Bladder Problems Affect Brain Activity
	If you have a bladder disorder, you're also likely to have unusual brain activity, say the results of an experiment involving rats with overactive bladders. And if this is true for rats, then humans with this disorder could also suffer significant changes in the activity of the brain, which could help explain some of the other problems accompanied by aging, such as disrupted sleep, attention problems and confusion. " ... [read more >>]
	24 July 2008, 03:26GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Seeing Our Limbs During an Activity Makes Us Slower, Alters Perception
	If you want to inspect an object thoroughly, hold it in your hands – that should keep you occupied for a while. Psychologists at the Washington University who have recently showed that an object within the grasp of our hands is much closer investigated than an object in the distance, affecting our perception and the speed of reaction. The discovery brings new insight on how our brain functions and could help in the future rehabilitation of ... [read more >>]
	14 July 2008, 06:28GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Our Brain Will Evolve in the Future
	The brain's ability to make fast decisions in threatening situations may sometimes literally make the difference between life and death. In our more primitive past this would have translated into fast decisions destined to help us escape from the claws of a predator; the situation is analogue even today, even if the nature of the threat might have changed in time. Most researchers believe that the brain of mammals contain ... [read more >>]
	09 July 2008, 06:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

MindHabits for Mac Boosts Your Confidence
	Based on more than a decade of research and findings by Dr. Mark Baldwin of esteemed McGill University in Montreal, MindHabits is a new game for Mac which presents simple but fun challenges for maintaining a more positive state of mind. Tests run by Dr. Baldwin showed obvious positive results for the subjects. Those results included reduced stress, boosted self-confidence, reduced exam anxiety, improved work performance and even a bette ... [read more >>]
	03 July 2008, 06:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Certain Foods May Actually Make You Smarter
	Most people would eat almost anything today, as long as it tastes good and it fills up their bellies, regardless of how healthy it is, the nutritional values or the bunch of chemicals they swallow up. No wonder that the US is currently facing a serious obesity epidemic – people suddenly forgot that food has a nutritional role only and is not meant to increase the body mass index. And why get fat in the first place, when you can stay thin a ... [read more >>]
	03 July 2008, 04:59GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Brain Can Fight Cancers
	The fact that a patient’s mood can affect the way cancer tumors evolve in time is far from being a myth anymore, it’s a certified fact. Scientific studies showed more than once that patients with an overall calm attitude towards the disease they are fighting have a better chance of decreasing the rate the cancer tumor grows at, probably due to the release of a 'feel good' hormone in the brain, beta-endorphin peptide, associated w ... [read more >>]
	11 June 2008, 05:13GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A Bigger Brain Doesn't Always Make You Smarter
	ENIAC versus a modern digital computer – which one is faster? Well, ENIAC weighed about 27 tons and filled several rooms while a modern computer weighs less than ten kilograms and you can fill a single room with several hundreds of them, so if we were to judge the computing power according to size then ENIAC would certainly win. However, the fact of the mater is that ENIAC had a computing power several times lower than that of a typical po ... [read more >>]
	09 June 2008, 05:23GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Eating Helps Us Make Good Decisions
	If you were among those who thought eating was only designed for the pleasure (or on the contrary, the extreme distress) of our digestive tract and our figures, think again – as a recent study has come up with a rather surprising conclusion. Eating, say scientists from the Cambridge University in Britain, can be the key to making good decisions. Which means that there may be some truth after all in the whole string of clichés ... [read more >>]
	06 June 2008, 07:07GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Excessive Cannabis Users Risk Partial Brain Shrinking
	The parts of the brain affected by long-term, heavy cannabis use are those where memory and the regulation of emotion functions reside. High resolution magnetic resonance imaging of the brain of 15 men who have been smoking at least five joints per day for periods of time at least 10 years long compared to that of people who haven't been consuming any drugs show that the hippocampus region of the brain of cannabis users has ... [read more >>]
	03 June 2008, 08:35GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Chambered Nautilus Has a Simple Memory
	As opposed to other cephalopods, the Chambered Nautilus has a relatively small brain and according to a new experiment it may have a simple memory as well, just enough to remember a particular event that took place several hours back, such as a flash of light that is associated with food. "We were quite surprised to see memory at all. Because their brain is so simple and because it lacks the dedicated learning regions of octopus an ... [read more >>]
