Connectdome? How's Yours?

Doing well, I hope. Connected highways of nerve cells carry information to and from different areas of the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Scientists at Scripps Researchy Institute are trying to draw a complete atlas of these connections (connectome) to gain a better understanding of how the brain functions in health and disease. Multiple studies have shown that brain activity helps new connections to form. It turns out that brain activity is needed for selecting which synapses should be eliminated, as well. The findings have implications for conditions in which these mechanisms may have gone awry (e.g., autism, schizophrenia, and perhaps Alzheimer's). Almost daily another piece of research confirms how critically important it is for you to keep your brain challenged, stimulated, and active! (http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-brain_1.html)
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Blood Test for Alzheimer's?

This may be promising! Chemist Thomas Kodadek of The Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida, along with colleagues, may have figured out a way to use peptide molecules in human blood (that stimulate the Immune System to create antibodies)to identify, and perhaps even predict, the presence of Alzheimer's disease. In six people with Alzheimer's disease, the researchers (using 15,000 peptoids) picked up two antibodies found at high levels. "The antibodies were also abundant in the blood from an additional 16 Alzheimer's patients. But these proteins were uncommon in the blood of a handful of people with Parkinson's disease or lupus. The antibodies were also prevalent in two of the 16 healthy controls. Their presence could suggest that the biomarkers aren't specific to Alzheimer's disease. Or it could suggest that these two women (a 75-year-old and a 65-year-old) have early Alzheimer's disease. The researchers favor the latter hypothesis. Their report is in the 7 January issue of Cell, 2011.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/01/is-alzheimers-disease-written-in.html?etoc

http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674%2810%2901376-0

How large is your Amygdala?

A new MRI study has shown that the volume of the amygdalae (two tiny organs located in the Brain's limbic area) correlated positively with the size and complexity of social networks in adult humans. The findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, are similar to previous findings in other primate species. This link between amygdala size and social network size and complexity was observed for both older and younger individuals and for both men and women and was specific to the amygdala (e.g., social network size and complexity were not associated with the size of other brain structures. According to Lisa Feldman Barrett PhD, of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, researchers are also trying to understand how abnormalities in the amygdala may impair social behavior in neurologic and psychiatric disorders. Fascinating! You may want to consider expanding your social network this year to "grow your amygdalae."

http://www.northeastern.edu/news/stories/2011/01/social_brain.html
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-12/mgh-sdw122210.php

Before You See It . . .

According to new research done at Duke University, neurons in the brain predict and edit what you see before you see it. And the brain's visual circuits perform "error correction" on the fly. The fMRI study results have led to a new picture of human vision (labeled predictive coding) and challenge the currently held model of sight. The study could change the way in which neuroscientists study the brain. It seems that vision is more complex than scientists previously believed. Apparently, the current picture of human vision (called feature detection) is incomplete. The new data show the brain predicts what it will see and edits those predictions in a top-down mechanism.

http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2010/12/egner_vision.html

And Prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia (sometimes known as face blindness) is a condition that involves an impairment in the ability to recognize faces (e.g., severe difficulty recognizing faces). The ability to recognize other objects may be relatively intact. The term originally referred to a condition following acute damage to the brain. Recently, however, a congenital form of the disorder has been proposed, which may be inherited by about 2.5% of the population. The specific brain area usually associated with prosopagnosia is the gusiform gyrus. (Grüter T, Grüter M, Carbon CC (2008). "Neural and genetic foundations of face recognition and prosopagnosia". J Neuropsychol 2 (1): 79–97. doi:10.1348/174866407X231001. PMID 19334306.)

Brain, Memory, and Rest

A new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience by researchers at the University of York and Harvard Medical School: Rest is vitally important for memory and cognitive functions. Your brain is working for you when you're resting during sleep as well as resting while awake. New memories are only really useful if you can connect them to information you already know. This study identified brain activity called Sleep Spindles: brief but intense bursts of brain activity that reflect information transfer between different memory stores in the brain (the hippocampus deep in the brain and the neocortex on the surface of the brain) that apparently help to organize new memories and makes those vital connections with existing knowledge. In another related study, researchers at New York University confirmed that your memories are strengthened during periods of rest even while you are awake. Is your brain getting enough rest?

http://www.physorg.com/news183819123.html
http://www.kurzweilai.net/learning-in-your-sleep?utm_source=KurzweilAI+Weekly+Newsletter&utm_campaign=f3249d039a-UA-946742-1&utm_medium=email

Tarantula and Brain-Based Fear

A recent article published in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" reports on a study by Dean Mobbs of the Medical Research Council-Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge, United Kingdom. A study participant in a brain scanner (fMRI) watched a Brazilian salmon pink tarantula that appeared to be getting close to the participant's foot (the participant was only viewing pictures of the spider and there was, in fact, no spider anywhere near). Pre-frontal brain regions were activated when the participant thought the spider was further away; limbic emotional layer brain regions were activated when the participant thought the spider was getting closer. (Incidentally, this goes along with my perception of the process of "downshifting.") Researchers also concluded that when human beings have an expectation that something's going to be scary, they tend to prepare themselves for it. Eventually, these types of studies may provide information about how to deal more effectively with phobias (that appear to be associated with the limbic-emotional brain layer).

http://news.discovery.com/human/tarantulas-brain-fear.html