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The brain first perceives changes in visual input (local motion) in the primary visual cortex. The local motion signals are then integrated in the later visual processing stages and interpreted as global motion in the higher-level processes. But when subjects in a recent experiment using moving dots were asked to detect global motion (the overall direction of the dots moving together), the results show that their learning relied on more local motion processes (the movement of dots in small areas) than global motion areas.

show that the improvement in detection of global motion is not due to learning of the global motion but to learning of local motion of the moving dots in the test.

Their discovery reveals a critical period during which a LIM homeodomain transcription factor known as Lhx2 decides over the progenitors' regional destiny: Once the window of opportunity closes, their fate is sealed.

Our task involved both reading and speaking, and we found that aspects of word identity, grammar and pronunciation are all computed within Broca's area.

An MIT team led by Institute Professor Ann Graybiel has found groups of neurons in the primate brain that code time with extreme precision.

The neurons are located in the prefrontal cortex and the striatum, both of which play important roles in learning, movement and thought control.

The research team trained two macaque monkeys to perform a simple eye-movement task. After receiving the "go" signal, the monkeys were free to perform the task at their own speed. The researchers found neurons that consistently fired at specific times -- 100 milliseconds, 110 milliseconds, 150 milliseconds and so on -- after the "go" signal.

One advantage of nanoscale electrodes is that they can register and stimulate the tiniest components of the brain.

A Harvard Medical School study last year found that one blindsight patient could maneuver down a hallway filled with obstacles, even though the subject could not actually see. Schwiedrzik said the new research may help blindsight patients gain conscious awareness of what their minds can see, and he suggested that new research should address whether the brains in blindsight patients and people with normal vision process the information the same way.

as providing the most promising attempt at a unified theory of brain functions

Through a Darwinian process, selecting from the competing models the one best supported by the evidence, a basis for action is chosen.