Tag: brain

Junk food is tricking your brain: The depressing science behind your binging

Eating for the sake of pleasure, rather than survival, is nothing new. But only in the past several years have researchers come to understand deeply how certain foods—particularly fats and sweets—actually change brain chemistry in a way that drives some people to overconsume.

Scientists have a relatively new name for such cravings: hedonic hunger, a powerful desire for food in the absence of any need for it; the yearning we experience when our stomach is full but our brain is still ravenous. And a growing number of experts now argue that hedonic hunger is one of the primary contributors to surging obesity rates in developed countries worldwide, particularly in the U.S., where scrumptious desserts and mouthwatering junk foods are cheap and plentiful.

Salon

The Man Who Tried to Redeem the World with Logic

Walter Pitts was used to being bullied. He’d been born into a tough family in Prohibition-era Detroit, where his father, a boiler-maker, had no trouble raising his fists to get his way. The neighborhood boys weren’t much better. One afternoon in 1935, they chased him through the streets until he ducked into the local library to hide. The library was familiar ground, where he had taught himself Greek, Latin, logic, and mathematics—better than home, where his father insisted he drop out of school and go to work. Outside, the world was messy. Inside, it all made sense.

Nautil.us

Harvard MRI Study Proves Meditation Literally Rebuilds Brain’s Gray Matter In 8 Weeks

A study conducted by a Harvard affiliated team out of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) came across surprising conclusions regarding the tangible effects of meditation on human brain structure. An 8 week program of mindfulness meditation produced MRI scans for the first time showing clear evidence that meditation produces “massive changes” in brain gray matter.

TimeWheel.net

“Missing Link” Discovered In Brain

“Throw out the textbooks” and “missing link” are words rarely heard anymore in science, but that’s what researchers around the world are saying about the recent discovery of microscopic lymphatic vessels connecting the brain to the immune system.

That physical link was long thought absent, confounding scientists who study neurological disorders with an immune component. The vessels were found in mice, by accident, by University of Virginia researchers who published their results in Nature. If confirmed in humans, experts say, the discovery could have profound implications for a range of conditions including chronic fatigue syndrome, autism, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease.

Lymphatic vessels, which piggyback on blood vessels, distribute immune cells to tissues to fight infection and carry fluid away from tissues to dispose of cellular waste. This complex drainage system has been found in nearly every part of the human body but not, until now, in the brain.

Washington Post

Scientists Figure Out How to Retrieve ‘Lost’ Memories

Mice certainly aren’t men, but they can teach us a lot about memories. And in the latest experiments, mice are helping to resolve a long-simmering debate about what happens to “lost” memories. Are they wiped out permanently, or are they still there, but just somehow out of reach?

Researchers in the lab of Susumu Tonegawa at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT conducted a series of studies using the latest light-based brain tracking techniques to show that memories in certain forms of amnesia aren’t erased, but remain intact and potentially retrievable. Their findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, are based on experiments in mice, but they could have real implications for humans, too.

TIME

The cloth cap that could help treat depression

At first glance, the cloth cap produced by Barcelona-based Neuroelectrics looks less like a medical device than a hybrid of the headgear for a Soviet-era cosmonaut and a swimmer in the 1930s. With a network of protruding wires and an electronics pack on the back, the futuristic soft helmet is in fact a tool for electrically stimulating the brain to identify and treat depression and strokes. Soon, the technology could be used by patients at home while doctors monitor them remotely.

Dubbed a “Fitbit for the brain”, in a nod to the fitness monitoring device, the cap can diagnose medical conditions by examining brainwaves – small electronic pulses fired between the human brain’s nerve cells. It then treats the conditions by stimulating the brain with a low electrical current conveyed via a series of electrodes placed around the cap.

The Guardian

This cutting-edge research is a huge step in the war against brain disease

If you don’t understand a problem, chances are you won’t be able to solve it.

That’s a major stumbling block for scientists attempting to develop treatments for brain disorders such as autism, depression, dementia, and more that will affect an estimated 100 million Americans at some point in their lives.

TechInside

How a Human Scream Uniquely Activates the Fear Response in Your Brain

We know human screams are jarring. They’re loud, occasionally shrill, and tend to make us feel stressed, or even fearful. What’s unclear is why they elicit anxiety. But a new study suggests this response may have something to do with the acoustic quality of human screams, and how they trigger the brain’s fear response.

News360