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Category: neuroscience – Page 854

Is the polyglot brain different? MIT researchers are trying to find out

There are more theories than facts about polyglots. Because internet lists of polyglots identify mainly men, there’s the belief that the male brain is more predisposed to multilingualism. Others believe that polyglots are disproportionately gay and/or left-handed.

These unfounded theories infuriate Ev Fedorenko, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her lab is conducting a study seeking to dispel them and establish a basic understanding of how the polyglot brain works.

Recently, a polyglot named Susanna Zaraysky submitted to a two-hour session of tests inside an fMRI machine. Zaraysky speaks nine languages, most of them the usual suspects — French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian — but also Ladino, the version of Spanish spoken by Jews who were expelled from Spain in the 15th century.

Researchers wake monkeys

A small amount of electricity delivered at a specific frequency to a particular point in the brain will snap a monkey out of even deep anesthesia, pointing to a circuit of brain activity key to consciousness and suggesting potential treatments for debilitating brain disorders.

Macaques put under with general anesthetic drugs commonly administered to human surgical patients, propofol and isoflurane, could be revived and alert within two or three seconds of applying low current, according to a study published today in the journal Neuron by a team led by University of Wisconsin–Madison brain researchers.

“For as long as you’re stimulating their brain, their behavior — full eye opening, reaching for objects in their vicinity, vital sign changes, bodily movements and facial movements — and their brain activity is that of a waking state,” says Yuri Saalmann, UW–Madison psychology and neuroscience professor. “Then, within a few seconds of switching off the stimulation, their eyes closed again. The animal is right back into an unconscious state.”

Scientists Scanned Brains of Bullies and Found Something Grim

A key exception: The brains of people who exhibited anti-social behavior as teenagers but not as adults showed no such abnormalities. That’s good news for reformed bullies, but bad news for the lifers.

“Most people who exhibit antisocial behaviour primarily do so only in adolescence, likely as a result of navigating socially difficult years, and these individuals do not display structural brain differences,” Carlisi said. “It is also these individuals who are generally capable of reform and go on to become valuable members of society.”

What remains hazy is the question of causation — are the brains of bullies small because they’re bullies, or do they become bullies because of their small brains?