News, Discoveries and Information on the Brain

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  Major World News Stories on the Brain 

New Technology Developed for Probing the Brain for Intent and Truth
A scientist ha of "fingerprinting" the brain to ascertain whether an individual is telling the truth or has been connected with specific events, such as crimes.

Memory Mechanism Found At Nerve Cell Connections In The Brain
 Scientists have identified a novel mechanism behind the decrease in strength of synapses in the brain, a process that leads to the creation of memories and their long-term storage.

OHSU Researchers Discover New Synapses In Brain For decades, scientists have known that nerve cells in the brain communicate with each other through high-speed contacts called synapses. Now, researchers at Oregon Health Sciences University's Vollum Institute and the University of Oxford have discovered that synapses also are used to communicate with other specialized brain cells called oligodendrocytes.

Multicenter Study on Ginkgo Biloba for Dementia The study's goal is to advance scientific knowledge about gingko's effectiveness in preventing dementia and improving quality of life. 

 Exploring Learning, Memory and the Brain

In a recent 1999 paper in Learning & Memory, a team of Rockefeller University scientists showed that the expression of a gene linked to the modification of neuronal connections went up during the deepest phase of sleep that follows an enriched waking experience. The team suggests that this could provide a mechanism by which sleep contributes to the consolidation of memories of daytime events. Access here.

Questions to Neuroscientists from Educators  -  Prepared for the Krasnough Institute, Johns Hopkins University. Why does the educational system continue to ignore knowledge gained about the brain and how it learns?

The Significance of Enrichment - "Now that we have begun to appreciate the plasticity of our cerebral cortex, the seat of the intellectual functioning that distinguishes us as human beings, we must learn to use this knowledge. It must stimulate and guide our efforts to work toward enriching heredity through enriching the environment ... for everyone ... at any age."

Mindshifts: A Brain-Based Process for Restructuring Schools - Review

Child's Play - Recent scientific studies have found that the human brain does much of its development in a child's first three years of life. These findings could have a significant impact on the way children are raised and how childcare is funded. Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Television reports. Note: If so, don't all these toxic childhood vaccines that pass the blood-brain barrier, with foreign proteins and heavy metal adjuvants impact children adversely? Of course!

Fertile Minds - Published by the magazine, Time, this online report addresses the current insights into brain development. The importance of these findings and their implications on educators and lawmakers are discussed in detail.

Learning Windows: Your Child's Brain - Written by Amy Markezich of Stanford University, this article explores research into the theory of Learning Windows. Ms. Markezich describes learning windows as being a series of time periods, or windows, in which a child can best learn or refine a particular ability, such as speech. After this time period is over it becomes much more difficult, sometimes impossible, for the child to learn the same thing. Examples of how parents and educators can benefit children=s learning process by recognizing these windows are discussed.

Making Connections: Helping Children Build Their Brain - There is no longer a question of "if" it is helpful to provide a stimulating environment for children. Research tells us that it is not only helpful if you do, but that a child is robbed of optimal brain development, if you do not. The development of the brain cells is human physiology, but development of many of the synapses is influenced by experiences. The brain cells form the framework, but the connections made in childhood determine what happens to that framework.

Educators Seek to Apply Brain-Based Research - Although the brain's operation is still far from completely understood, technological advances in recent years have allowed scientists literally to see how the brain works, in ways previously unimagined. One result is a new wave of attempts to put brain research to use in the classroom. More

The Mysteries of the Brain
  

FSU Scientists Probe Mysteries of the Brain

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.- Florida State University scientists have found evidence that a mysterious and long neglected nerve in the nose may have a function in reproduction. Though scientists have made staggering discoveries about the brain, they are still unsure about how some nerves and cells work together to help the brain send signals to the body. FSU researchers have just moved one step closer to solving a part of the puzzle. Michael Meredith, FSU professor of biological science, and his team are studying a cranial nerve called nervus terminalis, which is found in the frontal lower part of the human brain and in most other vertebrates, because they simply do not know its purpose. "It's startling that humans have a nerve whose function is unknown," Meredith said. "Our goal is not really to discover what it does in humans, particularly. We want to know what it does, period." Meredith has studied the nerve in bonnethead sharks and Atlantic stingrays for about six years and hypothesizes that when the nerve is stimulated by pheromones, "mating" chemicals from others of the same species, it may release hormones into the brain. The hormone may then influence the way the brain sends out signals to the rest of the body to prepare for reproduction. "We have found evidence that may bring us closer to understanding what sets the reproduction process in motion," Meredith said. 

In their most recent study of stingrays, Meredith and John Moeller, a postdoctoral research associate in FSU's neuroscience program, have found evidence to support their hypothesis. When the researchers sent an electrical signal to the nervus terminalis in stingrays, it produced a higher level of Luteinizing Hormone Releasing Hormone (LHRH) - a brain hormone that stimulates special cells to release reproductive hormones - in the brains of stimulated stingrays than in animals that had not been stimulated. More basic research has to be done, but this gives neuroscientists another clue as to how the brain's nerves and cell communicate with each other. Meredith's lab also found anatomical evidence that a second type of LHRH may be released directly into blood vessels, meaning that that version of the hormone could affect any region of the body directly via the blood stream. Meredith said he believes that the nerve, which begins in the nose and leads to the front part of the brain, could be activated by different smells or chemicals, setting the reproductive cycle in motion. Could that mean that different types of perfumes or other smells stimulate human reproduction? "There is a possibility that nervus terminalis has a relationship with the reproduction in sharks and that might also be true with other species," he said. Researchers are closing in on the answer by tracing the internal connections of the nerve, how its component cells communicate with each other via neurotransmitters and by determining what hormone is released when the nerve is stimulated and how the hormones move through the brain.

 Anomalies of the Brain - Albert Einstein
 

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