Adolescence is widely thought to be a time when the brain trims away excess neural connections, refining circuits through synaptic pruning. New research now suggests this view may be incomplete.
Category: neuroscience – Page 99
New psychology research reveals your face might determine how easily people remember your name
Have you ever struggled to remember the name of someone you just met? A recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition suggests that the natural stickiness of a person’s face plays a key role in whether you will recall their name. The findings indicate that highly memorable faces help people remember associated names, but this memory-boosting effect does not happen when names are paired with memorable photographs of places.
For decades, scientists studying human memory have focused on how the mental effort we spend processing a fact determines how well we will retain it. However, memory also depends on natural qualities belonging to the object or event itself. Some items possess an intrinsic memorability, meaning they tend to be consistently remembered better by different people regardless of how much effort is put into learning them.
“I was fascinated by the idea that some things in our environment are naturally more memorable than others, meaning most people will remember or forget the same images regardless of their individual memory skills,” explained Andrew Cook, a visiting assistant professor of psychology at Hamilton College. Cook and his colleagues designed a series of experiments to test whether seeing a memorable image would provide evidence for enhanced recall of an associated name. “We wanted to know if memorability is ‘sticky,’” Cook said.
Bing Brunton on Connecting the Connectome to the Body | Mindscape 352
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Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/.…
The connectome is the wiring diagram of a brain, a big matrix that tells us what neurons talk to what other neurons. Understanding it is an important step to understanding how brains work, but a long way from the final answer. A big next step is understanding how neuronal circuits connect to and guide bodily behavior. Very recent work on mapping the fruit-fly connectome has brought us closer to that goal. I talk with neuroscientist Bing Brunton about the connectome, how we can study it to understand bodily motion in flies and other creatures, and where it’s all taking us.
Bing Wen Brunton received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Princeton University… She is currently a Professor of Biology and the Richard & Joan Komen University Chair at the University of Washington, with affiliations at the eScience Institute for Data Science, the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, and the Department of Applied Mathematics.
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Hydraulic brain: Body motion linked to fluid movement in the brain
The brain is more mechanically connected to the body than previously appreciated, scientists report in Nature Neuroscience. Through a study using mice and simulations, the team found a potential biological mechanism underlying why exercise is thought to benefit brain health: abdominal contractions compress blood vessels connected to the spinal cord and the brain, enabling the organ to gently move within the skull. This swaying facilitates the surrounding cerebrospinal fluid to flow over the brain, potentially washing away neural waste that could cause problems for brain function.
According to Patrick Drew, professor of engineering science and mechanics, of neurosurgery, of biology and of biomedical engineering at Penn State, the work builds on previous studies detailing how sleep and neuron loss can influence how and when cerebrospinal fluid flushes through the brain.
“Our research explains how just moving around might serve as an important physiological mechanism promoting brain health,” said Drew, corresponding author on the paper. “In this study, we found that when the abdominal muscles contract, they push blood from the abdomen into the spinal cord, just like in a hydraulic system, applying pressure to the brain and making it move.
How your heart rate variability can offer an insight into your mind
Smartwatches commonly use heart rate variability to monitor stress. Columnist Helen Thomson explores what this metric actually tells us, and whether it could also predict and diagnose depression – and help improve your mental health more generally.
Frontiers: Introduction:
Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disorder, is marked by beta-amyloid plaque accumulation and cognitive decline. The limited efficacy and significant side effects of anti-amyloid monoclonal antibody therapies have prompted exploration into innovative treatments like focused ultrasound therapy. Focused ultrasound shows promise as a non-invasive technique for disrupting the blood–brain barrier, potentially enhancing drug delivery directly to the brain and improving the penetration of existing therapeutic agents.