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David McGavock

What is intelligence ? | BrainFacts.org Blog - 0 views

blog.brainfacts.org/...what-is-intelligence

shared by David McGavock on 31 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • What do we mean when we say someone is intelligent and is there any scientific basis for defining intelligence? These questions have been at the center of a more than century-old debate in psychology.
  • Although it may be practical for people to think of intelligence as something that exists, whether science should consider intelligence and how it would define it remains very controversial.
  • A recent study published by Hampshire et al.1 from the University of Western Ontario has looked into the brain areas that are activated by tasks that are typically used to test for intelligence. In doing so they hoped to determine if brain areas related to cognitive demands are activated altogether as demands increase during intelligence tests of various kinds, or if some areas were activated during tests for a specific intelligence domain and not for others.
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  • The study is interesting because it provides three candidate intelligence factors (instead of 1) that have been built not from intuition about what tasks do but based on the set of brain areas that might contribute to those tasks. However don’t get too excited, the methods used have severe limitations and we are still only at the hypothesis level. We do not know how these areas contribute to performance in intelligence tests and we do not know why they are activated and how they interact together to create the behavior.
  • David McGavock on 31 Dec 12
     
    A recent study published by Hampshire et al.1 from the University of Western Ontario has looked into the brain areas that are activated by tasks that are typically used to test for intelligence. In doing so they hoped to determine if brain areas related to cognitive demands are activated altogether as demands increase during intelligence tests of various kinds, or if some areas were activated during tests for a specific intelligence domain and not for others.
Tero Toivanen

Reading, E-Books and the Brain : The Frontal Cortex - 0 views

scienceblogs.com/...ding_e-books_and_the_brain.php

brain reading dorsal route Dehaene research E-books

shared by Tero Toivanen on 17 Oct 09 - Cached
  • Although scientists had previously assumed that the dorsal route ceased to be active once we learned how to read, Deheane's research demonstrates that even literate adults still rely, in some situations, on the same patterns of brain activity as a first-grader, carefully sounding out the syllables.
  • This research suggests that the act of reading observes a gradient of fluency. Familiar sentences printed in Helvetica activate the ventral route, while difficult prose filled with jargon and fancy words and printed in an illegible font require us to use the slow dorsal route.
  • The larger point is that most complaints about E-Books and Kindle apps boil down to a single problem: they don't feel as "effortless" or "automatic" as old-fashioned books. But here's the wonderful thing about the human brain: give it a little time and practice and it can make just about anything automatic.
  • Tero Toivanen on 17 Oct 09
     
     Although scientists had previously assumed that the dorsal route ceased to be active once we learned how to read, Deheane's research demonstrates that even literate adults still rely, in some situations, on the same patterns of brain activity as a first-grader, carefully sounding out the syllables.
Tero Toivanen

AK's Rambling Thoughts: Nerve Cells and Glial Cells: Redefining the Foundation of Intel... - 0 views

artksthoughts.blogspot.com/...nd-glial-cells-redefining.html

brain Glial Cells neuron action potential axon synapse network microglia macroglia astrocytes oligodendrocytes ependymal cells radial glia

