A team of researchers from the University of Alcalá de Henares (UAH) has shown  that human beings can develop echolocation, the system of acoustic signals used by dolphins and bats to explore their surroundings. Producing certain kinds of tongue clicks helps people to identify objects around them without needing to see them, obviously something that would be useful for the blind.

The team has started a series of tests, the first of their kind in the world, to make use of human beings' under-exploited echolocation skills.


Much cooler than Man-Bat.  ©Marvel Comics Group

The front portion of the brain that handles tasks like decision-making, the left inferior frontal sulcus, also helps decipher different phonetic sounds, according to new Brown University research.  This section of the brain treats different pronunciations of the same speech sound (such as a 'd' sound) the same way, they say, and in determining this they believe they have solved a mystery.

In an article published in the June 25th edition of the journal Neuron, researchers at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, have found that synaptic plasticity, long implicated as a device for ‘change’ in the brain, may also be essential for stability.

Homeostasis, the body’s own mechanism of regulating and maintaining internal balance in the body, is necessary for survival. Precisely how the brain pulls off this tricky balancing act has not been well appreciated.

Clinical scientists at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute are starting the first pilot study looking at the delivery of insulin via the nasal passageway as a potential new treatment for diabetic neuropathy (DPN).

About 50 per cent of people with diabetes will develop DPN, a debilitating and painful nerve disease.  Current treatment is limited to pain management only.

Cory Toth, MD, fellow, Lawrence Korngut, MD, and colleagues, have demonstrated that intransal insulin helps protect nerves in the brain and central nervous sysem (cns) of mice.  It also slowed the progression of DPN and prolonged lifespan in comparison to subcutaneous insulin.  These findings were published earlier this year in the journals Brain and Diabetes.

Over at his blog NeuroLogica, the prolific neurologist (get it?  GET IT?) and oligarch of the Skeptic Movement Steven Novella has penned a fascinating history of the pseudoscience of phrenology - you know the one where they tell you that you are going to be an axe murderer from the bumps on your head.  Personally, noe of the many bumps on this rugbyologist's head are the result of internal pressure from my brain.  Instead, they come from large men trying to violently knock me off my feet.

We do lots of things without thinking about it, like driving to work while we talk on the phone.   We have a kind of 'autopilot' that kicks in for things we have practiced and it allows us to do other things simultaneously.

For people with schizophrenia it's a little different. Dutch researcher Tamar van Raalten investigated whether a disruption to the automation process, learning by repetition to do something on automatic pilot, explains why people with schizophrenia can process less information. She established that it is not the automation process but the processing of new information that causes problems. 

Autistics are up to 40 percent faster at problem-solving than non-autistics, according to a new Université de Montréal and Harvard University study published in Human Brain Mapping. As part of the investigation, participants were asked to complete patterns in the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (RSPM) test that measures hypothesis-testing, problem-solving and learning skills. 

While autism is a common neurodevelopmental disability characterized by profound differences in information processing and analysis, this study showed that autistics have efficient reasoning abilities that build on their perceptual strengths. 

Injury of the peripheral nerves, such as the nerves in your arms, is common and often results in a loss of function or sensation.  Although these nerves have the capacity to regenerate and reconnect, recovery is often limited to short distances and outcomes remain relatively poor.  

Who doesn't every elderly person have a cognitive function decline as they age?   Elderly people who exercise at least once a week, have at least a high school education and a ninth grade literacy level, are not smokers and are more socially active are correlated to maintained cognitive skills through their 70s and 80s, according to research published in the June 9, 2009, print issue of Neurology.

Children with Angelman Syndrome develop normally until about 1 year of age and then their intellectual development stops.  They fail to develop language and other cognitive skills, are severely mentally handicapped,  but have a happy disposition, laughing, smiling and enjoying social interaction.  What could be behind this syndrome?

A new study of Angelman Syndrome shows that an interaction between the genetic defect and sensory activity robs cortical synapses of their normal plasticity. Simply using the synapses depletes them of plasticity.  This leaves neural connections in the cortex rigid, unable to be fine tuned and to develop normal function.

Harmless gossip with a girlfriend can do wonders for a woman's mood and a University of Michigan study says they have an answer why: feeling emotionally close to a friend increases levels of the hormone progesterone, helping to boost well-being and reduce anxiety and stress.

