(Medical Xpress) — Regardless of an organism’s biological complexity, every encephalized animal continuously makes under-informed behavioral choices that can have serious consequences. Despite its ubiquity, however, there’s a long-standing question about its neurological basis – namely, whether these choices are made through probabilistic world models constructed by the brain, or by reinforcement of learned associations. Recently, however, scientists in the Department of Psychology at Rutgers University found that reinforcement cannot account for the rapidity with which mice modify their behavior when the chance of a given phenomenon changes. The researchers say this indicates that mice may have primordially-evolved neural capabilities to represent likelihood and perform calculations that optimize their resulting behavior – and therefore that such genetic mechanisms can be investigated and manipulated by genetic and other procedures.
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Persistent sensory experience is good for aging brain
Despite a long-held scientific belief that much of the wiring of the brain is fixed by the time of adolescence, a new study shows that changes in sensory experience can cause massive rewiring of the brain, even as one ages. In addition, the study found that this rewiring involves fibers that supply the primary input to the cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that is responsible for sensory perception, motor control and cognition. These findings promise to open new avenues of research on brain remodeling and aging.
Boundary stops molecule right where it needs to be
A molecule responsible for the proper formation of a key portion of the nervous system finds its way to the proper place not because it is actively recruited, but instead because it can’t go anywhere else.
Locating ground zero: How the brain’s emergency workers find the disaster area
Like emergency workers rushing to a disaster scene, cells called microglia speed to places where the brain has been injured, to contain the damage by ‘eating up’ any cellular debris and dead or dying neurons. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have now discovered exactly how microglia detect the site of injury, thanks to a relay of molecular signals. Their work, published today in Developmental Cell, paves the way for new medical approaches to conditions where microglia’s ability to locate hazardous cells and material within the brain is compromised.
Genetic ‘reset switch’ enables signaling pathway to induce multiple developmental outcomes for olfactory neurons
Within the nervous system, a handful of signaling pathways modulate development of a cornucopia of different neuronal subtypes. Even small alterations in neuron differentiation pathways can disrupt subsequent circuit organization and catalyze the genesis of neurological disorders, explains Adrian Moore of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute in Wako.