News tagged with neuronal circuit

Neurobiologists find that weak electrical fields in the brain help neurons fire together

The brain -- awake and sleeping -- is awash in electrical activity, and not just from the individual pings of single neurons communicating with each other. In fact, the brain is enveloped in countless overlapping ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Feb 02, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (10) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Neurons work like a chain of dominos to control action sequences (w/ Video)

(PhysOrg.com) -- As anyone who as ever picked up a guitar or a tennis racket knows, precise timing is often an essential part of performing complex tasks. Now, by studying the brain circuits that control bird song, MIT researchers ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Oct 24, 2010 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (7) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Smelling the light: 'What if we make the nose act like a retina?'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Harvard University neurobiologists have created mice that can "smell" light, providing a potent new tool that could help researchers better understand the neural basis of olfaction.

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Oct 17, 2010 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (15) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Research defines neurons that control sociability in worms

(PhysOrg.com) -- Ants colonize. Fish shoal. Flamingos flock and caribou herd. Earth is populated by inherently social beings. Even lowly worms seek out the benefits of companionship. New research at The Rockefeller ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Apr 10, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Involuntary maybe, but certainly not random

Our eyes are in constant motion. Even when we attempt to stare straight at a stationary target, our eyes jump and jiggle imperceptibly. Although these unconscious flicks, also known as microsaccades, had long ...

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created Feb 12, 2009 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 0

Researchers gain better understanding of mechanism behind tau spreading in the brain

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have gained insight into the mechanism by which a pathological brain protein called tau contributes to the progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created May 02, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Web-crawling the brain

The brain is a black box. A complex circuitry of neurons fires information through channels, much like the inner workings of a computer chip. But while computer processors are regimented with the deft economy of an assembly ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Mar 09, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (9) | comments 4 | with audio podcast

Illuminating the brain: Technique stimulates brain cells, reveals how those neurons influence the rest

There are about 100 billion neurons in the human brain, and each one belongs to elaborate networks that control our behavior, thoughts and emotions. A message from a single neuron can have far-reaching consequences ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Jan 28, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (7) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Unlocking the secret(ase) of building neural circuits

Mutant presenilin is infamous for its role in the most aggressive form of Alzheimer's disease -- early-onset familial Alzheimer's -- which can strike people as early as their 30s. In their latest study, researchers ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Jan 18, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (4) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Scientists show in unprecedented detail how cortical nerve cells form synapses with neighbors

Newly published research led by Professor Z. Josh Huang, Ph.D., of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) sheds important new light on how neurons in the developing brain make connections with one another. This activity, called ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Dec 21, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Speed heals

USC College's Samantha Butler and collaborators show that the rate and direction of axon growth in the spinal cord can be controlled, a discovery that one day may help improve treatment for spinal injuries ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Nov 18, 2010 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Zebrafish yield clues to how we process visual information

(PhysOrg.com) -- To a hungry fish on the prowl, the split-second neural processing required to see, track, and gobble up a darting flash of prey is a matter of survival.

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Oct 30, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Brain cells determine obesity -- not lack of willpower: study

An international study has discovered the reason why some people who eat a high-fat diet remain slim, yet others pile on the weight.

Medicine & Health / Medical research

created Sep 08, 2010 | popularity 3.9 / 5 (11) | comments 16 | with audio podcast

Major moral decisions use general-purpose brain circuits to manage uncertainty

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at Harvard University have found that humans can make difficult moral decisions using the same brain circuits as those used in more mundane choices related to money and food.

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Aug 25, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Researchers find two brain circuits involved with habitual learning

Driving to and from work is a habit for most commuters - we do it without really thinking. But before our commutes became routine, we had to learn our way through trial-and-error exploration. A new study ...

Medicine & Health / Neuroscience

created Jun 09, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 1 | with audio podcast