Marmosets, small monkeys in South America, have some brain structures more similar to those of humans than rodents. Studies of marmosets may help us understand the evolution of brain development and function. In a study published in The Journal of Neuroscience, a group of researchers in Japan recently compared marmoset and mouse brains. They examined different gene activity patterns in the marmoset brains (above) to determine the animals’ usefulness for studies of higher cognitive abilities, such as language and attention.
Reference:
The Journal of Neuroscience, 11 April 2012, 32(15): 5039-5053; doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4788-11.2012
Great new site too, you must check it out.
The Literature” was actually pretty smart when taken as a system, but that we individual puny brains just weren’t bright enough to integrate all that information. I went on to claim that, if there was some way to automatically integrate information from the peer-review literature, we could probably glean a lot of new insights.
-
Neuroscientist Bradley Voytek’s response when challenged at a conference by panelists suggesting that his research was “data rich, but theory poor.”
Not only is this a very clever response, but it highlights the major crux of neuroscience at the moment. This is probably the best response that I have seen on the issue.
Greg Dunn paints neurons for a living (and also is working on his doctorate in neuroscience from Penn, no big deal). His affinity for asian-inspired art and passion for neuroscience led him to create these wonderful images.
I reblogged a few of these a while back, but I found these with better quality and wanted to highlight my favorite ones.
Can I have these in my home?
Does Brain Scanning Show Just the Tip of the Iceberg? ⇢
Brain scans + fMRI: What are we seeing and what are we missing?
Two new studies suggest that fMRI studies, the brain activity scans that give us those “thermal blob” images we are so used to, might be the equivalent of cracking an egg with a sledgehammer. You’ll see an effect, but it’s kind of a brute force blunt object, considering the detail of the job. At the same time, when observations are made outside of “normal” experimental time frames, unexpected and interesting results can show up.
From Neuroskeptic:
As an analogy, suppose that all you knew about your neighbours was from the noises that you heard through the wall. The shouts and screams would be loud enough to reach your eyes; the normal conversations and whispers wouldn’t. If you concluded that all your neighbours did was shout, not talk, you’d get a misleading picture of their relationship.
That’s the bad news. On the other hand, fMRI is clearly more powerful than most neuroscientists have realized, and this holds out hope for cracking some of the trickiest questions facing the field in the future, with larger studies and more sensitive techniques
Does brain scanning show just the tip of the iceberg? We all know this answer is undoubtedly, a yes. Pretty nice article.
Remember neuroscience, you must first learn to walk, before you can run.
Thin slices of the human brain mounted on glass
You can hang these near your DNA portraits.
A human brain dissection – in pictures
Ever wonder what the process of a human brain dissection looks like? Here is a series of images of professor Steve Gentlemen (love that last name) dissecting a brain at the Brain Bank.
Image Credit: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian
My apologies to anyone that is sensitive to this kind of material.
Japanese Researchers develop “slimming specs” which makes food look 50% bigger to help you eat less
A new set of Japanese inventions could revolutionise dieting - but Western dieters may find the drawbacks a little difficult to ‘swallow’.
Dieters have to wear a pair of goggles which ‘trick’ eaters into thinking food is 50% bigger - but reassure them their hands are the same size.
Another gadget under test in the same lab, called ‘MetaCookie+’, sends images of foods via a TV screen into dieters’ eyes, while wafting smells up their noses.
Some of their findings:
- People eat 10% less if they think the cookies are larger.
- The color blue in the glasses ‘calms’ the brain persuading dieters to eat less.
- The “Metacookie’ techno glasses use built-in TV screen to show dieters other foods as they eat.
While this is scientifically amazing and I am fascinated by “tricking” our brain, isn’t it a little sad that we can’t control the amount of food we eat?
Picture Captions:
- The gadget ‘tricks’ dieters into feeling fuller by making food look bigger
- MetaCookie Plus ‘transforms’ food by feeding dieters different scents as they eat - so that, for instance, a diet biscuit can taste like a chocolate Digestive.
- The glasses make food look 50% bigger, encouraging dieters to eat less.
- The Goggles enlarge the appearance of food by 50%, persuading people to eat less.
- The glasses ‘amplify’ the size of the food so that it looks bigger, encouraging dieters to have smaller portions.
What have you got in your head? Series 2 by Sara Asnaghi
Copy of human brains made with different foods
17 cm x 12 cm each one
1) Sugar, 2) Brain Sandwich, 3) The Set, 4) Candies, 5) Chili.
Click the link to see the rest!
Shining light in the ears may alleviate SAD symptoms
Millions of people experience depression and lower levels of energy in the winter due to seasonal-affective disorder (SAD), or the “winter blues.” Since the disorder is thought to arise due to a shortage of natural light, one common form of treatment is light therapy, in which the person sits in front of a bright, full-spectrum light at certain times of day. But the effectiveness of light therapy has been unclear, and now researchers from Oulu, Finland, think they know why: light-sensitive regions of the brain may actually play a larger role in SAD symptoms than those in the eyes. For this reason, they’ve designed earphones that shine light through the ear canal to light-sensitive proteins on the brain’s surface, with encouraging results.
Practical, non-pharmaceutical, and effective? I like it. Maybe a coupling with some CBT?