A sex hormone that fluctuates with the menstrual cycle, progesterone is also present in low levels in post-menopausal women and in men. Earlier research has shown that higher levels of progesterone increase the desire to bond with others, but the current study is the first to show that bonding with others increases levels of progesterone. The study also links these increases to a greater willingness to help other people, even at our own expense.

Stick It In Your Ear!

People's reports of inner mental processes are not considered to be reliable enough to validate theories.  (Some would say formulate, even.)  Such reports are only accepted in general, as when a medicine is reported by a patient to alleviate the pain of migraine.  Theories in psychology based on the detailed 'inner awareness' of phenomena are often dismissed as 'mentalese'.

It would be very useful to be able to look directly at the human brain's many operations and so discover if our 'mentalese' theories have any scientifically demonstrable validity.  Over the course of time, methods and instruments have evolved to test these theories by proxy.

Even if we don't always notice, our brain is constantly distracted with 'noise' - unimportant messages that are filtered out.   

When we pay attention, our neurons begin firing in harmony and a study in the May 29 issue of Science lays out what researchers say is the likely brain center that serves as the conductor of our neural chorus.  MIT neuroscientists say that neurons in the prefrontal cortex, the brain's planning center, fire in unison and send signals to the visual cortex to do the same, generating high-frequency waves that oscillate between these distant brain regions like a vibrating spring. These waves, also known as gamma oscillations, have long been associated with cognitive states like attention, learning, and consciousness.

A new study demonstrates that when faced with a difficult decision, the human brain calls upon multiple neural systems that code for different sorts of behaviors and strategies. The research in the May 28th issue of Neuron provides intriguing insight into the mechanisms that help the human brain rise to the formidable challenge of adaptive decision making in the real world.

Cambridge University researchers have discovered that whether someone is a 'people-person' may depend on the structure of their brain: the greater the concentration of brain tissue in certain parts of the brain, the more likely they are to be a warm, sentimental person.   Interestingly, the orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum have previously been shown to be important for the brain's processing of much simpler rewards like sweet tastes or sexual stimuli. 

The research group of Dr. Frédéric Charron, a researcher at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), has made a discovery which could help treat spinal cord injuries and neurodegenerative diseases. This new finding has been published in the current issue of Neuron.

Have you ever thought about what's going on in your brain when you look at a painting that you like a lot?  While Neuroscientist Dr. Edward Vessel has and he's done brain imaging experiments to figure it out.

What happens in your brain when you have a pleasurable experience -- for example, when you see at a painting that you like very much.  Scientists describe this as an aesthetically pleasing experience.  They want to know if simply seeing a painting that you enjoy engages an emotional response and triggers the emotion circuits in your brain.

Monkeys playing a game similar to "Let's Make A Deal" have revealed that their brains register missed opportunities and learn from their mistakes. 

The researchers watched individual neurons in a region of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) that monitors the consequences of actions and mediates resulting changes in behavior. The monkeys were making choices that resulted in different amounts of juice as a reward. 

Their task was like the TV show "Let's Make a Deal" with the experimenters offering monkeys choices from an array of hidden rewards. During each trial, the monkeys chose from one of eight identical white squares arranged in a circle. A color beneath the white square was revealed and the monkey received the corresponding reward. 

As if you need another reason for parental guilt, a new article in Bioscience Hypotheses speculates that our feelings could impact our reproduction and affect our children.

Dr Alberto Halabe Bucay of Research Center Halabe and Darwich, Mexico, suggests that a wide range of chemicals that our brain generates when we are in different moods could affect 'germ cells' (eggs and sperm), the cells that ultimately produce the next generation. Such natural chemicals could affect the way that specific genes are expressed in the germ cells, and hence how a child develops.

This blog entry is about one of the most interesting discoveries of the 90's in Neuroscience -- Mirror Neurons -- and a recent research paper that adds to their intrigue.

Mirror neurons are found in the premotor cortex, and what has made them so interesting is that they fire both when the individual performs a goal-directed action and when they watch someone else perform the same action. It is as if the mirror neurons encode an understanding about the intentions of someone else. For example, when my husband reaches for his coffee cup I understand that he intends to take a drink before he even raises the cup to his lips. Neuroscientists think it is the mirror neurons that encode the "understanding" when we watch what others are doing.