	02 June 2008, 11:17GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Researcher Finds Explanation for Optical Illusions
	The human brain only makes sense of the images we are seeing about one-tenth of a second after light hits the retina, meaning that in fact our visual system is somehow impaired by neural lag, for which the brain must compensate. How this is done is still under debate, with some scientists proposing that the motor system could be able to compensate by offsetting the delay. The same lag could be what makes our brain perceive certain images a ... [read more >>]
	02 June 2008, 10:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Criminality Linked to Infantile Lead Exposure
	A new study investigating the relation between lead exposure during childhood and later antisocial behavior showed that lead contamination can be used to predict whether or not an individual will get in trouble with the law during adulthood. The investigation was led by Kim Dietrich from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine who had collected blood samples from 250 pregnant women living in the lead contaminated areas of Cincinna ... [read more >>]
	28 May 2008, 06:24GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Causes of Sleepwalking
	Getting no sleep can be the main reason of one’s zombie-like behavior, meaning, for sleepwalking. "Sleepwalkers should keep a regular bedtime to avoid unwanted evening strolls," said Antonio Zadra of the Université de Montréal, lead researcher of a study published in the Annals of Neurology journal, a study that connected sleep loss and sleepwalking in predisposed individuals. Sleepwalking or somnambulism is experienced by 4% ... [read more >>]
	12 May 2008, 14:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Anorexia Boosts the Risk of Suicide
	Anorexia is not necessarily an issue exclusively connected to food ingestion. More than an eating disease, it is a mental problem. A new research published in the Psychosomatic Medicine medical journal connects anorexia nervosa with an increased risk of suicide. "Suicidal ideas and behaviors by anyone with anorexia nervosa should not be overlooked as something that will just pass. Suicidal gestures should be considered v ... [read more >>]
	09 May 2008, 10:26GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Russia Builds Mind-Controlled Computer
	Russian researchers with the Southern Federal University are working on a mind-control headset that would allow human users to interact with their computers using the power of thought. The project secured $750,000 in funds and will unfold in an 18-month timeframe. The research is conducted by a team of Rostov engineers and their mates in Taganrog and Saint Petersburg and aims at delivering a fully-functional device that will change comp ... [read more >>]
	08 May 2008, 05:01GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Abuse Causes a Suicidal Switch in Brain Gene Activity
	An abused child does not have only an impaired behavior, but also a structurally different brain. That happens because early child abuse appears to permanently change gene expression in the brain, as pointed by a postmortem investigation of suicide victims, recently published in the Nature Neuroscience journal. It is clear that we are the result of gene interaction and of the environment. External factors may determine which ... [read more >>]
	08 May 2008, 03:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Mercury Contamination and Autism
	For decades, mercury pollution has been linked to many diseases. This heavy metal is known to attack the nervous system. With all that, a new study published in the Health & Place journal connects industrial mercury pollution to higher risk of autism and, for the first time ever, reveals a link between autism risk and the physical distance from a mercury source. "This is not a definitive study, but just one more that furthers[A ... [read more >>]
	08 May 2008, 02:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Brain and Short Legs
	Being called "shorty" is hard to stand as it is. But this is probably the least of concerns: people with shorter arms and legs are more prone to Alzheimer's disease, probably because of a low quality of nutrition in childhood, as revealed by a new study published in the Neurology journal. "Arm span and knee height are indicators for how well nourished a person was in early childhood. All those factors that ... [read more >>]
	07 May 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The "Hunger Hormone" Makes You Perceive Food as More Delicious
	This gut-released hormone has already been called "the hunger hormone" but what we must know about it is that ghrelin not only increases appetite, it also makes you perceive food as more appealing, as signaled by a new research published in the Cell Metabolism journal. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brain revealed that ghrelin shots made reward centers react in a more pronounced manner to food images. Hunger ... [read more >>]
	07 May 2008, 03:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Breastfeeding Boosts the Child's Intelligence
