(Medical Xpress) — Storytelling is a skill not everyone can master, but even the most crashing bore gets help from their audiences brain which talks over their monotonous quotes, according to scientists.
Month: March 2012
Specialized training of complex motor skills may induce sports-specific structural changes in the human brain
A new study, using brain imaging technology, reveals structural adaptations in short-track speed skaters’ brains which are likely to explain their extraordinary balance and co-ordination skills. The work by Im Joo Rhyu from the Korea University College of Medicine, and colleagues, is published online in Springer’s journal Cerebellum.
The innate ability to learn language
All human languages contain two levels of structure, said Iris Berent, a psychology professor in Northeasterns College of Science. One is syntax, or the ordering of words in a sentence. The other is phonology, or the sound structure of individual words.
Increased production of neurons in hypothalamus found in mice fed high fat diets
(Medical Xpress) — A research team made up of people from a wide variety of biological sciences has found that mice fed a diet high in fat tend to see an increase in the number of neurons created in the hypothalamus, a region of the brain associated with regulating energy use in the body. The team, as they describe in their paper published in Nature Neuroscience, write that the increase in neurons occurs in a part of the hypothalamus called the median eminence, which lies outside the blood-brain barrier.
Neuroscience and the pursuit of justice
Dr. Judith Edersheim, co-founder and co-director of the Center for Law, Brain and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital, explores how neuroscience can enhance the pursuit of justice.