How Steve Jobs Trained His Own Brain / Inc.com
What 'Food Porn' Does to the Brain — The Atlantic
In the mid-20th century, the Dutch biologist Nikolaas Tinbergen uncovered an odd quirk of animal behavior: Across species, the animals in his experiments seemed to prefer prettier, flashier, more attention-grabbing versions of their natural environments—“supernormal stimuli,” he called them—even when those stimuli were fake. Certain types of fish, he found, would become more violent towards dummy fish whose undersides were more vibrant than the species’ usual color; mother birds would ignore their own eggs to sit on a nest of larger, more colorful imitations, or divert food from their children to feed models of chicks with brighter beaks. “The essence of the supernormal stimulus,” the psychiatrist Deirdre Barrett wrote in her book on the subject, “is that the exaggerated imitation can cause a stronger pull than the real thing.” “We humans can produce our own,” she continued, like “candy sweeter than any fruit,” or pornography. What’s the appeal in ogling what you can’t have?
This Is a Baby’s Brain on Pain | TIME
In a first, researchers at Oxford University have watched infants as young as a day old as their brains process a light prodding of their feet. The results confirm that yes, babies do indeed feel pain, and that they process it similarly to adults. Until as recently as the 1980s, researchers assumed newborns did not have fully developed pain receptors, and believed that any responses babies had to pokes or pricks were merely muscular reactions. Taking advantage of the fact that newborns less than a week old tend to sleep through anything, Rebeccah Slater, an associate professor of pediatric neuroimaging at Oxford, and her colleagues placed 10 infants who were 1-6 days old in an fMRI machine. In adult brains, 20 regions were activated by the painful stimulus, and the newborns shared 18 of these. Even at birth, then, a baby’s brain possesses the foundation for quickly evaluating anything he or she experiences, including painful stimuli.
Brain cancer may grow faster the more you think
In a newly published study, medical researchers led by neurologist Michelle Monje at Stanford report than many aggressive forms of brain cancer appear to worsen the more you think. Not just about the cancer, but anything. The more brain activity you have, the faster the cancer cells divide. Monje and her colleagues came to this realization while studying diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), a rare cancer found in children that is untreatable by any current means. Myelin is a compound created by glial cells that covers and insulates the axons of nerve cells. To test the effect of this process on cancer, researchers implanted gliomas in the brains of mice, then stimulated neuron activity in the area around the tumors. So where does this get us?
Do you have a male or female brain? The simple test that investigates your 'gender personality'... and the answer will surprise you
A person's brain often reflects their gender. However their hands can also indicate if their brain is more female or maleWhy are some skills or characteristics considered male or female-specific?Documentary examines if gender-specific traits are due to biology (occuring from birth) or develop as a result of environmentThe film examines different theories and studies about gender and the brain Study says fingers can indicate how much testosterone is in a person's body Is your brain male or female? Documentary premieres on SBS One on Monday at 7.30pm By Dr Michael Mosley Published: 15:14 GMT, 26 April 2015 | Updated: 02:41 GMT, 27 April 2015 Sit down for a moment. If you are a man, the odds are it will be the left; if you are a woman, it is more likely to be the right. It can be quite subtle, but in men the ring finger (measured from the crease where it joins the hand) is likely to be longer than the index finger. Scroll down for video All you know is that it is incredibly painful. Why?
New insight into how brain makes memories
Every time you make a memory, somewhere in your brain a tiny filament reaches out from one neuron and forms an electrochemical connection to a neighboring neuron. A team of biologists at Vanderbilt University, headed by Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Donna Webb, studies how these connections are formed at the molecular and cellular level. “Alterations in dendritic spines are associated with many neurological and developmental disorders, such as autism, Alzheimer’s disease and Down Syndrome,” said Webb. “However, the formation and maintenance of spines is a very complex process that we are just beginning to understand.”The filaments that make these new connections are called dendritic spines and, in a series of experiments described in the April 17 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the researchers report that a specific signaling protein, Asef2, a member of a family of proteins that regulate cell migration and adhesion, plays a critical role in spine formation.
Teen Binge Drinking Damages The Brain: How Partying Affects Learning And Memory Forever
Teenage years are full of trial and error, but when it comes to alcohol the after-effects may last well into adult life. Researchers from Duke University Medical Center knew how experimental teenagers could be, so they took a look into how alcohol affects their growing brains during this crucial developmental stage. "In the eyes of the law, once people reach the age of 18, they are considered adult, but the brain continues to mature and refine all the way into the mid-20s," the study’s lead author Mary-Louise Risher, a post-doctoral researcher in the Duke Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, said in a press release. "It's important for young people to know that when they drink heavily during this period of development, there could be changes occurring that have a lasting impact on memory and other cognitive functions." With the legal drinking age at 21, any high school kids who drink will be taking part in underage drinking.
Air pollution may shrink the brain
Breathing polluted air every day may change a person's brain in ways that end up leading to cognitive impairment, according to a new study. In the study, researchers examined 943 healthy adults who were at least 60 years old and lived the New England region. The investigators used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look at the participants' brain structures, and compared the images with the air pollution levels in the places where the participants lived. The researchers found that an increase of 2 micrograms per cubic meter in fine-particle pollution -- a range that can be observed across an average city -- was linked to a 0.32 percent reduction in brain volume. That amount of change in brain volume "is equivalent to about one year of brain aging," said study author Elissa H. In general, a smaller brain volume is caused by the loss of neurons that comes with aging, the researchers said. [10 Things You Didn't Know About the Brain]
