(Medical Xpress) — Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, has added an additional $300 million to the $200 million hes already given to the brain research facility in Seattle he started back in 2003, the Allen Institute for Brain Science. This new grant is to go towards a new initiative for the Institute, outlined by Christof Koch, chief scientist at the Institute and Harvard neuroscientist R. Clay Reid, (who will be joining the Institute) in a recent comment brief in the science journal Nature. The new funding will go towards studying the visual cortex in the brain, starting with mice, and eventually moving to humans.
Month: March 2012
Listen to neurons in your own backyard with the SpikerBox
Amateurs have a new tool for conducting simple neuroscience experiments in their own garage: the SpikerBox.
Brains of frequent dance spectators exhibit motor mirroring while watching familiar dance
Experienced ballet spectators with no physical expertise in ballet showed enhanced muscle-specific motor responses when watching live ballet, according to a Mar. 21 report in the open access journal PLoS ONE.
Memory problems may increase after being hospitalized
A new study suggests that older people may have an increased risk of problems with memory and thinking abilities after being in the hospital, according to research published in the March 21, 2012, online issue of Neurology.
Computer model of spread of dementia can predict future disease patterns years before they occur
Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College have developed a computer program that has tracked the manner in which different forms of dementia spread within a human brain. They say their mathematic model can be used to predict where and approximately when an individual patient’s brain will suffer from the spread, neuron to neuron, of “prion-like” toxic proteins — a process they say underlies all forms of dementia.