Health News

Structural differences in the brain may explain why siblings differ in risk of developing conduct disorder

Structural differences in the area of the brain responsible for decision making could explain why two siblings living in the same family might differ in their risk of developing the condition conduct disorder. Psychologists and neuroscientists have long puzzled over why siblings with seemingly the same upbringing and genetic makeup might differ so significantly in […]

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NIH awards more than $8 million to support seven high-risk, high-reward projects at Penn Medicine

The National Institutes of Health has awarded grants to researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania to support "highly innovative and broadly impactful" biomedical science through the NIH Common Fund's High-Risk, High-Reward Research program. The seven awards total approximately $8.2 million over five years, The High-Risk, High-Reward Research program catalyzes […]

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How the brain deals with uncertainty

As we interact with the world, we are constantly presented with information that is unreliable or incomplete—from jumbled voices in a crowded room to solicitous strangers with unknown motivations. Fortunately, our brains are well equipped to evaluate the quality of the evidence we use to make decisions, usually allowing us to act deliberately, without jumping […]

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Does the brain learn in the same way that machines learn?

Pinpointing how neural activity changes with learning is anything but black and white. Recently, some have posited that learning in the brain, or biological learning, can be thought of in terms of optimization, which is how learning occurs in artificial networks like computers or robots. A new perspectives piece co-authored by Carnegie Mellon University and […]

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Scientists identify potential treatment for previously unknown condition affecting children

Researchers from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research's (A*STAR) Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), and Rady Children's Institute for Genomic Medicine identified a previously unknown condition affecting children, which they discovered could be prevented by administering a drug during pregnancy. Through a worldwide collaboration, the researchers identified children from Egypt, India, United Arab Emirates, […]

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Drug withdrawal morphs brain communication networks in mice

Zeroing in on specific brain regions when studying drug and alcohol abuse simplifies research but may leave out important insights. In fact, the landscape of the entire brain reorganizes during withdrawal, potentially hindering communication between regions, according to new research in mice published in eNeuro. Kimbrough et al. administered psychostimulant drugs to mice (cocaine, methamphetamine, […]

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Novel molecular device exhibits exceptional computing prowess

In a discovery published in the journal Nature, an international team of researchers has described a novel molecular device with exceptional computing prowess. Reminiscent of the plasticity of connections in the human brain, the device can be reconfigured on the fly for different computational tasks by simply changing applied voltages. Furthermore, like nerve cells can […]

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Cerebral cortex may actually be responsible for sleep control

Why we sleep, and the processes behind sleep, are amongst the most interesting questions in modern neuroscience. Researchers at the University of Oxford have now uncovered a new target for sleep investigations within the mammalian brain – the cerebral cortex. The paper was published today in Nature Neuroscience. The cerebral cortex makes up about 80% […]