Brain-Imaging

Brain imaging show that patients with Alzheimer’s disease can still remember and enjoy their favorite songs

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Music Acti­vates Regions of the Brain Spared by Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (Uni­ver­si­ty of Utah):

“Ever get chills lis­ten­ing to a par­tic­u­lar­ly mov­ing piece of music? You can thank the salience net­work of the brain for that emo­tion­al joint. Sur­pris­ing­ly, this region also remains an island of remem­brance that is spared from the rav­ages of Alzheimer’s dis­ease. Researchers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Utah Health are look­ing to this region of the brain to devel­op music-based treat­ments to help alle­vi­ate anx­i­ety in patients with demen­tia. Their research [Read more…] about Brain imag­ing show that patients with Alzheimer’s dis­ease can still remem­ber and enjoy their favorite songs

Tara Thiagarajan, Founder of Brainnovations Winner Sapien Labs, on building a global platform for brain research that truly captures the diversity of humanity

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What sur­prised you the most from the Judges’ ques­tions and feed­back dur­ing the Brain­no­va­tions Pitch Con­test?

I was pleas­ant­ly sur­prised to see the sig­nif­i­cant range and depth of knowl­edge shown by the judg­ing pan­el, lead­ing to very spe­cif­ic and use­ful ques­tions around the key chal­lenges to build our glob­al research platform.

In a nut­shell, what is the core idea behind Sapi­en Labs?

The core idea is to fur­ther our under­stand­ing of the large dif­fer­ences between indi­vid­ual brains in order to man­age our brain health and brain states bet­ter. [Read more…] about Tara Thi­a­gara­jan, Founder of Brain­no­va­tions Win­ner Sapi­en Labs, on build­ing a glob­al plat­form for brain research that tru­ly cap­tures the diver­si­ty of humanity

Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology (SIBET) to host “brain-imaging factory” enabling large-scale, standardized data generation

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Recon­struct­ed image show­ing how long-range neu­rons extend across a mouse brain. Luo Q. M./Sci Sin Vitae

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Chi­na launch­es brain-imag­ing fac­to­ry (Nature):

“Neu­ro­sci­en­tists who painstak­ing­ly map the twists and turns of neur­al cir­cuit­ry through the brain are about to see their field expand to an indus­tri­al scale. A huge facil­i­ty set to open in Suzhou, Chi­na, next month should trans­form high-res­o­lu­tion brain map­ping, its devel­op­ers say. [Read more…] about Suzhou Insti­tute of Bio­med­ical Engi­neer­ing and Tech­nol­o­gy (SIBET) to host “brain-imag­ing fac­to­ry” enabling large-scale, stan­dard­ized data generation

Update: To honor Brain Awareness Week 2017, let’s highlight 10 Key Facts To Harness Neuroplasticity And Improve Brain Fitness

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– Giant neu­ron iden­ti­fied in mouse brain via nov­el brain imag­ing tech­nique. Study linked below.

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Last week was Brain Aware­ness Week, so let’s first of all dis­cuss these 10 Key Facts to Har­ness Neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty & Improve Brain Fit­ness com­ing from the hun­dreds of sci­en­tif­ic and med­ical stud­ies we ana­lyzed to pre­pare the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Improve Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age.

And here’s the rest of Sharp­Brains’ e‑newsletter explor­ing the lat­est in brain health and men­tal performance.

New research:

New thinking:

New tools (via SharpBrains’ analysis of neurotech patents):

 

Final­ly, here’s a brain teas­er to test your pat­tern recog­ni­tion and oth­er cog­ni­tive skills: The Emp­ty Tri­an­gle.

 

Have a nice Spring!

 

The Sharp­Brains Team

New brain imaging methods help detect giant, superconnected neurons such as this one (in a mouse’s brain)

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A Giant Neu­ron Has Been Found Wrapped Around the Entire Cir­cum­fer­ence of the Brain (Sci­ence Alert):

“For the first time, sci­en­tists have detect­ed a giant neu­ron wrapped around the entire cir­cum­fer­ence of a mouse’s brain, and it’s so dense­ly con­nect­ed across both hemi­spheres, it could final­ly explain the ori­gins of con­scious­ness. [Read more…] about New brain imag­ing meth­ods help detect giant, super­con­nect­ed neu­rons such as this one (in a mouse’s brain)

Forget thinking vs. feeling dichotomy. Think/ feel holistic brain functioning

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brain teasers cognitive stimulationMen­tal Math and the Fine-Tun­ing of Emo­tions (The Dana Foundation)

“You often hear the word “cal­cu­lat­ing” used to describe some­one who always seems to act delib­er­ate­ly, guid­ed by rea­son rather than emo­tion. The idea behind this char­ac­ter­i­za­tion is that human nature strad­dles a deep divide between think­ing and feel­ing, but cur­rent research sug­gests oth­er­wise. Brain-imag­ing stud­ies, in par­tic­u­lar, reveal an over­lap between the sites in the brain that make it pos­si­ble for us to per­form men­tal arith­metic and those that enable us to reg­u­late our emo­tions. In fact, these two dis­sim­i­lar-seem­ing func­tions are housed in the same neigh­bor­hood of the cere­bral cor­tex. But they don’t just reside near each other—they actu­al­ly work togeth­er. “It’s pos­si­ble that train­ing the brain with men­tal math strength­ens the capac­i­ty for emo­tion­al reap­praisal, or per­haps con­tin­u­al­ly run­ning the process of emo­tion­al reap­praisal increas­es the abil­i­ty for men­tal cal­cu­la­tions of oth­er kinds like men­tal arithmetic.”

To learn more: