Oct
29
TED: about the brain
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Jun
16
Being a social worker who is really fascinated by neuroscience I was really interested in this article that talks about Europe created a group that will create opportunity for people in the social sciences (soft sciences) and neuroscientist (a hard science) to network and communicate with.
The past two decades have seen unprecedented progress and innovation in the neurosciences. Despite evidence that advances in the neurosciences are having a significant impact on the lives of individuals across Europe, there has been little formal engagement within the European social sciences with the ethical, social and legal implications of recent developments in this branch of scientific experimentation.
For this reason a European Science Foundation (ESF)-funded European Neuroscience and Society Network (ENSN) has been established. The purpose of it is to serve as a multidisciplinary forum for timely and necessary engagement with the-above mentioned issues, through the development of research strategies, conferences, exchange visits and workshops that will bring together leading European neuroscientists and social scientists for sustained discussions and cross-disciplinary exchanges about the present and future impact of advances in the neurosciences on our lives.
I think this is really important because human social behavior can be better understood through neuroscience, and if social workers (and other people like them) learn more about neuroscience they will become better at what they do.
-N
Technorati Tags: social worker, social science, neuroscience, europe, network
Jun
16
$30 Million for Neuroscience
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Media Newswire is reporting about a really big sum of money being donated to Princeton to open a center for systems neuroscience.
James S. McDonnell III and John F. McDonnell have joined with the JSM Charitable Trust to make a $30 million gift to Princeton University to establish the McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience.
Teaching and research conducted by the center, which will be housed within the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, will investigate how the brain acquires, modifies and stores information during cognitive processes…
Systems neuroscience refers to the study of how networks of nerve cells are organized and operate to produce behavior. At Princeton, research focuses on neural coding, which refers to the way that information is represented in the electrical and biochemical signals in neurons ( perception and short-term memory ) and the patterns of synaptic connections ( long-term memory ), and on neural dynamics, which refers to patterns of nerve cell electrical and chemical activity in which information is created, manipulated and stored. Neural dynamics are involved in decision-making or in planning and executing sequences, such as in speaking or playing tennis.
To find out more read the entire article.
-N
Technorati Tags: princeton, neuroscience, research, 30 million, McDonnell
Jun
11
A Shocking Idea: Nerves Might Run on Sound, Not Electricity
It’s interesting that there’s still some debate over how individual nerve signals might propagate through nerves.
Jun
8
Research deciphers ‘déjà-vu’ brain mechanics - MIT News Office
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Research deciphers ‘déjà-vu’ brain mechanics - MIT News Office
What I think is interesting is that they identified a gene to inhibit in mice that diminishes their ability to distinguish the difference between to environments. Links between genetic code and their behavioral expressions are fascinating…
Jun
6
Mice get a Memory Upgrade
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I read a very small article over at NBC10 about a drug created to attack tumors may help improve memory in mice (but not people.)
A type of drugs known as HDAC inhibitors, which have been used in trials to attack tumors, was tested in mice. It seemed to allow genes involved in memory storage to activate more easily.
The results of the study on HDAC inhibitors, and their affects on the memory of mice can be bou in the June 6 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
-N
Technorati Tags: memory, cancer drug, drug trial, HDAC inhibitors, mice
Jun
6
As a social worker I often use “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, called the DSM-IV-TR for short when trying to figure out why a client does what he or she does. In short the DSM is the one of the main diagnostic tools that I (and others in the mental health field) use to help us make a diagnosis.
Today I saw great story
ALBQUERQUE, N.M.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Mind Research Network (MRN) today announced a new approach for the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness and neurological disorders. The integration of multi-modal neuroimaging, genetic mapping, and psychopharmacology may revolutionize how mental disorders are diagnosed. Currently, the standard diagnostic tool for all mental disorders is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). This manual provides guidelines that are subject to interpretation which can vary from doctor to doctor. This new integrated approach would augment the DSM to provide a more reliable and consistent diagnosis…
“Today, many of the brain-based diseases or disorders associated with mental and behavioral health (e.g., schizophrenia, addiction, criminal psychosis, autism, traumatic brain injury, post traumatic stress disorder), cannot be cured. However, early diagnosis is the first best-step for intervention and prevention. Our research is leading the way to better methods of refined and/or earlier diagnosis. Cures are the ultimate goal, but effective treatments are needed now and by understanding how the brain functions – its mechanics, we can help patients and their families lead more productive lives,” said Vince Clark, Science Director, MRN.
I totally agree that neuroscience is something can improve the kind of diagnostic skills that we use to treat people with mental illness and I hope that this trend catches on more and more as time goes on. However, I’m not sure that it will. Many (NOT ALL) people in the human services field who provide the social services that people with mental illness touchy feely and reluctant to place faith in the “cold” hard sciences that get their results from lab work not social interaction.
IMHO the truth is that the social services do need to pay more attention to the hard sciences. But social interaction is something that can often help a person much more than a drug that affects a area of the brain.
(Normally I don’t insert my own ideas into the thins I post here… but I just could not help it here.)
