A French team coordinated by Mathias Pessiglione, Inserm researcher have identified the part of the brain driving motivation during actions that combine physical and mental effort: the ventral striatum. The results of their study were published in PLoS Biology on 21 February 2012.
General
Neuroscientists identify how the brain works to select what we (want to) see
If you are looking for a particular object say a yellow pencil on a cluttered desk, how does your brain work to visually locate it?
Chess masters help researchers understand how we see the world
(Medical Xpress) — Just as expert chess players scrutinize a board to calculate their next moves, UT Dallas cognitive neuroscientists are studying the way these players brains work to better understand how visual information is processed.
How fast you walk and your grip in middle age may predict dementia, stroke risk
Simple tests such as walking speed and hand grip strength may help doctors determine how likely it is a middle-aged person will develop dementia or stroke. That’s according to new research that was released today and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans April 21 to April 28, 2012.
Challenges of identifying cognitive abilities in severely brain-injured patients
Only by employing complex machine-learning techniques to decipher repeated advanced brain scans were researchers at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell able to provide evidence that a patient with a severe brain injury could, in her way, communicate accurately.