	Currently, in many western countries, less than 1% of women breastfeed continuously for the first six months of the baby's life. In the UK, the category most prone to breastfeeding was found to be formed of well educated, professional women, older than 30 and mothers for the first time. The fear of ending up with saggy breasts (although recent researches have come to infirm this theory), commodity, lack of time and other factors have ... [read more >>]
	06 May 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Night Club Hallucinogen, the Best Drug Against Depression
	Modern life and the rapid pace at which it evolves have created many unadapted individuals. At the moment, over 121 million people worldwide experience severe depression, which is also the main cause of suicide. Annually, more people commit suicide than are killed in wars, terrorist attacks and homicides. Worldwide, suicide levels have boomed by 60 % since WW II, reaching about 28 male and 7 female suicides per 100 000 people; even more, t ... [read more >>]
	06 May 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Brain Training Comes to PCs
	The Nintendo DS handheld console was and will probably be the system where brain training games feel at home. However, this doesn't mean it will be holding a monopoly for long, especially since this kind of games manage to bring in the big bucks. Recently, the Xbox 360< ... [read more >>]
	06 May 2008, 02:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Why Drunk People Show No Fear
	It is clear that alcohol consumption can turn a gentleman into a rude beast. For the first time, a new research study published in The Journal of Neuroscience explains why. Social drinkers intoxicated with alcohol have lowered sensitivity in brain nuclei controlling threat detection, while displaying higher activity in brain nuclei connected to reward. "The key finding of this study is that after alcohol exposure, threa ... [read more >>]
	30 April 2008, 10:44GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Limit of the Human Mind
	Few people are in any way like Napoleon and that happens because on average our conscious mind, based on working memory, can juggle with a maximum of 3 to 4 items at a time, informs the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal. Working memory is a temporary storage place for information, the data that ... [read more >>]
	30 April 2008, 04:37GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Power and Profit Wire in Our Brains
	Why does money make one feel powerful? The answer to this question can be found in that profit and power have the same brain nucleus: the striatum, that is already associated with reward. These are the results of brain-scanning researches, published in the journal Neuron, for the first time looking for a connection model between reward and reputation. "This provides the biological basis of our everyday experience, that personal[ADM ... [read more >>]
	29 April 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Bigger Brain Means Longer Life
	It seems that a big brain does not mean only higher intelligence, but also a longer life, according to a new research published in the Journal of Human Evolution. The largest brain of a terrestrial animal is that of the elephant, weighing 10.5 pounds (4.78 kg). And the elephants are known to live up to 60 and more. Still, the brain of the elephant makes up for less than 0.1% of its body weight. Human brain has an average weight o ... [read more >>]
	22 April 2008, 16:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Teens Get Hooked on Cocaine Easier and for Longer Periods of Time
	Teens may become hooked on cocaine and, once rehabilitated, relapse more rapidly than adults because their developing brains are more sensitive to drug-related cues. At least in the case of rats, this holds true. A new study carried out at McLean Hospital, the largest psychiatric facility at Harvard Medical School, and published in Behavioral Neuroscience found that adolescent rodents which received cocaine were more likely to linger in th ... [read more >>]
	22 April 2008, 05:24GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Prozac Rejuvenates the Brain
	This drug is better known as an antidepressant. But Prozac has been found by a new study published in the journal Science to restore old brain cells to a more plastic youthful stage. "The work raises the distant prospect that it could be used to treat other conditions caused by malfunction of brain cells. One of them is amblyopia, the 'lazy eye' condition in which one eye is weaker than the other, because it wa ... [read more >>]
	21 April 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Top 10 Brains
	1. The largest brain belongs to the sperm whale: 7 kg (17.5 kg). The blue whale, the largest animal on the planet, being twice longer and thrice heavier, has a brain weighing 5 kg (12.5 pounds). 2. Human brain has an average weight of 2.7 pounds (1.2 kg), variations between 1.1 and 1.4 kg being considered normal. Our brain represents 2% of our weight, the largest brain in the animal world compared to the body size. 3. The ... [read more >>]
	21 April 2008, 10:12GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Unisex Brain
	There is a large array of recent researchers unveiling the differences between the male and female brain. A new research published in the journal Cell shows the opposite, that the two genders have a largely unisex brain. The researchers managed to trigger artificially the neurons controlling singing, a male only activity, made female flies play their serenades, too. " You might expect that the brains of the two sexes wou ... [read more >>]