-N
Technorati Tags: DSM, neuroscience, diagnosis intervention, mental illness, brain disorders, hard science, social science
Jun
6
More on Memory Research (Memory Filtering)
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Today I found more info about a study that focuses on how forgetting (or filtering) things is really something (some might even call it a skill) that helps the brain do more important things. e.g. being able to ignore / forget / filter out non-important stuff is one of the things that “smart” people can do well.
I have blogged about this before but today I saw two more articles about this when I did some google news searches.
The first article is from the International Herald Tribune health and science section by Benedict Carey and the second one is by Rowland Nethaway is from wacotrib.com
Blocking out a distracting memory is something like ignoring an old (and perhaps distracting) acquaintance… recent studies suggest that the brain plays favorites with memories in exactly this way, snubbing some to better capture others. A lightning memory, in short, is not so much a matter of capacity as it is of ruthless pruning — and the new study catches the trace of this process at it happens.
Like I said, I had blogged about this before but I’m doing so again because this article also has some great information about how the study was conducted.
researchers, neuroscientists at Stanford University, used a memory test intended to gauge how well people can recall studied words from among many similar words they have also seen. They had 20 young men and women, mostly Stanford students, view in quick succession a list of 240 word pairs. These included 40 capitalized words, each paired with six related, lower-case words: For example, “ATTIC-dust,” “ATTIC-junk,” and so on.
After studying the pairs, the participants were instructed to memorize three selected pairs from each of 20 capitalized words. In effect, this forced them to flag individual pairs, like ATTIC-dust, while trying to tune out very similar, distracting ones, like ATTIC-junk, for half of the total list of pairs they saw. They were told not to memorize any pairs from the other half of the list…
the researchers found that the more a study participant had suppressed the memory of distracting word pairs, the steeper the decrease in activity in a region of the brain called the anterior cingulated cortex. This neural area is especially active when people are engaged in weighing choices, say, in choosing which card to play in a game of hearts with two or more good options.
The second article summed this up in a very concise manor stating…
neuroscientists at Stanford University recorded visual images of people’s brains as they attempted to suppress distracting memories. The better they were at suppressing irrelevant words during a word-memorization test, the better they were at remembering relevant words… Evidently, it is not just the ability to forget that improves memory, it is the ability to selectively forget (filter) that makes it easier…
[note: I added the word filter above.]
A real life example of this skill might be being able to forget what happened on Heroes Tuesday morning during the important meeting with a client who will be asking you all sorts of questions about the work that your doing for him or her. The Heores info is just not important so your brain just filters it out, knowing it can get it again later as it focuses on remembering details that you need to know to answer the client’s questions.
This research is very cool because it speaks to things that happen to people in every day life. For example: Have you have ever had to change the password on your email, or PIN on your ATM card and then forgot the new password / PIN but remembered the old one? When something like this happens do you wonder why your brain chose to remember the old information but not the new information?
I know that has happened to me, and after reading this I have a better idea of both how it happens (what parts of my brain cause this) and why it happens.
-N
Technorati Tags: forget, filter, memory, senior moment
Jun
6
Science Daily reports in an interesting article about research being done to see how the nervous system came into being.
The research is looking at what we think are some of the oldest animals on the Earth, including the sea sponge.
Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara have discovered significant clues to the evolutionary origins of the nervous system by studying the genome of a sea sponge, a member of a group considered to be among the most ancient of all animals…
the research group made a list of all the genes expressed in a synapse in humans, since synapses epitomize the nervous system. Synapses are involved in cell communication, learning, and memory. Next, the researchers looked to see if any of the synapse genes were present in the sponge.
“That was when the surprise hit,” said Kosik. “We found a lot of genes to make a nervous system present in the sponge.” The research team also found evidence to show that these genes were working together in the sponge. The way two of the proteins interact, and their atomic structure, bear resemblance to the human nervous system.
-N
Technorati Tags: sea sponge, nervous system, neuroscience, research, Evolution
Jun
5
Simultanagnosia / Agnosia
Filed Under Brain Damage, Pathology | Leave a Comment
Mind Hacks has a interesting blurb about people who can only really “see” one object at a time. This condition is called Simultanagnosia…
Simultanagnosia is where a person can’t perceive more than one object at a time. They literally cannot see the wood for the trees. There are two main types that differ depending on the location of the brain injury which has caused the syndrome.
Damage to the dorsal stream can cause dorsal simultanagnosia, where the patient cannot see two or more objects at the same time.
Damage to the ventral stream can cause ventral simultanagnosia, where the patient can see multiple objects, but can only identify one at a time.
It took me less than 5 min to read the post so I did a wikipedia search on Simultanagnosia, which brought me to the entry for Agnosia. The Wikipedia article states…
Agnosia (a-gnosis, “non-knowledge”, or loss of knowledge) is a loss of ability to recognize objects, persons, sounds, shapes, or smells while the specific sense is not defective nor is there any significant memory loss. It is usually associated with brain injury or neurological illness, particularly after damage to the temporal lobe.
The article goes on to mention several different types of Agnosia, including Simultanagnosia.
I also found a amazon link to a book about Agnosia (the book is mentioned in the Mind Hacks post). You can use the link below to check out / buy the book.
“Visual Agnosia: Second Edition (Bradford Books)” (Martha J. Farah)
-N
Technorati Tags: simultanagnosia, agnosia, mind hacks, neuroscience, brain, wikipedia