Brain’s voluntary chain-of-command ruled by not 1 but 2 captains

Sur le même thème que "Brain’s voluntary chain-of-command ruled by not 1 but 2 captains"

The Brain Rules: Why the Brain Can’t Multitask

Molecular biologist and University of Washington professor John Medina told us about his book, Brain Rules. In it, he presents 12 "rules" to boost your brain power, based on what scientists know for sure about how our brain works. Some rules are obvious, like 5. Repeat to remember (short term) and 6. Remember to repeat (long [...] [lien] [EN]

Sovereign Funds Agree on Voluntary Rules

A working group of the International Monetary Fund said it reached a preliminary agreement on guidelines for sovereign wealth funds that invest abroad. It didn’t disclose specifics of the voluntary code of conduct, which is to be presented to I.M.F. members in October. Government-run funds in the Mideast and Asia have recently stepped up their investments in overseas assets, taking minority stakes in companies — and especially troubled financial firms — in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. This trend has created concern in some circles, because these sovereign funds generally disclose little information about their strategies or holdings. In some cases, these investments have generated a debate about potential national security implications. The International Working Group of Sovereign Wealth Funds. [lien] [EN]

Increase Brain Power with Food

Certain foods can increase your brain power and can keep you living healthier and longer. And since the brain is a hungry organ in the sense that it is metabolically active, we need to feed it with the right foods for optimal performance. Here are 4 tips for an intelligent diet. 1. Water Our brains are about 80 percent water, so the first rule of brain nutrition is adequate water intake to hydrate your brain. Even slight dehydration can raise stress hormones, which in turn can damage your brain over time. Also, water makes up 83% of human blood and acts as a transport system, delivering nutrients to the brain and eliminating toxins. Water is essential for concentration and mental alertness. 2. Antioxidants A number of studies have shown that dietary intake of antioxidants from fruits and vegetables significantly reduce the risk of developing cognitive impairment (Zandi. [lien] [EN]

Brain Wiring

There’s a fascinating article on morality by Steven Pinker in the Sunday New York Times magazine. Research on brains and behavior is revealing that morality has psychological and neurobiological foundations. Here’s a snip: The starting point for appreciating that there is a distinctive part of our psychology for morality is seeing how moral judgments differ from other kinds of opinions we have on how people ought to behave. Moralization is a psychological state that can be turned on and off like a switch, and when it is on, a distinctive mind-set commandeers our thinking. This is the mind-set that makes us deem actions immoral (“killing is wrong”), rather than merely disagreeable (“I hate brussels sprouts”), unfashionable (“bell-bottoms are out”) or imprudent (“don’t scratch mosquito bites”). [lien] [EN]

Increase Brain Power with Food

Certain foods can increase your brain power and can keep you living healthier and longer. And since the brain is a hungry organ in the sense that it is metabolically active, we need to feed it with the right foods for optimal performance. Here are 4 tips for an intelligent diet. 1. Water Our brains are about 80 percent water, so the first rule of brain nutrition is adequate water intake to hydrate your brain. Even slight dehydration can raise stress hormones, which in turn can damage your brain over time. Also, water makes up 83% of human blood and acts as a transport system, delivering nutrients to the brain and eliminating toxins. Water is essential for concentration and mental alertness. 2. Antioxidants A number of studies have shown that dietary intake of antioxidants from fruits and vegetables significantly reduce the risk of developing cognitive impairment (Zandi. [lien] [EN]

Groups of neurons in the brain rewire by changing images

Neuroscientists studying the mind’s ability to process images have completed the first empirical study to demonstrate, using animal models, how populations of nerve cells in visual cortex adapt to changing images. Their findings could lead to sight-improving therapies for people following trauma or stroke. The study at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston appears in the March 13 issue of the journal Nature. �Our perception of the environment relies on the capacity of neural networks to adapt rapidly to changes in incoming stimuli,� wrote senior author Valentin Dragoi, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston. �It is increasingly being realized that the neural code is adaptive, that is, sensory neurons change their responses and selectivity in a dynamic manner to match the changes in input stimuli. [lien] [EN]

Walmart Drops Lawsuit Against Brain Damaged Worker [Subrogation]

In a surprising turn-around Walmart has decided to drop its effort to collect $400,000 in money awarded to a brain damaged former employee, says the Associated Press. The world's largest retailer said Tuesday in a letter to the family of Deborah Shank it will not seek to collect money the Shanks won in an injury lawsuit against a trucking company for the accident. Wal-Mart's top executive for human resources, Pat Curran, wrote that Shank's extraordinary situation had made the company re-examine its stance. Deborah's husband Jim Shank welcomed the news. Family lawyer Maurice Graham of St. Louis said Wal-Mart deserves credit for doing the right thing. 'It's a good day for the Shank family,' Jim Shank said in a statement. Wal-Mart has been roundly criticized in newspaper editorials, on cable news shows and by its union foes for its claim to the funds. [lien] [EN]

