Kolmogorov download Neuroscientists: Specific Brain Waves Synchronize Brain Regions During Fear Behavior | Neuroscience A new study led by Nikolaos Karalis of the Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München and Dr. Cyril Herry of the Neurocentre Magendie has shed light on what actually happens in the brain during the retrieval and expression of fear memories. Top image: filtered signals recorded in the two brain regions identify the almost perfect synchronization between the two regions during the expression of fear memories. Bottom image: spectral decomposition of the brain signals allows researchers to identify the frequency and power of neuronal rhythmic oscillations during fear behavior. Fear response to traumatic or threatening situations helps us evade or escape danger. “Fear learning requires only a single experience for the association to be formed and each subsequent exposure to the conditioned stimulus leads to the retrieval of the memory.” “Could it be that this very characteristic state of the body is more than just a response to the stressor or conditioned stimulus?
Researchers figure out similarities in brain architecture between birds and apes Some groups of birds are mentally just as smart as apes. This is the conclusion drawn by Prof Dr Onur Güntürkün from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and Prof Dr Thomas Bugnyar from the University of Vienna in a review article in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences. The researchers compiled numerous neuro-anatomic studies which revealed many similarities in the brains of birds and mammals. These similarities may constitute the foundation of complex cognitive behaviour. At first glance, the brains of birds and mammals show many significant differences. In spite of that, the cognitive skills of some groups of birds match those of apes. Research results gathered in the recent decades have suggested that birds have sophisticated cognitive skills. Together, both researchers compiled studies which had revealed diverse cognitive skills in birds. Complex cognition without cortex In mammals, cognitive skills are controlled by the multi-layered cerebral cortex, also called neocortex.
Bees 'dumb down' after ingesting tiny doses of the pesticide chlorpyrifos Honeybees suffer severe learning and memory deficits after ingesting very small doses of the pesticide chlorpyrifos, potentially threatening their success and survival, new research from New Zealand's University of Otago suggests. In their study, researchers from the Departments of Zoology and Chemistry collected bees from 51 hives across 17 locations in the province of Otago in Southern New Zealand and measured their chlorpyrifos levels. They detected low levels of pesticide in bees at three of the 17 sites and in six of the 51 hives they examined. Detecting chlorpyrifos was not a surprise. In the laboratory they then fed other bees with similar amounts of the pesticide, which is used around the world to protect food crops against insects and mites, and put them through learning performance tests. "For example, the dosed bees were less likely to respond specifically to an odour that was previously rewarded. Journal Journal of Chemical Ecology Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert!
Avian Brain & Senses Due to common ancestry, the brains of reptiles & birds are similar. However, birds have relatively larger cerebral hemispheres & cerebella. In addition, birds have larger optic lobes & smaller olfactory bulbs (Husband and Shimizu 1999). Source: Source: Sharp-shinned Hawk skull and brain Wood Stork skull and brain Woodpeckers, corvids, and parrots have longer, larger cerebellar lobes IV, VI, VII, VIII, and IX than many other birds. Side views of Zebra Finch & human brains. Bird brains (Nova - Science Now) Lecture: Harvey Karten explores what goes on inside a bird's brain. The cerebral hemispheres of birds, like those of other vertebrates, consists of 2 regions: a dorsal PALLIUM & a ventral SUBPALLIUM (including the basal ganglia, which are areas important in coordinating muscular activity) Schematic representation of two theories of brain evolution. From: Jarvis et al. (2005).
What It’s Like to ‘Wake Up’ From Autism -- Science of Us For a long time, it was thought that people with autism spectrum disorder lacked emotion, that even the higher-functioning among them navigated the world like logical robots oblivious to “real” feelings. More recently, research has shown their social issues are more likely to stem from difficulty expressing emotion or reading the emotions of others. Though he wasn’t diagnosed with autism until he was 40, John Elder Robison felt isolated and disconnected throughout his entire youth and early adulthood. But in 2008, at 50, he took part in what became a three-year research project looking at brain function in individuals with autism spectrum disorders and exploring the use of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to help them. TMS is a noninvasive procedure that uses magnetic pulses to stimulate nerve cells in the brain. During treatment, a coil is placed against the patient’s scalp and the TMS energy passes through the skull into the outermost layer of the brain. What happened?
The Smell Report - The human sense of smell. Although the human sense of smell is feeble compared to that of many animals, it is still very acute. We can recognise thousands of different smells, and we are able to detect odours even in infinitesimal quantities. Our smelling function is carried out by two small odour-detecting patches – made up of about five or six million yellowish cells – high up in the nasal passages. For comparison, a rabbit has 100 million of these olfactory receptors, and a dog 220 million. Humans are nonetheless capable of detecting certain substances in dilutions of less than one part in several billion parts of air. We may not be able to match the olfactory feats of bloodhounds, but we can, for example, ‘track’ a trail of invisible human footprints across clean blotting paper. The human nose is in fact the main organ of taste as well as smell. Variations Our smelling ability increases to reach a plateau at about the age of eight, and declines in old age. Children
10 Marvin Minsky Quotes That Reflect What a Visionary He Was Twenty years ago, when I was first imagining "Closer To Truth," our public television series on science and philosophy, and fantasizing about who might appear, Marvin Minsky was one of a small handful of world-renowned thinkers on my A+ wish list. Luckily, he said yes -- and then yes again. Marvin, who died Sunday at age 88, was visionary, pioneering, substantive, rigorous, tough-minded, iconoclastic, daring and whimsical. I wanted to do what Marvin did: challenge conventional belief, taking our topics seriously but never ourselves. Here are some quotes illustrating the unique insights Minsky provided during our discussions over the years, followed by links back to the videos. It's perfectly possible that we are the production of some very powerful complicated programs running on some big computer somewhere else. If we are simulated, we might find some technique that would notice some of the grain of the computer being used is showing through a little bit. We're in a possible world.
Neuroscientists create ‘atlas’ showing how words are organised in the brain | Science Scientists have created an “atlas of the brain” that reveals how the meanings of words are arranged across different regions of the organ. Like a colourful quilt laid over the cortex, the atlas displays in rainbow hues how individual words and the concepts they convey can be grouped together in clumps of white matter. “Our goal was to build a giant atlas that shows how one specific aspect of language is represented in the brain, in this case semantics, or the meanings of words,” said Jack Gallant, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley. No single brain region holds one word or concept. Described as a “tour de force” by one researcher who was not involved in the study, the atlas demonstrates how modern imaging can transform our knowledge of how the brain performs some of its most important tasks. To create the atlas, the scientists recorded people’s brain activity while they listened to stories read out on The Moth Radio Hour, a US radio show.
Contribution of substantia nigra glutamate to prediction error signals in schizophrenia: a combined magnetic resonance spectroscopy/functional imaging study : npj Schizophrenia Participants We enrolled 22 medicated participants with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (SZ), recruited from outpatient clinics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and 19 matched HC, recruited via advertisement. After being deemed able to give consent,17 informed consent was provided. Approval by the Institutional Review Board was obtained. Diagnoses were established through review of medical records, two clinician consensus, and the Diagnostic Interview for Genetic Studies. Reward task After a training session, subjects performed a probabilistic monetary reward decision task modeled after Rolls et al.20 during fMRI (six runs of 25 trials; Figure 1). (a) Participants selected either a large reward of 30¢ or a smaller reward of 10¢ by pushing a right or left box. Image acquisition All scanning was done on a 3 T Siemens Allegra head-only scanner (Siemens, Erlangen, Germany). Statistical analyses Demographics and behavioral data fMRI Combined fMRI/MRS
getSharedSiteSession?rc=4&redirect= Nader K. Schafe G.E. LeDoux J.E. Fear memories require protein synthesis in the amgydala for reconsolidation after retrieval.Nature. 2000; 406: 722-726American Psychiatric AssociationDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The Myth of the Rational Actor by Susan J. Matt Susan J. Matt is a professor of history at Weber State University and the author of “Homesickness: An American History” (Oxford University Press, 2011). This article is based on a paper she delivered at the American Historical Association in January 2015. “Economic man” was born in 1844 when John Stuart Mill created him. We worry most about his rationality. Beyond that, what gets put on one side or the other of that line is contingent and arbitrary rather than reflective of some neurological divide. By the early nineteenth century, economists regarded rationality and market-based, self-interested activity as interchangeable. While economic man gained followers, he also gained critics. Despite these criticisms, economic man flourished, and during the mid-twentieth century, gained new life from Milton Friedman and his followers. Not only did these books ignore culture but they suggested that economic actors stood outside of time. Historians can remedy this. by Susan J.