Neural activity associated with defensive responses in humans shifts between two brain regions depending on the proximity of a threat, suggests neuroimaging data from two independent samples of adults in the Netherlands. In one sample, the findings suggest that emotional abuse during childhood may shift the balance of activity between these regions.
Tag: brain039s
Face value: Brain's ability to recognize faces is shaped through repeated exposure, study suggests
Scientists have long deemed the ability to recognize faces innate for people and other primates — something our brains just know how to do immediately from birth. However, the findings of a new study cast doubt on this longstanding view.
New source for brain's development discovered
An unexpected source for the brain’s development has been discovered by researchers, a finding that offers new insights into the building of the nervous system.
High moral reasoning associated with increased activity in the human brain's reward system
Individuals who have a high level of moral reasoning show increased activity in the brain’s frontostriatal reward system, both during periods of rest and while performing a sequential risk taking and decision making task according to a new study.
Brain's self-regulation in teens at risk for obesity
In a small study that scanned the brains of teenagers while exposing them to tempting ‘food cues,’ researchers report that reduced activity in the brain’s ‘self-regulation’ system may be an important early predictor of adult obesity.
The brain's solution for seeing as is and seeing flexibly
New experiments support distinct roles for two brain pathways in processing information related to an object, with one carrying a largely invariant representation of an object and the other a flexible one depending on what we do with an object.
First circuit map of brain's learning and memory center
A significant development in understanding the brain: Scientists have, for the first time ever described the mushroom body connectome within the brain of fly larvae (Drosophila melanogaster) — the circuit diagram of nerve cells.
Tiny molecule has big effect on brain's ability to learn
Prenatal brain development is a crucial period, and as new research has found, even small alterations to the way brain cells develop can have significant effects later in life. Scientists have shed light on the role that small molecules called microRNAs play in early brain development. The research found a close link between early brain developmental events and changes in cognitive function in adulthood.
Neurons that control brain's body clock identified
Researchers have found that dopamine-producing neurons are connected with the brain’s circadian center.
In witnessing the brain's 'aha!' moment, scientists shed light on biology of consciousness
Scientists have identified the brain’s ‘aha!’ moment — that flash in time when you suddenly know the answer to a difficult question. Today’s findings in humans, combined with previous research, provide compelling evidence that this moment — this feeling of having decided — pierces consciousness when information being collected by the brain reaches a critical level. Importantly, this study offers new hope that the biological foundations of consciousness may well be within our grasp.