shared by Tero Toivanen on 25 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Glia are generally divided into two broad classes, microglia and macroglia. Microglia are part of the immune system, specialized macrophages, and probably don't participate in information handling. Macroglia are present in both the peripheral and central nervous systems, in different types.
  • Traditionally, there were four types of glia in the CNS: astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, ependymal cells, and radial glia. Of these, the one type that's most important to the developing revolution in our ideas are those cells called astrocytes.2 It turns out that there are at least two types of cell (at least) subsumed under this name.24, 25, 31, 32 One, which retains the name of astrocyte, takes up neurotransmitters released by neurons (and glial cells), aids in osmoregulation,10 controls circulation in the brain,1, 31 and generally appears to provide support for the neurons and other types of glia.
  • Although both NG2-glia and astrocytes extend processes to nodes of Ranvier in white matter ([refs]) and synapses in grey matter, their geometric relationship to these neuronal elements is different. Thus, although astrocytes and NG2-glia bear a superficial resemblance, they are distinguished by their different process arborizations. This will reflect fundamental differences in the way these two glial cell populations interact with other elements in the neural network.
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  • Both types of glia are closely integrated with the nervous system, receiving information from action potentials via synapses22 (which, only a few years ago were thought to be limited to neurons), and returning control of neuron activity through release of neurotransmitters and other modulators. Both, then, demonstrate the potential for considerable intelligent activity, contributing to the overall intelligence of the brain.
  • Astrocytes probably (IMO) are limited, or mostly so, to maintaining the supplies of energy and necessary metabolites. They receive action potentials,3, 6 which allows them to closely and quickly monitor general activity and increase circulation in response, even before the neurons and NG2-glia have reduced their supply of ATP.21 They appear to be linked in a network among themselves,2, 5 allowing them to communicate their needs without interfering with the higher-level calculations of the brain.
  • NG2-glia appear to have several functions, but one of the most exciting things about them is that they seem to be able to fire action potentials.33 Their cell membranes, like those of the dendrites of neurons, have all the necessary channels and receptors to perform real-time electrical calculations in the same way as neural dendrites. They have also demonstrated the ability to learn through long term potentiation.
  • Dividing NG2-glia also retain the ability to fire action potentials, as well as receiving synaptic inputs from neurons.23 Presumably, they continue to perform their full function, including retaining any elements of long term potentiation or depression contained in their synapses.
  • Oligodendrocytes are responsible for the insulation of the axons, wrapping around approximately 1 mm of each of up to 50 axons within their reach, and forming the myelin sheath.
  • Although the precise type of neuron formed by maturing cells hasn't been determined, the very fact that cells of this type can change into neurons is very important. We actually don't know whether the cells that do this maturation are the same as those that perform neuron-like activities, there appear to be two separate types of NG2-glia, spiking and non-spiking.26 It may very well be that the "spiking" type have actually differentiated, while the "non-spiking" type may be doing the maturing. Of course, very few differentiated cell types remain capable of division, as even the "spiking" type do.
  • What's important about both dendrites and NG2-glia isn't so much their ability to propagate action potentials, as that their entire cell membranes are capable of "intelligent" manipulation of the voltage across it.
  • While there are many ion channels involved in controlling the voltage across the cell membrane, the only type we really need to worry about for action potentials is voltage-gated sodium channels. These are channels that sometimes allow sodium ions to pass through the cell membrane, which they will do because the concentration of sodium ions outside the cell is very much higher than inside. When and how much they open depends, among other things, on the voltage across the membrane.
  • A normal neuron will have a voltage of around -60 to -80mV (millivolts), in a direction that tends to push the sodium ions (which are positive) into the cell (the same direction as the concentration is pushing). When the voltage falls to around -55mV, the primary type of gate will open for a millisecond or so, after which it will close and rest for several milliseconds. It won't be able to open again until the voltage is somewhere between -55 and around -10mV. Meanwhile, the sodium current has caused the voltage to swing past zero to around +20mV.
  • When one part of the cell membrane is "depolarized" in this fashion, the voltage near it is also depressed. Thus, if the voltage is at zero at one point, it might be at -20mV 10 microns (μm) away, and -40mV 20μm away, and -60mV 30μm, and so on. Notice that somewhere between 20μm and 30μm, it has passed the threshold for the ion channels, which means that they are open, allowing a current that drives the voltage further down. This will produce a wave of voltage drop along the membrane, which is what the action potential is.
  • After the action potential has passed, and the gates have closed (see above), the voltage is recovered by diffusion of ions towards and away from the membrane, the opening of other gates (primarily potassium), and a set of pumps that push the ions back to their resting state. These pumps are mostly powered by the sodium gradient, except for the sodium/potassium pump that maintains it, which is powered by ATP.
  • the vast majority of calculation that goes into human intelligence takes place at the level of the network of dendrites and NG2-glia, with the whole system of axons, dendrites, and action potentials only carrying a tiny subset of the total information over long distances. This is especially important considering that the human brain has a much higher proportion of glial matter than our relatives.
  • This, in turn, suggests that our overall approach to understanding the brain has been far too axon centric, there needs to be a shift to a more membrane-centric approach to understanding how the brain creates intelligence.
  • Tero Toivanen on 25 Jun 09
     
    Our traditional idea of how the brain works is based on the neuron: it fires action potentials, which travel along the axon and, when the reach the synapses, the receiving neuron performs a calculation that results in the decision when (or whether) to fire its own action potential. Thus, the brain, from a thinking point of view, is viewed as a network of neurons each performing its own calculation. This view, which I'm going to call the axon-centric view, is simplistic in many ways, and two recent papers add to it, pointing up the ways in which the glial cells of the brain participate in ongoing calculation as well as performing their more traditional support functions.
Tero Toivanen

» Brain Plasticity: How learning changes your brain   « Brain Fitness Revolut... - 0 views

www.sharpbrains.com/...ow-learning-changes-your-brain

brain neuroplasticity learning

shared by Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09 - Cached
  • A surprising consequence of neuroplasticity is that the brain activity associated with a given function can move to a different location as a consequence of normal experience, brain damage or recovery.
  • The brain compensates for damage by reorganizing and forming new connections between intact neurons. In order to reconnect, the neurons need to be stimulated through activity.
  • Research has shown that in fact the brain never stops changing through learning. Plasticity IS the capacity of the brain to change with learning. Changes associated with learning occur mostly at the level of the connections between neurons. New connections can form and the internal structure of the existing synapses can change.
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  • It looks like learning a second language is possible through functional changes in the brain: the left inferior parietal cortex is larger in bilingual brains than in monolingual brains.
  • For instance, London taxi drivers have a larger hippocampus (in the posterior region) than London bus drivers (Maguire, Woollett, & Spiers, 2006)…. Why is that? It is because this region of the hippocampus is specialized in acquiring and using complex spatial information in order to navigate efficiently. Taxi drivers have to navigate around London whereas bus drivers follow a limited set of routes.
  • Did you know that when you become an expert in a specific domain, the areas in your brain that deal with this type of skill will grow?
  • Plastic changes also occur in musicians brains compared to non-musicians.
  • They found that gray matter (cortex) volume was highest in professional musicians, intermediate in amateur musicians, and lowest in non-musicians in several brain areas involved in playing music: motor regions, anterior superior parietal areas and inferior temporal areas.
  • Medical students’ brains showed learning-induced changes in regions of the parietal cortex as well as in the posterior hippocampus. These regions of the brains are known to be involved in memory retrieval and learning.
  • Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09
     
    A surprising consequence of neuroplasticity is that the brain activity associated with a given function can move to a different location as a consequence of normal experience, brain damage or recovery.
Ruth Howard

You won't find consciousness in the brain - opinion - 07 January 2010 - New Scientist - 0 views

www.newscientist.com/...onsciousness-in-the-brain.html

consciousness brain neuroscience neurons

shared by Ruth Howard on 25 Mar 10 - Cached
  • MOST neuroscientists, philosophers of the mind and science journalists feel the time is near when we will be able to explain the mystery of human consciousness in terms of the activity of the brain. There is, however, a vocal minority of neurosceptics who contest this orthodoxy.
  • This may well happen, but my argument is not about technical, probably temporary, limitations.
  • It is about the deep philosophical confusion embedded in the assumption that if you can correlate neural activity with consciousness, then you have demonstrated they are one and the same thing, and that a physical science such as neurophysiology is able to show what consciousness truly is.
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  • While neural activity of a certain kind is a necessary condition for every manifestation of consciousness, from the lightest sensation to the most exquisitely constructed sense of self, it is neither a sufficient condition of it, nor, still less, is it identical with it.
  • Many features of ordinary consciousness also resist neurological explanation.
  • There is nothing in the convergence or coherence of neural pathways that gives us this "merging without mushing", this ability to see things as both whole and separate.
  • This concerns the disjunction between the objects of science and the contents of consciousness. Science begins when we escape our subjective, first-person experiences into objective measurement, and reach towards a vantage point the philosopher Thomas Nagel called "the view from nowhere".
  • Thus measurement takes us further from experience and the phenomena of subjective consciousness to a realm where things are described in abstract but quantitative terms. To do its work, physical science has to discard "secondary qualities", such as colour, warmth or cold, taste - in short, the basic contents of consciousness. For the physicist then, light is not in itself bright or colourful, it is a mixture of vibrations in an electromagnetic field of different frequencies. The material world, far from being the noisy, colourful, smelly place we live in, is colourless, silent, full of odourless molecules, atoms, particles, whose nature and behaviour is best described mathematically. In short, physical science is about the marginalisation, or even the disappearance, of phenomenal appearance/qualia, the redness of red wine or the smell of a smelly dog.
  • Consciousness, on the other hand, is all about phenomenal appearances/qualia.
  • There is nothing in physical science that can explain why a physical object such as a brain should ascribe appearances/qualia to material objects that do not intrinsically have them.
  • Then their "appearings" will depend on the viewpoint of the conscious observer.
  • Material objects require consciousness in order to "appear".
  • Our failure to explain consciousness in terms of neural activity inside the brain inside the skull is not due to technical limitations which can be overcome. It is due to the self-contradictory nature of the task, of which the failure to explain "aboutness", the unity and multiplicity of our awareness, the explicit presence of the past, the initiation of actions, the construction of self are just symptoms.
Tero Toivanen