Illinois Court Rules Against Forced-Sterilization of Disabled Woman

Good news: Disability rights advocates and medical ethicists praised a precedent-setting ruling Friday by the Illinois Appellate Court denying a bid to sterilize a mentally disabled woman against her will. The woman, identified only as K.E.J. in court records, isn’t capable of raising a child on her own, but her guardian failed to prove that sterilization would be in her best interests, a three-judge panel in Chicago ruled unanimously. [ . . . ] The ruling was the first appellate opinion on the issue in Illinois. “It’s extraordinarily significant” because it guarantees the disabled a court hearing, said Katie Watson, a Northwestern University professor who wrote a friend-of-the-court brief in the case on behalf of about two dozen medical ethicists. [ . . . ] K.E.J., 29. [lien] [EN]

Cognitive ‘fog’ of normal aging linked to brain system disruption

Comparisons of the brains of young and old people have revealed that normal aging may cause cognitive decline due to deterioration of the connections among large-scale brain systems. The researchers linked the deterioration to a decrease in the integrity of the brain's “white matter,” the tissue containing nerve cells that carry information. The researchers found that the disruption occurred even in the absence of pathology associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Randy Buckner and his colleagues reported their findings in the December 6, 2007, issue of the journal Neuron, published by Cell Press. The researchers assessed brain function in a sample of adults ranging in age from 18 to 93 and comprising 38 young adults and 55 older adults. They did so using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). [lien] [EN]

Scientists uncover how the brain controls what the eyes see

Vase or face” When presented with the well known optical illusion in which we see either a vase or the faces of two people, what we observe depends on the patterns of neural activity going on in our brains. “In this example, whether you see faces or vases depends entirely on changes that occur in your brain, since the image always stays exactly the same,” said John Serences, a UC Irvine cognitive neuroscientist. In a recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Serences and co-author Geoffrey Boynton, associate professor at the University of Washington, found that when viewing ambiguous images such as optical illusions, patterns of neural activity within specific brain regions systematically change as perception changes. More importantly, they found that patterns of neural activity in some brain regions were very similar when observers were presented with comparable ambiguous and unambiguous images. [lien] [EN]

Diet of Walnuts, blueberries found to improve cognition; may help maintain brain function and treat brain disorders

Junk food junkies take notice. What you eat does more than influence your gut. It also may affect your brain. Increasing evidence shows that mom was right: You should eat your vegetables, and your blueberries and walnuts, too. Scientists are confirming that this age-old adage is worth following. And new studies show that diet may have implications for those who suffer from certain brain ailments. Diets containing two percent, six percent, or nine percent walnuts, when given to old rats, were found to reverse several parameters of brain aging, as well as age-related motor and cognitive deficits, says James Joseph, PhD, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University in Boston. In previous research, Joseph and his colleagues showed that old rats maintained for two months on diets containing two percent high antioxidant strawberry or blueberry extracts exhibited reversals of age. [lien] [EN]

Research shows the brain’s processing speed is significantly faster than real time

Scientists at The University of Arizona have added another piece of the puzzle of how the brain processes memory. Bruce McNaughton, a professor of psychology and physiology, and his colleague David Euston have shown that, during sleep, the reactivated memories of real-time experiences are processed within the brain at a higher rate of speed. That rate can be as much as six or seven times faster, and what McNaughton calls “thought speed.” Memory stores patterns of activity in modular form in the brain's cortex. Different modules in the cortex process different kinds of information - sounds, sights, tastes, smells, etc. The cortex sends these networks of activity to a region called the hippocampus. The hippocampus then creates and assigns a tag, a kind of temporary bar code, that is unique to every memory and sends that signal back to the cortex. [lien] [EN]

Sleep-deprivation causes an emotional brain ‘disconnect’

Without sleep, the emotional centers of the brain dramatically overreact to negative experiences, reveals a new brain imaging study in the October 23rd issue of Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press. The reason for that hyperactive emotional response in sleep-deprived people stems from a shutdown of the prefrontal lobe—a region that normally keeps emotions under control. The new study from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, Berkeley is the first to explain, at the neural level, what seems to be a universal phenomenon: that sleep loss leads to emotionally irrational behavior, according to the researchers. The findings might also offer some insight into the clinical connection between sleep disruptions and psychiatric disorders. “This adds to the critical list of sleep's benefits. [lien] [EN]

Brain imaging reveals breakdown of normal emotional processing

 Brain imaging has revealed a breakdown in normal patterns of emotional processing that impairs the ability of people with clinical depression to suppress negative emotional states. Efforts by depressed patients to suppress their feelings when viewing emotionally negative images enhanced activity in several brain areas, including the amygdala, known to play a role in generating emotion, according to a report in the August 15 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. “Identifying areas in the nervous system that correlate to pathological mood states is one of the pressing questions in mental illness today,” says Carol Tamminga, MD, of the University of Texas Southwest Medical Center. Tamminga was not involved in the study. Tom Johnstone, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin, and colleagues there and at Tufts University studied 21 adults diagnosed with major depressive disorder and 18 healthy subjects of comparable ages. [lien] [EN]