brain

A team of scientists from the Institute of Neuroscience at the University of Oregon (USA) has identified the region of the brain that is responsible for processing silences in spoken language. As Michael Wehr and his colleagues explain in Neuron magazine, there are separate channels for processing the presence and absence of sound. The two channels converge in an area of the brain called the auditory cortex, located in the temporal lobe.

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), in the United States, have linked human aversion to losing money to a specific structure of the brain, the amygdala. The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) provides new data on economic behavior and on the role of this almond-shaped brain structure, which records rapid emotional reactions and is implicated in depression, anxiety and autism.

Can you imagine that when you look at yourself in the mirror every morning what you see before you was a disfigured person that generates a huge rejection? This is what happens to patients who suffer from a body dysmorphic disorder, a disease that affects one in every hundred people and is characterized by excessive concern for some real or imagined but almost imperceptible body imperfection. By studying the activity of their brains, UCLA scientists have found that the problem lies in a malfunction in the area that is responsible for processing visual stimuli

Using a brain scan, a team of scientists from the UK and Belgium has shown that some vegetative patients are awake and able to communicate, despite the fact that their brain damage prevents them from being conscious. The research has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The Biomedical Neuroengineering Group of the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (Alicante) has developed a brain-computer interface that allows a user to browse the Internet and handle computer applications using only thought. The results will be presented next April at one of the most important conferences in the world on Artificial Intelligence.

The Holy Grail of neurosciences could be found in a circuit of 30 neurons located in the stomach of a crustacean. The biologist Eve Marder explains to us in an interesting interview how it is possible that this mini-brain provides invaluable information about the functioning of our brains.

The social network Facebook is capable of managing thousands of contacts. But for our brain, the limit of friends we can handle is 150, according to Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary anthropology at the University of Oxford. His studies indicate that in human groups greater than that amount there is no cohesion and relationships deteriorate.

Running and exercising regularly not only helps keep obesity, high blood pressure and cholesterol at bay. It also develops the brain, stimulating the appearance of new neurons in areas related to memory and learning, according to a new study by neuroscientists at the University of Cambridge.