News tagged with brains visual

Parts of brain can switch functions: study

(PhysOrg.com) -- When your brain encounters sensory stimuli, such as the scent of your morning coffee or the sound of a honking car, that input gets shuttled to the appropriate brain region for analysis. The ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Feb 28, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (10) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

How the brain's architecture makes our view of the world unique

(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.

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Dec 05, 2010 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (25) | comments 12 | with audio podcast

Phantom images stored in flexible network throughout brain

(PhysOrg.com) -- Brain research over the past 30 years has shown that if a part of the brain controlling movement or sensation or language is lost because of a stroke or injury, other parts of the brain can ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Nov 03, 2010 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (18) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Brain's ability to selectively focus/pay attention diminishes with age

A University of Toronto study shows that visual attention -- the brain's ability to selectively filter unattended or unwanted information from reaching awareness -- diminishes with age, leaving older adults less capable of ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Nov 02, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Archer fish can see like mammals (w/ Video)

(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 ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Sep 15, 2010 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast report

Scientists find explanation for blindsight

(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 ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Jun 25, 2010 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (22) | comments 2 | with audio podcast report

Hand study reveals brain's distorted body model

Our brains contain a highly distorted model of our own bodies, according to new research by scientists at UCL (University College London). A study published today, which focussed on the brain's representation ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Jun 14, 2010 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (11) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

A change of mind: One protein appears to control neurons' ability to react to new experiences

(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 ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Mar 24, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (13) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Remembering the future: Our brain saves energy by predicting what it will see

(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 ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Mar 24, 2010 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (25) | comments 10 | with audio podcast

Watching curvaceous women feels like drugs to men: study

(PhysOrg.com) -- It has long been known that men find an "hourglass" figure the most attractive shape for the female body, and now scientists have found out why.

Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry

created Feb 25, 2010 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (27) | comments 12 | with audio podcast report

Blind people use both visual and auditory cortices to hear

(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 ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Feb 16, 2010 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Uncorrelated activity in the brain

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 ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Jan 28, 2010 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (9) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

The thalamus, middleman of the brain, becomes a sensory conductor

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 ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Dec 07, 2009 | popularity 3.7 / 5 (7) | comments 1

Like humans, monkeys fall into the 'uncanny valley'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Princeton University researchers have come up with a new twist on the mysterious visual phenomenon experienced by humans known as the "uncanny valley." The scientists have found that monkeys ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Oct 13, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (18) | comments 1

Scans show learning 'sculpts' the brain's connections

Spontaneous brain activity formerly thought to be "white noise" measurably changes after a person learns a new task, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Chieti, Italy, ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Oct 09, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 1