Does Vitamin D Improve Brain Function?: Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm

vitamin D improve brain function

shared by Tero Toivanen on 03 Nov 09 - Cached
  • And although vitamin D is well known for promoting bone health and regulating vital calcium levels—hence its addition to milk—it does more than that. Scientists have now linked this fat-soluble nutrient’s hormonelike activity to a number of functions throughout the body, including the workings of the brain.
  • We know there are receptors for vitamin D throughout the central nervous system and in the hippocampus
  • We also know vitamin D activates and deactivates enzymes in the brain and the cerebrospinal fluid that are involved in neurotransmitter synthesis and nerve growth.
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  • In addition, animal and laboratory studies suggest vitamin D protects neurons and reduces inflammation.
  • The scientists found that the lower the subjects’ vitamin D levels, the more negatively impacted was their perform­ance on a battery of mental tests. Compared with people with optimum vitamin D levels, those in the lowest quartile were more than twice as likely to be cognitively impaired.
  • The data show that those people with lower vitamin D levels exhibited slower information-processing speed. This correlation was particularly strong among men older than 60 years.
  • Although we now know that low levels of vitamin D are associated with cognitive impairment, we do not know if high or optimum levels will lessen cognitive losses. It is also unclear if giving vitamin D to those who lack it will help them regain some of these high-level functions.
  • So how much is enough vitamin D? Experts say 1,000 to 2,000 IU daily—about the amount your body will synthesize from 15 to 30 minutes of sun exposure two to three times a week—is the ideal range for almost all healthy adults. Keep in mind, however, that skin color, where you live and how much skin you have exposed all affect how much vitamin D you can produce.
  • Tero Toivanen on 03 Nov 09
     
    And although vitamin D is well known for promoting bone health and regulating vital calcium levels-hence its addition to milk-it does more than that. Scientists have now linked this fat-soluble nutrient's hormonelike activity to a number of functions throughout the body, including the workings of the brain.
Tero Toivanen

Cognitive Daily: A quick eye-exercise can improve your performance on memory tests (but... - 0 views

scienceblogs.com/...ick_eye-exercise_can_impro.php

memory memorization eye movement

shared by Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09 - Cached
  • If you're taking a test of rote memorization, like words from a list, move your eyes from side to side for about 30 seconds before you start.
  • It may be that this quick activity helps facilitate interaction between the brain hemispheres.
  • any activity that encourages communication between the hemispheres is likely to increase recall.
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  • people who have poorer interactions between the hemispheres should benefit more than others. Who has less interactions between hemispheres? People who are strongly right-handed.
  • Strongly right-handed students remembered significantly more words if they moved their eyes compared to keeping their eyes still. Non-strongly-right-handed students (including left-handers) remembered the same number of words regardless of whether they moved their eyes before the test.
  • strongly right-handed students had significantly fewer false alarms after they moved their eyes back and forth. But for non-strongly-right-handed people, the reverse occurred; moving their eyes caused them to falsely remember more words. So overall, while the eye-saccade exercise helped right-handers, for lefties and for those who didn't have a strongly dominant hand, the exercise actually harmed their performance.
  • You might think that only side-to-side movement would improve performance, but Lyle's team found that moving your eyes up and down caused the same effect.
  • researchers say that other studies have shown that any eye movements increase bilateral activity in the frontal eye field, so it's still possible that hemispheric connectivity can explain the improved performance after eye movements.
  • So why doesn't the exercise work the same way for left-handers? Left handers (and ambidextrous individuals) already have a high level of hemispheric connectivity. Lyle's team speculates that there might be such a thing as too much connectivity, which results in a decrease in performance.
  • Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09
     
