 It's more than just feeling bad. Clinical depression affects the way we process information in the brain, negatively affecting memory, attention span, and the brain's ability to learn new things. Now Tel Aviv University research has provided scientific proof that depression changes our visual perception as well. http://www.physorg.com/news160751282.html Medicine & Health Tue, 05 May 2009 14:09:43 EST news160751282 (PhysOrg.com) -- The pulsing of a single neuron can switch a brain`s waves from the equivalent of a big ocean swell to ripples on a pond, according to new research from Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Yang Dan of the University of California, Berkeley. http://www.physorg.com/news160407260.html Medicine & Health Fri, 01 May 2009 14:34:46 EST news160407260 In the first neuroimaging study to examine motor execution in children with autism, researchers at the Kennedy Krieger Institute have uncovered important new insight into the neurological basis of autism. The study, published online in the journal Brain's April 23 Brain Advanced Access, compared the brain activity of children with high functioning autism and their typically developing peers while performing a simple motor task -- tapping their fingers in sequence. http://www.physorg.com/news160235365.html Medicine & Health Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:50:12 EST news160235365 (PhysOrg.com) -- In early April, Adam Wilson posted a status update on the social networking Web site Twitter -- just by thinking about it. http://www.physorg.com/news159453062.html Medicine & Health Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:31:52 EST news159453062 After about seven months growing in the womb, a human fetus spends most of its time asleep. Its brain cycles back and forth between the frenzied activity of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and the quiet resting state of non-REM sleep. But whether the brains of younger, immature fetuses cycle with sleep or are simply inactive has remained a mystery, until now. http://www.physorg.com/news158861665.html Medicine & Health Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:14:54 EST news158861665 (PhysOrg.com) -- Young adults with a genetic variant that raises their risk of developing Alzheimer's Disease show changes in their brain activity decades before any symptoms might arise, according to a new brain imaging study by scientists from the University of Oxford and Imperial College London. The results may support the idea that the brain's memory function may gradually wear itself out in those who go on to develop Alzheimer's. http://www.physorg.com/news158258795.html Medicine & Health Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:49:45 EST news158258795 Florence, Italy: Preliminary research examining the difference in brain activity between soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder and those without it moves scientists a step closer to the possibility of being able one day to use brain scans to help diagnose the condition. http://www.physorg.com/news157964695.html Medicine & Health Fri, 03 Apr 2009 08:05:29 EST news157964695 (PhysOrg.com) -- Formerly depressed women show patterns of brain activity when they are criticized by their mothers that are distinctly different from the patterns shown by never depressed controls, according to a new study from Harvard University. The participants reported being completely well and fully recovered, yet their neural activity resembled that which has been observed in depressed individuals in other studies. http://www.physorg.com/news157729370.html Medicine & Health Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:44:37 EST news157729370 An interdisciplinary team of scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has developed a new analytical tool to answer the question of how our brain cells record outside stimuli and react to them. http://www.physorg.com/news157720415.html Medicine & Health Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:17:25 EST news157720415 Japan's Honda said Tuesday it had developed a robot steered by human thought, thanks to a helmet-like device that measures a person's brain activity and sends signals to the machine. http://www.physorg.com/news157703000.html Electronics Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:24:12 EST news157703000 Geneva, Switzerland - March 25, 2009 - Phantom limbs, often described after amputation, are also experienced as an extra limb in patients who are paralyzed on one side following a stroke. Referred to as supernumerary phantom limb (SPL), patients can usually perceive these limbs as a vivid somatosensory presence of an extra limb, but generally cannot see or intentionally move them. In some unusual cases, however, patients have reported seeing their phantom limb or feeling objects or body parts with it, which indicates that multiple areas of the brain may be involved in SPLs. http://www.physorg.com/news157214905.html Medicine & Health Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:49:00 EST news157214905 Something strange is going on in the amygdala - an almond-shaped structure deep in the human brain - among people with autism. http://www.physorg.com/news156696839.html Medicine & Health Thu, 19 Mar 2009 15:55:15 EST news156696839 Researchers have shown that they can tell where a person is "standing" within a virtual reality room on the basis of the pattern of activity in the brain alone. The findings, published online on March 12th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, offer compelling evidence that the hippocampus, a region of the brain critical to navigation, memory, and imagining future experiences, works in a structured and predictable way. That discovery is contrary to what many experts had previously suspected, according to the researchers. http://www.physorg.com/news156096557.html Medicine & Health Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:09:49 EST news156096557 It may be possible to "read" a person's memories just by looking at brain activity, according to research carried out by Wellcome Trust scientists. In a study published today in the journal Current Biology, they show that our memories are recorded in regular patterns, a finding which challenges current scientific thinking. http://www.physorg.com/news156084067.html Medicine & Health Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:41:32 EST news156084067 Mice lose their fear of territorial rivals when a tiny piece of their brain is neutralized, a new study reports. http://www.physorg.com/news155841607.html Medicine & Health Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:20:33 EST news155841607 Neuroscientists at New York University and Harvard University have identified the neural systems involved in forming first impressions of others. The findings, which show how we encode social information and then evaluate it in making these initial judgments, are reported in the most recent issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience. http://www.physorg.com/news155749619.html Medicine & Health Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:47:46 EST news155749619 Moths need just the essence of a flower's scent to identify it, according to new research from The University of Arizona in Tucson. http://www.physorg.com/news155472320.html Biology Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:45:53 EST news155472320 Believing in God can help block anxiety and minimize stress, according to new University of Toronto research that shows distinct brain differences between believers and non-believers. http://www.physorg.com/news155404273.html Medicine & Health Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:52:03 EST news155404273 In the real world, odors don't happen one puff at a time. Animals move through, and subsequently distort, plumes of odor molecules that constantly drift, changing direction as the wind disperses them. Now, by exploring how animals smell odors under naturalistic conditions, Rockefeller University scientist Maria Neimark Geffen and her colleagues reveal that the brain encodes these swirling, and complex patterns of molecules using surprisingly little neural machinery. The findings suggest a new theory of how animals smell. http://www.physorg.com/news154787258.html Medicine & Health Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:28:06 EST news154787258 Researchers from the University of Toronto and The Hospital for Sick Children (Sick Kids) have made a breakthrough discovery that may eventually change the way physicians approach treatment of learning and memory defects in children and adults. Their findings are published in the current issue of PLoS Biology. http://www.physorg.com/news154712372.html Biology Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:42:09 EST news154712372