neuron

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)

Scientists call for network of “brain observatories” to accelerate neurotechnology research and innovation

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neurotechnology

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A nation­al net­work of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy cen­ters for the BRAIN Ini­tia­tive (press release):

“The authors of the orig­i­nal pro­pos­al for the Brain Activ­i­ty Map (BAM) Project, which inspired the White House­’s BRAIN Ini­tia­tive, issued today a posi­tion state­ment in Neu­ron propos­ing the cre­ation of a nation­al net­work of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy cen­ters. These “brain obser­va­to­ries” would [Read more…] about Sci­en­tists call for net­work of “brain obser­va­to­ries” to accel­er­ate neu­rotech­nol­o­gy research and innovation

The Life of Your Next Neuron

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Some neu­rons migrate by rid­ing along exten­sions (radi­al glia) until they reach their final destinations.

(In hon­or of Brain Aware­ness Week, which starts today, let’s learn a bit more about neu­rons. A ques­tion we get often as we dis­cuss the ben­e­fits of aer­o­bic and men­tal exer­cise is, “Can neu­rons trav­el -“migrate”- inside the brain?” Below you have the answer, and more, straight from the Nation­al Insti­tute of Health web­site.) [Read more…] about The Life of Your Next Neuron

Does Coffee Boost Brain/ Cognitive Functions Over Time?

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A fewA_small_cup_of_coffee eter­nal questions:
— Is caf­feine good for the brain?
— Does it boost cog­ni­tive functions?
— Does it pro­tect against dementia?

There is lit­tle doubt that drink­ing that morn­ing cup of cof­fee will like­ly increase alert­ness, but the main ques­tions that research is try­ing to answer go beyond that. Basi­cal­ly: is there a sus­tained, life­time, ben­e­fit or harm from drink­ing cof­fee regularly?

The answer, so far, con­tains good news and bad news. The good news for cof­fee drinkers is that most of the long-term results are direc­tion­al­ly more pos­i­tive than neg­a­tive, so no clear harm seems to occur. The bad news is that it is not clear so far whether caf­feine has ben­e­fi­cial effects on gen­er­al brain func­tions, either short-term or long-term (aged-relat­ed decline or risks of dementia).

It is impor­tant to note that many of the stud­ies show­ing an effect of cof­fee con­sump­tion on brain func­tions or risks of demen­tia report a cor­re­la­tion or asso­ci­a­tion (they are not ran­dom­ized clin­i­cal tri­als). As you know, cor­re­la­tion doesn’t prove cau­sa­tion: cof­fee drinkers may seem to do well in a num­ber in these long-term stud­ies, but there may be oth­er rea­sons why cof­fee drinkers do better.

Q: How does caf­feine affect my brain?
A: Caf­feine is a stimulant.

It belongs to a chem­i­cal group called xan­thine. Adeno­sine is a nat­u­ral­ly occur­ring xan­thine in the brain that slows down the activ­i­ty of brain cells (neu­rons). To a neu­ron, caf­feine looks like adeno­sine. It is there­fore used by some neu­rons in place of adeno­sine. The result is that these neu­rons speed up instead of slow­ing down.

This increased neu­ronal activ­i­ty trig­gers the release of the adren­a­line hor­mone, which will affect your body [Read more…] about Does Cof­fee Boost Brain/ Cog­ni­tive Func­tions Over Time?

Training Attention and Emotional Self-Regulation — Interview with Michael Posner

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(Edi­tor’s Note: this is one of the 20 inter­views includ­ed in the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age)

Michael I. Pos­ner is a promi­nent sci­en­tist in the field of cog­ni­tive neu­ro­science. He is cur­rent­ly an emer­i­tus pro­fes­sor of neu­ro­science at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ore­gon (Depart­mentMichael Posner of Psy­chol­o­gy, Insti­tute of Cog­ni­tive and Deci­sion Sci­ences). In August 2008, the Inter­na­tion­al Union of Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence made him the first recip­i­ent of the Dogan Prize “in recog­ni­tion of a con­tri­bu­tion that rep­re­sents a major advance in psy­chol­o­gy by a schol­ar or team of schol­ars of high inter­na­tion­al reputation.”

Dr. Pos­ner, many thanks for your time today. I real­ly enjoyed the James Arthur Lec­ture mono­graph on Evo­lu­tion and Devel­op­ment of Self-Reg­u­la­tion that you deliv­ered last year. Could you pro­vide a sum­ma­ry of the research you presented?

I would empha­size that we human beings can reg­u­late our thoughts, emo­tions, and actions to a greater degree than oth­er pri­mates. For exam­ple, we can choose to pass up an imme­di­ate reward for a larg­er, delayed reward.

We can plan ahead, resist dis­trac­tions, be goal-ori­ent­ed. These human char­ac­ter­is­tics appear to depend upon what we often call “self-reg­u­la­tion.” What is excit­ing these days is that progress in neu­roimag­ing and in genet­ics make it pos­si­ble to think about self-reg­u­la­tion in terms of spe­cif­ic brain-based networks.

Can you explain what self-reg­u­la­tion is?

All par­ents have seen this in their kids. Par­ents can see the remark­able trans­for­ma­tion as their chil­dren devel­op the abil­i­ty to reg­u­late emo­tions and to per­sist with goals in the face of dis­trac­tions. That abil­i­ty is usu­al­ly labeled ‚ self-regulation.

The oth­er main area of your research is atten­tion. Can you explain the brain-basis for what we usu­al­ly call “atten­tion”?

I have been inter­est­ed in how the atten­tion sys­tem devel­ops in infan­cy and ear­ly childhood.

One of our major find­ings, thanks to neu­roimag­ing, is that there is not one sin­gle “atten­tion”, but three sep­a­rate func­tions of atten­tion with three sep­a­rate under­ly­ing brain net­works: alert­ing, ori­ent­ing, and exec­u­tive atten­tion. [Read more…] about Train­ing Atten­tion and Emo­tion­al Self-Reg­u­la­tion — Inter­view with Michael Posner