    Several studies have confirmed this bizarre proposition: If you're taking a test of rote memorization, like words from a list, move your eyes from side to side for about 30 seconds before you start.
Tero Toivanen

Phasic Firing Of Dopamine Neurons Is Key To Brain's Prediction Of Rewards - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...090403144032.htm

dopamine neurons brain learning rewards behavior

shared by Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09 - Cached
  • Our research findings provide a direct functional link between the bursting activity of midbrain dopamine neurons and behavior. The research has significant applications for the improvement of health, because the dopamine neurons we are studying are the same neurons that become inactivated during Parkinson's Disease and with the consumption of psychostimulants such as cocaine and amphetamine
  • Midbrain dopamine neurons fire in two characteristic modes, tonic and phasic, which are thought to modulate distinct aspects of behavior. When an unexpected reward is presented to an individual, midbrain dopamine neurons fire high frequency bursts of electrical activity. Those bursts of activity allow us to learn to associate the reward with cues in our environment, which may predict similar rewards in the future.
  • When researchers placed the mice in reward-based situations, they found that the mice without the NMDA receptor in their dopaminergic neurons could not learn tasks that required them to associate sensory cues with reward. Those same mice, however, were able to learn tasks that did not involve an association with rewards.
Tero Toivanen

Lab Notes : The Brains of Early Birds and Night Owls - 0 views

blog.newsweek.com/...arly-birds-and-night-owls.aspx

brain sleep Early Birds Night Owls Science University of Liege Belgium

shared by Tero Toivanen on 21 Jun 09 - Cached
  • There was no real difference between the early birds and the night owls in their performance on the morning test. But the evening test was a different story: night owls were less sleepy and had faster reaction times than early birds.
  • So even though both groups were sleeping and waking according to their preferred schedule, night owls generally outlasted early birds in how long they could stay awake and mentally alert before becoming mentally fatigued. The fMRI supported the behavioral results: 10.5 hours after waking up, the early birds had lower activity in brain regions linked to attention and the circadian master clock, compared to night owls.
  • Tero Toivanen on 21 Jun 09
     
    A new study, in the journal Science, reports some intriguing differences between the brain-activity patterns of the two types that underlie the behavioral differences.
Tero Toivanen

Neurophilosophy : Experience induces global reorganization of brain circuitry - 0 views

scienceblogs.com/...ization_of_brain_circuitry.php

neurophilosophy brain LTP learning memory

shared by Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09 - Cached
  • Now referred to as long-term potentiation (LTP), this mechanism has since become the most intensively studied in modern neuroscience,and is widely believed to be the cellular basis of learning and memory, although this is yet to be proven unequivocally.
  • In the new study, Santiago Canals of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen and his colleagues used the same protocol to induce LTP. But while the vast majority of researchers have investigated LTP in slices of hippocampal tissue, this study involved observing LTP in live animals.
  • This new research provides the first evidence that the local modifications in synaptic connections induced by LTP lead to long-lasting changes in the activity of a diffuse network of brain regions, and even to facilitated communication between the two hemispheres. The fMRI data showed that hippocampal LTP recruits higher order association areas, as well as regions involved in emotions and others subserving different sensory modalities, all of which are known to be involved in memory formation.
  • Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09
     
    Experience induces global reorganization of brain circuitry. This new research provides the first evidence that the local modifications in synaptic connections induced by LTP lead to long-lasting changes in the activity of a diffuse network of brain regions, and even to facilitated communication between the two hemispheres.
Tero Toivanen

