http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Nerve bundles in the visual cortex of the brain in blind people may process the sense of touch. http://phys.org/news217604626.html Medicine & Health Tue, 22 Feb 2011 13:43:59 EST news217604626 (PhysOrg.com) -- The brain's visual neurons continually develop predictions of what they will perceive and then correct erroneous assumptions as they take in additional external information, according to new research done at Duke University. http://phys.org/news210965658.html Medicine & Health Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:10:05 EST news210965658 (PhysOrg.com) -- Wellcome Trust scientists have shown for the first time that exactly how we see our environment depends on the size of the visual part of our brain. http://phys.org/news210777348.html Medicine & Health Sun, 05 Dec 2010 13:16:00 EST news210777348 (PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have uncovered a self-organizing biological principle in the brains of three very different, genetically diverse mammals -- but in all three they found the same mathematically precise "pinwheel" organization and orientation of neurons. http://phys.org/news208110964.html Biology Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:36:24 EST news208110964 Just as we visually map a room by spatially identifying the objects in it, we map our aural world based on the frequencies of sounds. The neurons within the brain's "hearing center" -- the auditory cortex -- are organized into modules that each respond to sounds within a specific frequency band. But how responses actually emanate from this complex network of neurons is still a mystery. http://phys.org/news206621879.html Medicine & Health Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:58:13 EST news206621879 People who have been blind from birth make use of the visual parts of their brain to refine their sensation of sound and touch, according to an international team of researchers led by neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC). http://phys.org/news205587824.html Medicine & Health Wed, 06 Oct 2010 12:44:11 EST news205587824 (PhysOrg.com) -- The ability to see objects oriented differently to the background, which is known as orientation-based saliency, has long been thought to be confined to mammals, but a new study has found that archer fish have this ability, despite having no visual cortex in their brains. http://phys.org/news203747380.html Biology Wed, 15 Sep 2010 07:50:01 EST news203747380 Researchers at New York University's Center for Neural Science have identified a new neurological deficit behind amblyopia, or "lazy eye." Their findings, which appear in the most recent issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, shed additional light on how amblyopia results from disrupted links between the brain and normal visual processing. http://phys.org/news203334055.html Medicine & Health Fri, 10 Sep 2010 10:41:22 EST news203334055 (PhysOrg.com) -- The rare phenomenon of blindsight has been known for a long time, but until now has never been understood. People with blindsight are effectively blind through damage to the primary visual cortex and yet may be able to identify colors and to avoid obstacles in their way even though they are not consciously aware of them. http://phys.org/news196667146.html Medicine & Health Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:40:01 EST news196667146 Science has long puzzled over why a baby's brain is particularly flexible and why it easily changes. Is it because babies have to learn a lot? A group of researchers from the Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Gottingen, the Schiller University in Jena and Princeton University have now put forward a new explanation: Maybe it is because the brain still has to grow. http://phys.org/news196431902.html Medicine & Health Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:25:38 EST news196431902 The adult brain, long considered to be fixed in its wiring, is in fact remarkably dynamic. Neuroscientists once thought that the brain's wiring was fixed early in life, during a critical period beyond which changes were impossible. Recent discoveries have challenged that view, and now, research by scientists at Rockefeller University suggests that circuits in the adult brain are continually modified by experience. http://phys.org/news195841318.html Medicine & Health Tue, 15 Jun 2010 17:22:24 EST news195841318 (PhysOrg.com) -- A squat, circular robot scurries along the floor of a laboratory, moving left, then right, then left again, before coming to a stop. A Northeastern University student researcher commands the gadget through a brain-computer interface that controls the movement of the robot using signals produced by his visual cortex. http://phys.org/news194631795.html Technology Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:23:31 EST news194631795 (PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists in Austria have calculated the magnetic fields associated with certain types of lightning strikes are powerful enough to create hallucinations of hovering balls of light in nearby observers, and that these visions would be interpreted as ball lightning. http://phys.org/news192952150.html Physics Thu, 13 May 2010 06:49:30 EST news192952150 Pioneering a novel microscopy method, neuroscientist Arthur Konnerth and colleagues from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM, Germany) have shown that individual neurons carry out significant aspects of sensory processing: specifically, in this case, determining which direction an object in the field of view is moving. http://phys.org/news191753357.html Medicine & Health Thu, 29 Apr 2010 10:10:13 EST news191753357 There is strength in numbers if you want to get your voice heard. But how to do you get your say if you are in the minority? That's a dilemma faced not only by the citizens of a democracy but also by some neurons in the brain. http://phys.org/news189348386.html Medicine & Health Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:00:16 EST news189348386 UCSF scientists report that they were able to prompt a new period of "plasticity," or capacity for change, in the neural circuitry of the visual cortex of juvenile mice. The approach, they say, might some day be used to create new periods of plasticity in the human brain that would allow for the repair of neural circuits following injury or disease. http://phys.org/news188745701.html Medicine & Health Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:23:11 EST news188745701 (PhysOrg.com) -- Plasticity -- the brain's ability to change in response to external input -- is critical for most cognitive functions, including learning and memory. Those changes usually involve a strengthening or weakening