(Medical Xpress) — Cambridge scientists have, for the first time, created cerebral cortex cells those that make up the brains grey matter from a small sample of human skin. The researchers findings, which were funded by Alzheimers Research UK and the Wellcome Trust, were published today in Nature Neuroscience.
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My connectome, myself
The human brain has 100 billion neurons, each of which is connected to many others. Neuroscientists believe these connections hold the key to our memories, personality and even mental disorders such as schizophrenia. By unraveling them, we may be able to learn more about how we become our unique selves, and possibly even how to alter those selves.
Research links ‘brain waves’ to cognition, attention and diagnosing disorders
Professor Jason Mattingley, Foundation Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience at The University of Queensland, released his findings into brain waves’ at the Australian Neuroscience Society’s (ANS) annual conference last week.
Visual working memory not as specialized in the brain as visual encoding, study finds
Researchers have long known that specific parts of the brain activate when people view particular images. For example, a region called the fusiform face area turns on when the eyes glance at faces, and another region called the parahippocampal place area does the same when a person looks at scenes or buildings. However, it’s been unknown whether such specialization also exists for visual working memory, a category of memory that allows the brain to temporarily store and manipulate visual information for immediate tasks. Now, scientists have found evidence that visual working memory follows a more general pattern of brain activity than what researchers have shown with initial visual activity, instead activating a more diffuse area in the front of the brain for all categories of visual stimuli.
Revised criteria could reclassify many with mild Alzheimer dementia
Many patients currently diagnosed with very mild or mild Alzheimer disease dementia could potentially be reclassified as having mild cognitive impairment (MCI) under revised criteria for that condition, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Neurology.