» Working Memory Training can Influence Brain Biochemistry   « Brain Fitness ... - 0 views

www.sharpbrains.com/...n-influence-brain-biochemistry

sharpbrains working memory brain biochemistry training

shared by Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09 - Cached
  • The major finding was that increased working memory capacity following training was associated with changes in brain biochemistry. Specifically, the researchers found changes in the density and binding potential of cortical D1 dopamine receptors in brain regions that are activated during working memory tasks.
  • Tero Toivanen on 23 May 09
     
    The major finding was that increased working memory capacity following training was associated with changes in brain biochemistry. Specifically, the researchers found changes in the density and binding potential of cortical D1 dopamine receptors in brain regions that are activated during working memory tasks.
Tero Toivanen

Social Media's Effect on Learning - Digits - WSJ - 1 views

blogs.wsj.com/...cial-medias-effect-on-learning

social media brain research interaction learning stimulate activity

shared by Tero Toivanen on 16 Mar 10 - Cached
Ruth Howard liked it
  • Tero Toivanen on 16 Mar 10
     
    Researchers are figuring out how the interaction Social Media spurs can stimulate brain activity.
Tero Toivanen

Tests find benefit of sleeping on job - Science, News - The Independent - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...f-sleeping-on-job-1700191.html

brain sleep REM problem solving

shared by Tero Toivanen on 09 Jun 09 - Cached
  • A type of dreamy sleep that occurs more frequently in the early morning is important for solving problems that cannot be easily answered during the day, a study has found.
  • The discovery could explain many anecdotal accounts of famous intellectuals who had wrestled with a problem only to find that they have solved it by the morning after a good night's sleep.
  • Scientists believe that a form of dreaming slumber called rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep, when the brain becomes relatively active and the eyes flicker from side to side under closed eyelids, plays a crucial role in subconscious problem solving.
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  • In a series of tests on nearly 80 people, the researchers found that REM sleep increases the chances of someone being able to successfully solve a new problem involving creative associations – finding an underlying pattern behind complex information.
  • Those people who had enjoyed REM sleep improved significantly, by about 40 per cent, while the other volunteers who had not had REM sleep showed little if any improvement, according to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
  • The researchers suggest that it is not merely sleep itself, or the simple passage of time, that is important for the solving of a new problem, but the act of being able to fall into a state of REM sleep where the brain slips into a different kind of neural activity that encourages the formation of new nerve connections.
  • Tero Toivanen on 09 Jun 09
     
    A type of dreamy sleep that occurs more frequently in the early morning is important for solving problems that cannot be easily answered during the day, a study has found.
Tero Toivanen

Wired 14.02: Buddha on the Brain - 0 views

www.wired.com/...dalai.html

brain meditation Dalai Lama Buddha buddhism Tibet neuroscience

shared by Tero Toivanen on 28 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Davidson's research created a stir among brain scientists when his results suggested that, in the course of meditating for tens of thousands of hours, the monks had actually altered the structure and function of their brains.
  • Lutz asked Ricard to meditate on "unconditional loving-kindness and compassion." He immediately noticed powerful gamma activity - brain waves oscillating at roughly 40 cycles per second -�indicating intensely focused thought. Gamma waves are usually weak and difficult to see. Those emanating from Ricard were easily visible, even in the raw EEG output. Moreover, oscillations from various parts of the cortex were synchronized - a phenomenon that sometimes occurs in patients under anesthesia.
  • In the traditional view, the brain becomes frozen with the onset of adulthood, after which few new connections form. In the past 20 years, though, scientists have discovered that intensive training can make a difference. For instance, the portion of the brain that corresponds to a string musician's fingering hand grows larger than the part that governs the bow hand - even in musicians who start playing as adults. Davidson's work suggested this potential might extend to emotional centers
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  • The researchers had never seen anything like it. Worried that something might be wrong with their equipment or methods, they brought in more monks, as well as a control group of college students inexperienced in meditation. The monks produced gamma waves that were 30 times as strong as the students'. In addition, larger areas of the meditators' brains were active, particularly in the left prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for positive emotions.
  • But Davidson saw something more. The monks had responded to the request to meditate on compassion by generating remarkable brain waves. Perhaps these signals indicated that the meditators had attained an intensely compassionate state of mind. If so, then maybe compassion could be exercised like a muscle; with the right training, people could bulk up their empathy. And if meditation could enhance the brain's ability to produce "attention and affective processes" - emotions, in the technical language of Davidson's study - it might also be used to modify maladaptive emotional responses like depression.
  • Davidson and his team published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in November 2004. The research made The Wall Street Journal, and Davidson instantly became a celebrity scientist.
  • Tero Toivanen on 28 Jun 09
     
