It’s not solitaire: Brain activity differs when one plays against others

Researchers have found a way to study how our brains assess the behavior – and likely future actions – of others during competitive social interactions. Their study, described in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to use a computational approach to tease out differing patterns of brain activity during these interactions, the researchers report.

Research team takes new approach to studying differences between human and monkey brains

(Medical Xpress) — In order to provide more insight into how human and monkey brains are similar and how they’re different, a research team has taken a different approach to studying both to find out which parts of the brains of each respond in similar ways, and which, if any, differ, when exposed to a shared experience. In this case, the team, as they describe in their paper published in Nature Methods, describe how they exposed groups of humans and monkeys to the same section of a Hollywood movie, while monitoring them via fMRI and found some brain areas responded in both groups as expected, while others were a complete surprise.

Why two new studies represent important breakthrough in Alzheimer’s disease research

Two different research groups have independently made the same important discoveries on how Alzheimer’s disease spreads in the brain. The groups’ findings have the potential to give us a much more sophisticated understanding of what goes wrong in Alzheimer’s disease and, more importantly, what can be done to prevent or repair damage in the brain.