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Category: neuroscience – Page 357

Lead author Jon Walbrin explains, “Most previous social neuroscience studies have focused on measuring responses to other people as individuals. But more recently there has been an increased interest in understanding brain responses to others in the context of social interactions. However, very little is currently known about how such responses develop during childhood.”

“These results suggest that children and adults might employ different strategies for interaction understanding: Adults rely more on observable, body-based information, while children—with less social experience—engage more in effortful reasoning about what others are thinking and feeling during an interaction. This likely reflects the process of learning to understand interactive behavior.”

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Neuroscientists have uncovered how exploratory actions enable animals to learn their spatial environment more efficiently. Their findings could help build better AI agents that can learn faster and require less experience.

Researchers at the Sainsbury Wellcome Center and Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit at UCL found the instinctual exploratory runs that animals carry out are not random. These purposeful actions allow mice to learn a map of the world efficiently. The study, published today, April 28, in Neuron, describes how neuroscientists tested their hypothesis that the specific exploratory actions that animals undertake, such as darting quickly towards objects, are important in helping them learn how to navigate their environment.

“There are a lot of theories in psychology about how performing certain actions facilitates learning. In this study, we tested whether simply observing obstacles in an environment was enough to learn about them, or if purposeful, sensory-guided actions help animals build a cognitive map of the world,” said Professor Tiago Branco, Group Leader at the Sainsbury Wellcome Center and corresponding author on the paper.

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In this episode, I discuss how our brain and body track time and the role that neurochemicals, in particular dopamine and serotonin, but also hormones such as melatonin, allow us to orient ourselves in time. I review the three types of time perception: of the past, of the present, and the future, and how dopamine and serotonin adjust both our perception of the speed of the passage of time and our memory of how long previous experiences lasted. I also discuss circannual entrainment, which is the process by which our brain and body are matched to the seasons, and circadian (24 hours) entrainment, both of which subconsciously adjust our perceived measurement of time. I explain the mechanisms of that subconscious control. And I cover the ultradian (90 minutes) rhythms that govern our ability to focus, including how to track when these 90-minute rhythms begin and end for the sake of work and productivity. I include ten tools based on the science of time perception that you can apply to enhance productivity, creativity, and relationships in various contexts.

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The human body relies heavily on electrical charges. Lightning-like pulses of energy fly through the brain and nerves and most biological processes depend on electrical ions traveling across the membranes of each cell in our body.

These are possible, in part, because of an imbalance in electrical charges that exists on either side of a cellular membrane. Until recently, researchers believed the membrane was an essential component to creating this imbalance. But that thought was turned on its head when researchers at Stanford University discovered that similar imbalanced electrical charges can exist between microdroplets of water and air.

Now, researchers at Duke University have discovered that these types of electric fields also exist within and around another type of cellular structure called biological condensates. Like oil droplets floating in water, these structures exist because of differences in density. They form compartments inside the cell without needing the physical boundary of a membrane.

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People typically think of food as calories, energy and sustenance. However, the latest evidence suggests that food also “talks” to our genome, which is the genetic blueprint that directs the way the body functions down to the cellular level.

This communication between food and genes may affect your health, physiology and longevity. The idea that food delivers important messages to an animal’s genome is the focus of a field known as nutrigenomics. This is a discipline still in its infancy, and many questions remain cloaked in mystery. Yet already, we researchers have learned a great deal about how food components affect the genome.

I am a molecular biologist who researches the interactions among food, genes and brains in the effort to better understand how food messages affect our biology. The efforts of scientists to decipher this transmission of information could one day result in healthier and happier lives for all of us. But until then, has unmasked at least one important fact: Our relationship with food is far more intimate than we ever imagined.

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Researchers identified DNA methylation markers that may indicate the risk of developing schizophrenia later in life in newborns. This breakthrough discovery could allow for early detection and intervention to reduce the impact of the disease. By studying blood samples collected at birth, the team was able to identify unique methylation differences in cell types that could become potential clinical biomarkers for future early detection of schizophrenia.

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An international research team led by investigators at Virginia Commonwealth University has identified for the first time markers that may indicate early in life if a person has susceptibility to schizophrenia.

The ability to predict the risk of developing later in life may allow early detection and intervention, which the researchers hope can reduce the impact of the disease on individuals, families and communities. Their results have been published in Molecular Psychiatry.

Schizophrenia is a serious psychiatric disorder that is most often detected in young adulthood. It affects as much as 1% of the and can cause debilitating effects such as a sense of losing touch with reality. People with the disorder are up to three times more likely to die early and often face discrimination, social isolation and debilitating physical illness, according to the World Health Organization.

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