    Davidson's research created a stir among brain scientists when his results suggested that, in the course of meditating for tens of thousands of hours, the monks had actually altered the structure and function of their brains
Tero Toivanen

Nouns and verbs are learned in different parts of the brain - 0 views

www.physorg.com/news186315338.html

brain nouns verbs inferior frontal gyrus left posterior medial temporal gyrus learning

shared by Tero Toivanen on 25 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 25 Feb 10
     
    "Learning nouns activates the left fusiform gyrus, while learning verbs switches on other regions (the left inferior frontal gyrus and part of the left posterior medial temporal gyrus)", Antoni Rodríguez-Fornells, co-author of the study and an ICREA researcher at the Cognition and Brain Plasticity Unit of the University of Barcelona, tells SINC
Tero Toivanen

'Noisiest' neurons persist in the adult brain - 0 views

www.physorg.com/news182609011.html

neurons neuroscience brain survival epilepsy hyperactive molecular signals neuronal activity

shared by Tero Toivanen on 18 Jan 10 - Cached
  • In addition, the observation that the "noisiest" neurons have a survival advantage helps explain the prevalence of epilepsy, in which some neurons become hyperactive and fire in an uncontrollable fashion.
  • during childhood, when many neurons are still being added to the brain, it is likely that neurons that become pathologically hyperactive will be preferentially selected for survival, and these abnormal neurons will be the trigger for epilepsy,
  • Investigating the molecular signals launched by neuronal activity will potentially lead to new drugs that bolster the survival of new neurons. These drugs could be used to increase the efficacy of treatments that depend on grafting stem cell-derived neurons into the adult brain to treat neurological diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
  • Tero Toivanen on 18 Jan 10
     
    'Noisiest' neurons persist in the adult brain
Tero Toivanen

Brain imaging predicts future reading progress in children with dyslexia - 0 views

www.physorg.com/...-future-children-dyslexia.html

brain predicts future imaging dyslexia

shared by Tero Toivanen on 20 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 20 Dec 10
     
    Brain scans of adolescents with dyslexia can be used to predict the future improvement of their reading skills with an accuracy rate of up to 90 percent, new research indicates. Advanced analyses of the brain activity images are significantly more accurate in driving predictions than standardized reading tests or any other measures of children's behavior.
Tero Toivanen

Neurons lose information at one bit per second | KurzweilAI - 0 views

www.kurzweilai.net/ormation-at-one-bit-per-second

neuron neurons bit information cortex neuropsychology Göttingen neurophysics

shared by Tero Toivanen on 25 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Tero Toivanen on 25 Jan 11
     
    Approximately one bit of information disappears per active neuron per second.
Tero Toivanen

New Light On Nature Of Broca's Area: Rare Procedure Documents How Human Brain Computes ... - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...091015141500.htm

brain Broca's area Wernicke's area language cerebral cortex Sahin

shared by Tero Toivanen on 17 Oct 09 - Cached
  • The study – which provides a picture of language processing in the brain with unprecedented clarity – will be published in the October 16 issue of the journal Science.
  • "Two central mysteries of human brain function are addressed in this study: one, the way in which higher cognitive processes such as language are implemented in the brain and, two, the nature of what is perhaps the best-known region of the cerebral cortex, called Broca's area," said first author Ned T. Sahin, PhD, post-doctoral fellow in the UCSD Department of Radiology and Harvard University Department of Psychology.
  • The study demonstrates that a small piece of the brain can compute three different things at different times – within a quarter of a second – and shows that Broca's area doesn't just do one thing when processing language.
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  • The procedure, called Intra-Cranial Electrophysiology (ICE), allowed the researchers to resolve brain activity related to language with spatial accuracy down to the millimeter and temporal accuracy down to the millisecond.
  • "We showed that distinct linguistic processes are computed within small regions of Broca's area, separated in time and partially overlapping in space," said Sahin. Specifically, the researchers found patterns of neuronal activity indicating lexical, grammatical and articulatory computations at roughly 200, 320 and 450 milliseconds after the target word was presented. These patterns were identical across nouns and verbs and consistent across patients.
  • Tero Toivanen on 17 Oct 09
     