	19 April 2008, 04:26GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Mysterious Nerve Disease Caused by Pigs
	We know that pork is not very healthy, but pig brain proves harmful in a very unexpected way. 18 pork plant workers in Minnesota, 5 in Indiana and 1 in Nebraska have been detected so far with a mysterious neurological disease got while removing brains from slaughtered pigs, as signaled at the American Academy of Neurology meeting in Chicago. The condition appears to be totally new, provoking from inflammation of the spinal cord t ... [read more >>]
	18 April 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Belly Fat Produces Powerful Hunger Hormone
	Bad news. Having a big belly seems to mean that you'll have an even bigger one. A new research published in the FASEB Journal and carried out by a team led by Dr. Kaiping Yang at the Lawson Health Research Institute affiliated with the University of Western Ontario shows that abdominal fat tissue synthesizes a hormone that stimulates fat cell production and hunger: Neuropeptide Y (NPY), previously believed to be synthesized only in th ... [read more >>]
	17 April 2008, 03:38GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Future Language Issues Can be Detected even in 3-Month Old Infants
	You don't have to wait for the age of speech learning. A team led by Professor of Neuroscience April Benasich, at Infancy Studies Laboratory at Rutgers University in Newark, found just how the brains of 3-month old infants differentiate sounds signal language issues. The methods developed by this team can assess as early as 3 to 6 months if a baby will face language problems. A main role is played by the developing brain, ... [read more >>]
	16 April 2008, 04:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Brain of Your Child on Cocaine, Alcohol and Tobacco
	It's clear that exposing an unborn child to drugs, alcohol and tobacco affects its brain development. This is supported by too many researches. In these cases, mothers don't limit themselves to one substance, and other factors like poverty can affect brain development as well. A new research published in the journal "Pediatrics", and carried out by a team led by Children's Hospital Boston neurologist D ... [read more >>]
	14 April 2008, 03:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Wine Saves the Brain
	Beer or wine? A new Swedish research carried out at the Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg and published in BJS bets on the wine. Started in 1968 and made on 1,458 women, the survey revealed this alcoholic beverage protects against dementia. At the beginning of the study, the subjects rated how much wine, beer and liquor they drank on a seven-step scale from ‘never’ to ‘daily.’ If the subject said she had been dri ... [read more >>]
	11 April 2008, 05:01GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Marijuana + Alcoohol = Massive Brain Cell Death
	Marijuana is by far the most common illicit drug in the western world. However, pregnant women should be aware that this drug could affect severely the brain development of the children in their wombs. THC, the main active chemical of marijuana, enters into the fetal blood causing intrauterine growth retardation and a temporary syndrome comprising lethargy and lowered muscle tone, but also, on long term, attention deficits, learn ... [read more >>]
	09 April 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Reading in Chinese or English Involves Different Brain Parts
	Imagine a person having a stroke. How will the stroke affect that person’s reading skills? Well, this depends on the mother tongue. For example, Chinese-speakers and English-speakers process reading differently, thus they appear to have reading impairments connected to different brain nuclei. A new research published in the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" and focused on dyslexia has come with cruci ... [read more >>]
	09 April 2008, 04:54GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Sex Boosts Gambling Behavior
	This is the recipe used by most commercials: put a hot babe near the product, everything from cars to pencils, and the men will buy it. Is it that easy? Partially yes, as revealed by a new Stanford study published in the journal "NeuroReport." Men may react like this in case of positive stimuli, especially if they are pressured. "In the immediate aftermath of that stimulation, men are consistently more likely to take bigg ... [read more >>]
	04 April 2008, 15:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Left Brain and Right Brain Are Clearly Distinct
	Some people really have a problem with telling rapidly which is right and which is left (researches proved that women more than men), but your brain doesn’t. Your left brain and right brain are quite different. The right brain hemisphere is linked mostly to emotional functions and music feeling, whil ... [read more >>]
	04 April 2008, 04:20GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Alcohol Controls Brain DNA Activity
	Alcohol acts like a drug when alcoholism is installed. Alcohol withdrawal symptoms, like anxiety, represent a reality. A new research carried out at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, and published in the "Journal of Neuroscience," has found the reason behind this: the gene expression in the brain cells is impacted. DNA activity is modified by "epigenetic" modifications, min ... [read more >>]
