Category: Brain
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Observe.
A new device enables researchers to observe hundreds of neurons in the brain in real-time. The system is based on modified silicon chips from cameras, but rather than taking a picture, it takes a movie of the neural electrical activity. (1) Once a man tried to observe the cosmos. And he cannot stop ever since.…
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Drawing. Seeing.
Drawing an object and naming it engages the brain in similar ways, according to research recently published in JNeurosci. The finding demonstrates the importance of the visual processing system for producing drawings of an object. In a study by Fan et al., healthy adults performed two tasks while the researchers recorded brain activity using functional…
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Learning new words…
Children may learn new words better when they learn them in the context of other words they are just learning – according to research from the University of East Anglia. Eighty two children took part in the study. In two experiments the team taught them some new words for things they couldn’t name – such…
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Hallucinations…
Hallucinations are spooky and, fortunately, fairly rare. But, a new study suggests, the real question isn’t so much why some people occasionally experience them. It’s why all of us aren’t hallucinating all the time. In the study, Stanford University School of Medicine neuroscientists stimulated nerve cells in the visual cortex of mice to induce an…
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Dreamless dreams…
In a nighttime experiment called the Dream Catcher, people’s dreams slipped right through the net. Looking at only the brain wave activity of sleeping people, scientists weren’t able to reliably spot a dreaming brain. (1) Weird cosmos… No signs of dreams. And yet, we are dreaming. No signs of consciousness. And yet, I am me.…
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