The brain is an enigma. Scientists are working to understand how these meager three pounds of matter inside your skull give rise to consciousness, thought, memory, and emotion. Doctors want to know how to keep your brain healthy and fix it when things go wrong, as in depression and autism. Here you will hear Science Update shows on the latest and most fascinating brain research.
VISION SCIENCE – A camera modeled after the compound eyes of insects. How the brain compensates for worsening color vision as we age. And, could electrical simulation to the brain improve math performance? Also: Young people are still flocking to tanning booths, despite the risk of developing life-threatening melanoma.
Temporary hearing loss protects the ear against long-term damage.
Scientists have discovered the area of the brain dedicated to recognizing numerals.
Lasers can eliminate cocaine addiction in rats, pointing to new therapies for humans.
Playing soundwaves synchronized with a person’s own deep sleep rhythms may improve short-term memory.
Deficiency in a key protein may strongly contribute to cognitive impairments in Down Syndrome.
EARLY HEALTH – A molecule that could make it possible to jumpstart the newborn immune system. Why too many brain cells could be a bad thing. And, could humidity affect flu transmission? Also: The effects of sleep deprivation on your genes.
Fragile X Syndrome, a leading genetic cause of intellectual impairments, may actually result from too much brain activity.
Cells that eat up defective brain cells may also target healthy cells during development.
Fur seals sleep with one half of their brain at a time.
Sensors the size of temporary tattoos could transform how brain signals are monitored.
We remember Facebook posts much better than sentences from books or actual faces.
Mood can affect older adults’ performance on cognitive tests.
Children are better at forming long-term memories than adults for a surprising reason.
MEDICINE & MEMORY – Scientists have developed a test for Parkinson’s disease. Also, drugs for the condition may have beneficial side effects. There’s good news about cancer. And, researchers say babies start learning their native tongue before they’re even born. Also: why grown-ups don’t form long-term memories as well as kids do.
Side effects of meds for Parkinson’s disease may include bursts of creativity.
Newborn babies have a preference for their mother’s language over foreign languages.
A brain imaging study supports growing evidence linking fructose to weight gain.
CHILD DEVELOPMENT – Are kids naturally stingy? Why children’s self-control could depend on the adults around them. And why math anxiety “hurts”. Also: What monsters from Dungeons & Dragons can tell us about the importance of eyes.
Measuring the acoustical signatures of colliding football helmets could help improve helmet safety.
Areas of the brain normally associated with physical pain are activated when people with math anxiety think about doing math.
Monsters from the role playing game “Dungeons & Dragons” help reveal what’s most important to us.
The brain has two very different mechanisms for erasing bad memories.
The insulation surrounding nerves develops more quickly in chimpanzees than in humans.
Neglect keeps young brains from developing adequate insulation.
MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS – A new drug that could block heroin addiction, how mice could speed up AIDS research, and why we’re more prone to cancer than our closest living relatives. Also: the two brain chemicals behind sleep paralysis.
A drug called (+)-naloxone blocks the brain’s addiction to heroin and other opiates.
ANIMAL SURVIVAL – Naked mole-rats defy old age, vampire spiders attack Franken-mosquitoes, dogs protect babies against asthma, what the genes of parrots reveal about speech, and the relationship between fox populations and Lyme disease.
Engineers have developed a two-legged robot with a more lifelike walking gait.
Neuroscientists used poker games and MRI scans to separate social from purely strategic decision making.
Researchers find a link between a common parasite and suicide attempts in humans.
BRAINS & BEHAVIOR – How the brain quickly overcomes arachnophobia. Why psychopaths’ brains are different. And how the stress of great-grandparents is visited upon their great-grandchildren. Also: paralyzed rats walk again, and a robotic arm controlled by thoughts.
Men that sire children later in life may pass on an advantage to their grandchildren.
A robotic fish could shepherd real fish into safer waters.
Genetically modified L. acidophilus bacteria reverse colon cancer in mice.
Peoples’ brain activity changes permanently when they overcome a phobia.
The link between touch and hearing. And, why bilinguals hear better in noisy environments. Also: new brain research could illuminate why we’re willing to share so much personal information on social networking sites. And, how much money would it take for you to give someone an electric shock? The answer may surprise you.
Two patients with near-total paralysis have learned to control a robotic arm with their thoughts.
The great-grandchildren of rats given a fungicide were more stressed-out and anxious than other rats.
Does speaking a second language change the way your brain works?
The antidepressant Zoloft affects cell membranes in yeast, which lack the brain chemical the drug targets.
How the brain’s reward system makes sharing personal information on social media so compelling.
ALL ABOUT LANGUAGE – Neuroscientists are beginning to reconstruct what we’ve heard by listening to brainwaves, how scientists measure language delays around the world, using technology to keep endangered languages vibrant, and a musical instrument that allows you to sing…with your hands, Also: decoding the secret language of worms.
Scientists are beginning to reconstruct the words people hear based on electrical activity in their brains.
Researchers have captured images of single brain cells in a live animal.
Like humans, bats process some types of sounds on the right side of their brains and other sounds on the left side of their brains.
Violent video games can affect brain activity well after the games are over.
Preserved brains from the early 20th century may shed light on mental illness.
CHANGING BRAINS – Why London taxi drivers have bigger brains, how eye movements reveal what we’ve really seen, and why emulating the eye movements of experts produces better surgeons. And, what long-dead brains can tell us about mental illness. Also: how violent video games could be changing young men’s brains.
The brains of would-be London taxi drivers get bigger during their multi-year training for the job.
A drug that cuts of the blood supply to fat cells resulted in significant weight loss in obese monkeys.
Paper wasps, which can recognize each other, seem to process faces in ways similar to humans.
Can the placebo effect be harnessed to help people with chronic pain?
REM sleep, in which dreams occur, also may help take the edge off painful memories.
THE BRAIN, MOOD & BEHAVIOR – Could dreaming help heal emotional wounds? The relationship between the placebo effect and chronic pain. New research into the genetics of empathy. Also: a computer program to help prevent depression in girls, and exploring sex differences in mood disorders.
Contrary to expectations, some teenagers’ IQ scores changed significantly over a four-year period.
PREVENTIVE HEALTH – Vitamin D and ethnicity, a breath test for toxins, drinking and the immune system, measuring pain in the brain, and a new weapon to combat allergic reactions.
Researchers have developed a way to measure pain in the brain.
An update on a landmark experiment probes the neurological roots of delayed gratification.
The brain has special hotspots that are sensitive to each type of taste.
A computer algorithm partially reconstructs movies from patterns of brain activity in people watching them.
HORMONES & BEHAVIOR – Testosterone and fatherhood, the genetics of oxytocin and depression, gender and spatial reasoning revisited, where taste is found in the brain, and more.
A gene variant may influence a person’s outlook on life.
Rats are supposed to be afraid of cats, but a tiny pathogen has turned the relationship around for its own benefit.
Gender differences in spatial reasoning abilities may be strongly influenced by culture.
An enzyme deficiency makes mice afraid of the wrong things.
Our brains shrink by up to 15% over our lifetimes, but those of chimpanzees do not.
FEAR, LIES & SHRINKING BRAINS – Why our brains shrink, but chimps’ don’t, why computers are better at spotting lies than we are, and an enzyme for fear. Also, medical electronics that resemble tattoos, and how organic chicken farms could be a boon to public health.
Age-related working memory loss may be at least partly reversible.
Soccer goalies tend to dive toward the right when their team is behind.
One area of the brain becomes active when we experience beauty.
THE BRAIN & SOCIETY: How the brain experiences beauty, what soccer reveals about the mind, and why lazing around in a hammock could benefit your memory. Also, how your cell phone could help you kick the habit.
A type of spontaneous brain activity seems to create favorable conditions for remembering things.
A failing grade for fat substitutes, a master regulator gene for fat, a brainwave that helps control memory, and turning skin cells into brain cells.
The retinas of people who have been deaf from birth enhance their peripheral vision.
Evidence from ancient teeth suggests that most Neanderthals were right-handed, like us.
To study how we perceive our environment, scientists created the illusion of being either Barbie doll-sized or gigantic.
Blind people who can echolocate use their brain’s visual center to do so.
We may owe our large brains in part to the earliest mammals’ sense of smell.
What reindeer can see that we can’t. How some blind people are using echolocation to navigate the world. And, how the retinas of deaf people change their experience of the world. Also: better noses spelled bigger brains for ancient mammals, and: what the teeth of Neanderthals tell us about their hands.
New research sheds light on what’s going on in the brains of sleeping teenagers.
Scientists have extinguished, or at least greatly weakened, a long-term memory in a sea snail.
Researchers have identified the region of the brain responsible for humiliation.
Researchers erase sea snail memories, the brain’s sarcasm detector, why a lack of embarrassment could be a sign of dementia, and schizophrenia in a petri dish.
A new study links a failing sense of irony to a form of early-onset dementia.
Autistic people use their brains differently than non-autistics when processing visual information.
A hormone called ghrelin enhances our sense of smell and increases appetite.
Justice and lunch breaks, autism and visual processing, a case of beat deafness, and the hormone of smell.
Taking brief breaks from long tasks may help the brain regain its focus.
EEG brain scans may someday allow doctors to identify – and treat – babies at risk for autism.
German scientists have engineered a car that can be driven by thinking.
The same area of the brain is activated whether you’re a blind person reading Braille with your hands or a sighted person reading with your eyes.
The surprising way the brain processes Braille, bilingualism staves off dementia, and new research on stuttering. Also: why being lonely could change how your immune system works, and the relationship between popularity and bullying.
Speaking a second language may slow down the cognitive decline of Alzheimer’s disease.
The brain may “tag” certain experiences for long-term storage during sleep.
Music stimulates the brain area involved in drug addiction.
Scientists have erased learning and memory deficits in a mouse model of early Alzheimer’s disease.
Imagining that you’re eating a food may curb your appetite for the real thing.
Stimulating a rat’s whiskers after inducing stroke completely prevented brain damage.
The size of different brain structures is related to how neurotic, outgoing or friendly we are.
Scientists have identified a protein that serves as the brain’s master switch.
Scientists have pinpointed the brain region responsible for efficient reading, writing and spelling.
Naked mole rats can survive without oxygen longer than any other mammal.
Vigorous exercise helps monkeys avoid symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
The sound of a newborn baby’s cry depends on the language its parents spoke while it was in the womb.
Researchers discover how to reverse the cognitive effects of sleep deprivation in mice.
Scientists have successfully transmitted information from one brain to another.
Scientists can reconstruct what a person has seen by analyzing brain scans.
Reading disturbing, surrealistic stories may make you smarter than reading stories with straightforward plots.
Using torture to extract information from suspects may have the opposite of the intended effect.
Our two nostrils may constantly take turns sending different information to our brain.
The placebo effect only works for certain people – could this be genetic?
Some people hear sounds when they see something move.
People perceive tools as extensions of their own bodies.
Caffeine may stave off and even reverse the underlying cause of Alzheimer’s disease.
A listener asks: What are your eyes and brain doing when you stare into space?
Researchers discover that narcolepsy is an auto-immune disease that attacks the brain.
Brainwaves can signal when your attention is wandering, making some mistakes more likely.
Parkinson’s disease and addiction overlap in surprising ways.
Professional impressionists use different parts of their brains than amateurs when impersonating famous people.
Different parts of the brain fall asleep before others.
Trained musicians use both sides of their brains more effectively than non-musicians.
Mental illness alters brainwaves during neural processing.
When we hallucinate, what we see may actually be the architecture of our own brains.
Mice lacking a single receptor in the brain don’t become dependent on cocaine.
Even at exposures well below federal safety standards, lead can lower IQ.
Researchers have developed a new way for children once left behind by their peers to explore the world around them.
Although equivalent in many intellectual tasks, human toddlers are much better than apes in social thinking.
Listening to our favorite music activates the same region of the brain that is involved in drug addiction.
Scientists look to the brain to find out why some people respond better to the placebo effect than others.
Brain damage sometimes has a suprisingly positive effect on artists’ work.
There’s much more to excelling in school than just having a high IQ.
A simple sniff test may help doctors pick up the scent of debilitating brain diseases.
Some patients with amnesia not only can’t remember the past, but they can’t imagine the future.
Whales share a specialized type of brain cell with us.
Thinking about money can encourage both self-reliance and self-centeredness.
A listener asks: Why do I get a headache if I go without coffee?
A listener asks: Why don’t we remember our dreams?
There’s a lot of talk about an autism epidemic these days. But what if autism isn’t a disease at all?
Almost everyone’s had deja vu: the feeling that you’ve experienced something before, even though you haven’t. But what if the feeling never let up?
People with anorexia and other eating disorders can become dangerously thin but still feel overweight. New research may point to a cause.
A difference in the brains of pathological liars may be the cause of their strange behavior.
One listener asks: What do two very different drugs have in common?
Copyright © 2013 American Association for the Advancement of Science
All rights reserved.
Read our privacy policy and terms of use.