	03 April 2008, 05:02GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Humans Have Keener Hearing than Most Mammals
	Many terrestrial and aquatic species can hear lower and higher frequencies than those detected by humans (infrasound, respectively ultrasounds). Frequency is crucial in defining a sound. Now, an Israeli team sustained by UCLA researchers has showed for the first time, in a research published in the journal "Nature," how just one neuron can enable us to make finer differences in frequencies than animals. The researche ... [read more >>]
	02 April 2008, 03:32GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Mystery Solved: How Anesthetics Work
	This is a great mystery that has been finally solved: how do most anesthetics work. And it started with almost the only anesthetic our grandparents could name, the chloroform, which has been used for over 150 years. The discovery was made by accident by Leeds University Dr. Yahya Bahnasi. "We take general anesthesia for granted nowadays, but it’s still true to say that we don’t know exactly how it works on a molecular lev ... [read more >>]
	02 April 2008, 02:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Madness Can Change the Sex
	If men and women differ behaviorally, this has an anatomical base. More specifically: the brain of the man differs from that of the woman. The differences are slight, but the impact is great. This explains why men have higher ability to visualize objects in three dimensions or read maps, labyrinths a ... [read more >>]
	01 April 2008, 15:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A Classification of the Memory Types
	Humans have been preoccupied to store and process information for a very long time. It allows humans to use the experience of the past generations and that of the others. The memory of each person defines him/her. Losing memory is like losing past and future, living in a continual present. Brain researches sh ... [read more >>]
	29 March 2008, 07:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How You Can Pick Up at a Noisy Party
	In the middle of a crowded party, you approach and manage to talk with your preferred "target", with all the thundering background noise. This has been a mystery: how can we ignore background noise to focus just on the voice of our interlocutor. It has been believed that the brain differentiates sound sources by assessing where they come from. But we can still do this even when the position of the speaker in relati ... [read more >>]
	28 March 2008, 06:34GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A Big Belly Destroys Your Brain
	Overweight and obesity at middle age can cause more health problems than metabolic syndrome, the array of conditions like atherosclerosis, heart diseases, diabetes and high cholesterol, which in many cases lead to death. A new research published in the journal "Neurology" has connected the fact of having a large belly in midlife with a tripled risk of developing dementia. "Considering that 50% of adults in this country h ... [read more >>]
	27 March 2008, 15:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Brain Secret of Human Speech Has Been Found
	The complex human speech is one of the most important traits that differentiate us from animals. It relies on our large brains, however it is not a question of size but of brain wiring, as showed by a new research published in "Nature Neuroscience." Since the 19th century, the Broca nucleus in the frontal cortex and Wernicke nucleus in the temporal cortex have been connected to language. The first area has an important role [ ... [read more >>]
	27 March 2008, 06:14GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Stress Shrinks the Brain
	Well, racking your brains does have its consequences. Stress is a big enemy of the brain, as showed by a new research published in the journal of Biological Psychiatry. Military combat implies the experience of an extreme stress, and many ex-soldiers involved in fights are diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The new research linked this condition to several abnormalities in brain structure and function. "Although ... [read more >>]
	20 March 2008, 04:09GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Over 20% of the Women and 13% of the Men Will Get Demented
	They call you "old man" 'cause you cannot even remember where you left your keys or what you ate in the morning. The others may be right. The leading cause of senile dementia is Alzheimer’s disease. A new research published in "2008 Alzheimer’s Disease: Facts and Figures," and carried out by a team from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), has found that 16% of the women are at risk for developing ... [read more >>]
	19 March 2008, 04:26GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Umbilical Cord Can Regenerate Your Brain
	The umbilical cord can make more than the belly button: it regenerates your brain. Human umbilical cord blood cells (UCBC) injected into old lab rats caused an improvement in the microenvironment of the hippocampus nucleus of the brain, accompanied by a rejuvenation of neural stem cells. The study carried out at the University of South Florida (USF) was published online at BMC Neuroscience. "Brain cell neurogenesis decreases drama ... [read more >>]
	17 March 2008, 05:14GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia