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Last week, scientists funded by the NIH’s Human Connectome Project—a precursor to the BRAIN Initiative—identified 97 previously unknown areas of the brain’s cortex.

Promising work.

Tel Aviv University research opens the “black box” of malignant melanoma.

Continue reading “Israeli researchers find way to detect cancer cells before becoming brain tumors” »

Many folks are not aware that one of the early detections of GBM is through a person’s weakened eyesight as well as Ophthalmologist examinations.

The retina is essentially part of the brain. Studying them led researchers one step closer to understanding how the brain processes stimuli.

There is a genetically transmitted disease that causes the eyeballs to twitch back and forth, and it’s called Nystagmus. It impacts 1 in 1,500 men. Notably, it has been recently discovered that the twitching is caused by the miscalculations done by the retinal neurons in converting visual stimuli into electrical signals.

Continue reading “We’re Understanding How The Brain Functions By Linking Retinas To Chips” »

This amazing! I see so many uses both in medical/ healthcare as well as advancing the work in tech around brain sensory and mapping.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between science and technology ó almost all the time when it has to do with the brain. But this research from MIT that allows for vastly improved scans of the networks inside the brain is too cool to pass up, whether it’s tech, science, or somewhere in between.

Continue reading “This new brain-scanning technique is literally mind expanding” »

New research sheds light on what’s going on inside our heads as we decide whether to take a risk or play it safe. Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis located a region of the brain involved in decisions made under conditions of uncertainty, and identified some of the cells involved in the decision-making process.

The work, published July 27 in The Journal of Neuroscience, could lead to treatments for psychological and psychiatric disorders that involve misjudging risk, such as problem gambling and anxiety disorders.

“We know from human imaging studies that certain parts of the brain are more or less active in risk-seeking people, but the neural circuits involved are largely unknown,” said Ilya Monosov, PhD, an assistant professor of neuroscience and senior author on the study. “We found a population of value-coding neurons that are specifically suppressed when animals make a risky choice.”

Continue reading “Study identifies neural circuits involved in making risky decisions” »

Are you ready for advance brain stimulation because it is getting a whole closer to reality.

You can wire up your brain and make it easier to focus, improve your memory, and boost learning ability. But doing so takes an electric or magnetic pulse.

Studies are showing that anatomical patterning found in the brain’s cortex may be controlled by genetic factors.

The highly consistent anatomical patterning found in the brain’s cortex is controlled by genetic factors, reports a new study by an international research consortium led by Chi-Hua Chen of the University of California, San Diego, and Nicholas Schork of the J. Craig Venter Institute, published on July 26 in PLOS Genetics.

The human brain’s wrinkled cerebral cortex, which is responsible for consciousness, memory, language and thought, has a highly similar organizational pattern in all individuals. The similarity suggests that genetic factors may create this pattern, but currently the extent of the role of these factors is unknown. To determine whether a consistent and biologically meaningful pattern in the cortex could be identified, the scientists assessed brain images and genetic information from 2,364 unrelated individuals, brain images from 466 twin pairs, and transcriptome data from six postmortem brains.

They identified very consistent patterns, with close genetic relationships between different regions within the same brain lobe. The frontal lobe, which has the most complexity and has experienced the greatest expansion throughout the brain’s evolution, is the most genetically distinct from the other lobes. Their results also suggest potential functional relationships among different cortical brain regions.

UCLA freshman cluster course combines anatomy, history, philosophy and humanities to provide an interdisciplinary approach to studying neuroscience.

Ever really wanted to know what folks truly are thinking about?

A new experiment advances the idea that brain scans can teach us something about how the human mind works.

By Nathan Collins

Continue reading “Can a Brain Scan Tell What You’re Thinking? — Pacific Standard” »