    "Two central mysteries of human brain function are addressed in this study: one, the way in which higher cognitive processes such as language are implemented in the brain and, two, the nature of what is perhaps the best-known region of the cerebral cortex, called Broca's area," said first author Ned T. Sahin, PhD, post-doctoral fellow in the UCSD Department of Radiology and Harvard University Department of Psychology.
Tero Toivanen

Use It or Lose It: The Principles of Brain Plasticity - 3 views

articles.mercola.com/...brain-plasticity.aspx

brain plasticity research learning neurons memory Use It or Lose It Brain Gym nutrition

shared by Tero Toivanen on 09 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • You probably haven't realizd it, but as you acquire an ability – for example, the ability to read – you have actually created a system in the brain that does not exist, that's not in place, in the non-reader. It [the ability; the brain system that controls the ability] actually evolves in you as it has been acquired through experience or learning.
  • "There are some very useful exercises at www.BrainHQ.com that are free, and using them can give a person a better understanding of how exercising your brain can drive it in a rejuvenating direction. Using exercises at BrainHQ, most people, of any age, can drive sharp improvements in brain speed and accuracy, and thereby rewire the brain so that it again represents information in detail," he says.
  • Children operating in the 10th to 20th percentile of academic performance are commonly able to improve their scores to the middle or average level with 20-30 hours of intensive computer-based training. "That's a big difference for the child," he says. "It carries most children who are near the bottom of the class, on the average, to be somewhere in the middle or above average in the class. And that gives struggling children a chance to really succeed and in many cases excel in school."
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  • Careful controlled studies in seniors have also been reported in scientific journals. After 40 hours of computer-based training, the average improvement in cognitive performance across the board was 14 years. On average, if you were 70 years old when you underwent the training after 40 hours of brain training, your cognitive abilities operated like that of a 56-year old. Equally strong or even greater effects were seen in 40 to 50 year olds using the program. Individuals who worked on the BrainHQ exercises at home did just as well as those who completed training in a clinic or research center.
  • Ideally, it would be wise to invest at least 20 minutes a day. But no more than five to seven minutes is to be spent on a specific task. When you spend longer amounts of time on a task, the benefits weaken. According to Dr. Merzenich, the primary benefits occur in the first five or six minutes of the task.
  • Find ways to engage yourself in new learning
  • "When it matters to you, you are going to drive changes in your brain," he explains. "That's something always to keep in mind. If what you're doing seems senseless, meaningless, if it does not matter to you, then you're gaining less from it."
  • Get 15-30 minutes of physical exercise each day,
  • Spend about five minutes every day working on the refinement of a specific, small domain of your physical body.
  • You can typically improve yourself to the highest practical or possible level in anywhere between five to a dozen brief sessions of seven or eight minutes each. Again, having a sense of purpose is crucial.
  • Stay socially engaged.
  • Practice "mindfulness,"
  • Foods have an immense impact on your brain, and eating whole foods as described in my nutrition plan will best support your mental and physical health.
  • The medical literature is also showing that coconut oil can be of particular benefit for brain health, and anecdotal evidence suggests it could be very beneficial in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
  • Optimize your vitamin D levels
  • Take a high-quality animal-based omega-3 fat.
  • Avoid processed foods and sugars, especially fructose
  • Avoid grains
  • Avoid artificial sweeteners
  • Avoid soy
  • Men who ate tofu at least twice weekly had more cognitive impairment, compared with those who rarely or never ate the soybean curd, and their cognitive test results were about equivalent to what they would have been if they were five years older than their current age.
  • Tero Toivanen on 09 Dec 12
     
    "It was once thought that any brain function lost was irretrievable. Today, research into what's referred to as "brain plasticity" has proven that this is not the case. On the contrary, your brain continues to make new neurons throughout life in response to mental activity."
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