of synapses, the connections between brain cells (neurons). http://phys.org/news188666378.html Medicine & Health Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:20:09 EST news188666378 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have discovered that the brain saves energy by predicting what it is likely to see. According to scientists in the Department of Psychology at the University of Glasgow in collaboration with the Max-Planck Institute for Brain Research, Frankfurt, Germany, the visual cortex does not simply react to visual stimuli but proactively predicts what it is likely to see in any given context - for example, within familiar environments such as your house or office. http://phys.org/news188638202.html Medicine & Health Wed, 24 Mar 2010 08:30:28 EST news188638202 (PhysOrg.com) -- It turns out that there is a striking similarity between how the human brain determines what is going on in the outside world and the job of scientists. Good science involves formulating a hypothesis and testing whether this hypothesis is compatible with the scientist’s observations. Researchers in the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt together with the University of Glasgow have shown that this is what the brain does as well. A study shows that it takes less effort for the brain to register predictable as compared to unpredictable images. (Journal of Neuroscience, February 24th, 2010) http://phys.org/news187464882.html Medicine & Health Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:34:59 EST news187464882 Hearing scientist Daniel Polley, Ph.D., an investigator at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary's Eaton-Peabody Laboratories of Auditory Physiology, has gained new insight into why a relatively short-term hearing deprivation during childhood may lead to persistent hearing deficits, long after hearing is restored to normal. The research, featured on the cover on the March 11 issue of the journal Neuron, reveals that, much like the visual cortex, development of the auditory cortex is quite vulnerable if it does not receive appropriate stimulation at just the right time. http://phys.org/news187448448.html Medicine & Health Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:01:18 EST news187448448 (PhysOrg.com) -- A groundbreaking study by UT Dallas’ Center for Vital Longevity is focusing on twins in an effort to answer some long-debated questions about the rival influences of nature vs. nurture. http://phys.org/news185566217.html Medicine & Health Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:20:01 EST news185566217 (PhysOrg.com) -- Blind people have brains that are rewired to allow their visual cortex to improve hearing abilities. Yet they continue to access specialized areas to recognize human voices, according to a study published in Neuropsychologia by Frédéric Gougoux and Franco Lepore of the Université de Montréal Department of Psychology. http://phys.org/news185563638.html Medicine & Health Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:32:14 EST news185563638 (PhysOrg.com) -- New research shows our brains are a lot more chaotic than previously thought, and that this might be a good thing. Neurobiologists at the University of Maryland have discovered information about how the brain processes sound that challenges previous understandings of the auditory cortex, which had suggested an organization based on precise neuronal maps. In the first study of the auditory cortex conducted using advanced imaging techniques, Patrick Kanold, assistant professor of biology, Shihab Shamma, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Sharba Bandyopadhyay, post-doctoral associate, describe a much more complex picture of neuronal activity. Their findings are published in the January 31 online edition of Nature Neuroscience. http://phys.org/news184246215.html Medicine & Health Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:30:33 EST news184246215 Interconnected networks of neurons process information and give rise to perception by communicating with one another via small electrical impulses known as action potentials. In the past, scientists believed that adjacent neurons synchronized their action potentials. However, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Germany said in a current report in the journal Science that this synchronization does not happen. http://phys.org/news183909056.html Medicine & Health Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:00:08 EST news183909056 Transplanted neurons grown from embryonic stem cells can fully integrate into the brains of young animals, according to new research in the Jan. 20 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Healthy brains have stable and precise connections between cells that are necessary for normal behavior. This new finding is the first to show that stem cells can be directed not only to become specific brain cells, but to link correctly. http://phys.org/news183152948.html Medicine & Health Tue, 19 Jan 2010 20:10:01 EST news183152948 Our energy-hungry brains operate reliably and efficiently while processing a flood of sensory information, thanks to a sort of neuronal thermostat that regulates activity in the visual cortex, Yale researchers have found. http://phys.org/news182609461.html Medicine & Health Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:00:02 EST news182609461 An experimental device that uses the tongue instead of the eyes to "see" could be on the market next year, and a blind Fresno, Calif., teen hopes to be among the first to take one home. http://phys.org/news180125418.html Technology Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:51:11 EST news180125418 Two new studies show that the thalamus--the small central brain structure often characterized as a mere pit-stop for sensory information on its way to the cortex--is heavily involved in sensory processing, and is an important conductor of the brain's complex orchestra. http://phys.org/news179422808.html Medicine & Health Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:41:31 EST news179422808 (PhysOrg.com) -- You wouldn't want a car with no brakes. It turns out that the developing brain needs them, too. http://phys.org/news178374711.html Medicine & Health Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:35:23 EST news178374711 Although we assume we can see everything in our field of vision, the brain actually picks and chooses the stimuli that come into our consciousness. A new study in the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology's Journal of Vision reveals that our brains can be trained to consciously see stimuli that would normally be invisible. http://phys.org/news175364478.html Medicine & Health Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:40:01 EST news175364478