Combining neuroscience and chemical engineering, scientists from Stanford University (USA) have created a three-dimensional technique that allows us to see through biological tissues and makes any organ transparent. The method, tested with mouse brains immersed in a hydrogel, and which allows keeping the biological structures intact, has been baptized with the name of CLARITY (clarity, in Spanish).
In our daily life we are constantly faced with decision making. Recent scientific studies reveal some tricks to ensure that we choose the best option. For example, sleeping before making an important decision, or deciding with a full bladder.
US scientists have been able to eliminate addiction and the compulsive search for cocaine typical of drug addicts by applying laser light to the prelimbic region of the prefrontal cortex of rats. Details of the research are published today in 'Nature'.
What makes us happy? The family? The friends? The money? Love? According to scientists at the University of California (UCLA), at least at the chemical level everything is in the hands of a peptide that acts as a neurotransmitter and is called hypocretin. As the researchers publish in Nature Communications, the concentration of this peptide increases when we feel happy while it decreases when we are sad and dejected.
A few years ago, French researcher Daniel Schön showed that language learners find it easier to learn new words when someone sings them than when they are included in normal speech. And it is not only because of the motivation that is attributed to the music. The researchers say that listening to songs involves the same area of the brain that we use to learn languages. In addition, when we listen to a tune it is easier for us to remember the letter that accompanies it than if we try to memorize those same words without rhythm or cadence.
A marathon runner approaches the finish line and suddenly collapses from exhaustion and passes out just yards from victory. Although the scene may sound familiar, what we probably ignore is that it is not due to wasting of the muscles, which consume their sugar reserves (glycogen), but to a mechanism in the brain that stops excess activity when we overdo it. This is known as "central fatigue", a type of extreme fatigue that affects the brain and nervous system.
When we execute any movement, from blowing out a candle to grabbing a fork or hitting a ball, a specific area of the cerebral cortex related to the execution of voluntary actions is activated. What is surprising is that, using neuroimaging techniques, the neuroscientist Friedemann Pulvermüller, from the University of Cambridge, found that this part of the brain also "turns on" when a person listens passively or silently reads certain verbs in a novel that they refer to movements (blowing, jumping, throwing ...).
Danni Büchner is invited to Sam Dylan's Halloween party. But the "Goodbye Germany" emigrant has no desire for many other party guests. And find clear words.
