Browsing: Brain

New research examines the brain's takeover by cocaine addiction.

In the not so distant future, scientists could be able to eavesdrop on a patient’s inner monologues or communicate with those who cannot speak, thanks to a breakthrough made by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley. They have astonishingly managed to crack the ‘code’ of a brain wave by decoding electrical activity in a […]

What if you could increase your ability to remember with a pill?  This may not be an idea just for science fiction novels.  Scientists have discovered a method that could strengthen long-term memories. A protein called PKR functions to maintain a relatively low level of excitability by enhancing GABA synaptic transmission.  GABA is an inhibitory […]

The brain learns basically by shifting between different strengths of its synapses, as a response to different stimuli – that much is clear. However, recently, a team of UCLA scientists have shattered the common belief about the mechanism of learning, showing that the brain learns rhythmically, and that there is an optimal ‘rhythm’, or frequency, […]

Remarkably enough, scientists from Tel Aviv University in Israel, have manged to implant an artificial cerebellum in a rat’s brain, which successfully restored lost brain function. This research could provide the foundations for implementing cyborg-like functions in the human brain sometime in the distant future. Such an advancement, could possibly one day offer the prospect […]

Researchers from Princeton University recently published a study in which they show how they’ve been able to use functional magnetic resonance imaging and a computer program that condensed 3,500 Wikipedia articles to associate words to particular brain activity patterns. Basically, they were able to read thoughts. To reach this remarkable correlation, researchers first did some […]

A team of researchers from Yale University have shown at a cellular basis why we tend to be more forgetful as we age, and claim that the condition may be reversed. There’s no secret to the fact that an elderly person has a much weaker memory than the one he did at 20 years of […]

A new Oxford University study shows how people living further away from the equator have bigger eyes and brains than those living closer to it. This is to cope with the harsh colder climate, scientists say. Anthropologists come to this conclusion after examining 55 skulls, dating from the 1800s, representing 12 different populations from around […]

A team of neuro-scientists have managed to restore lost memories to rats by activating a part of their brains through an artificial memory chip – just like a sort of neuro-prosthesis. Further advances backed by this study might lead to the development of important leaps in long-term memory treatment, providing relief for Alzheimer or dementia […]

When you first hear of the work done by Miguel Nicolelis and his team, though the “cool factor” is high, you might wonder as to the practical application. Miguel has spent the last number of years (and, in fact, most of his career) working to gives our primate cousins a third (robotic) arm. In his […]