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Damn, so when I'm having a really slow response day I should try doing sudoko puzzles or something to get my brain moving faster.

The smarter the person, the faster information zips around the brain, a UCLA study finds. And this ability to think quickly apparently is inherited.

The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, looked at the brains and intelligence of 92 people. All the participants took standard IQ tests. Then the researchers studied their brains using a technique called diffusion tensor imaging, or DTI.

DTI is a variant of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that can measure the structural integrity of the brain's white matter, which is made up of cells that carry nerve impulses from one part of the brain to another. The greater the structural integrity, the faster nerve impulses travel.

"These images really give you a picture of the mental speed of the brain," says Paul Thompson, Ph.D., a professor of neurology at UCLA School of Medicine.

Haier says the good news is that we're not necessarily stuck with the brain, or the brain speed, we inherit. He says thinking is like running or weightlifting. It helps to have certain genes. But anyone can get stronger or faster by working out.

The brain is like a muscle, Haier says: "The more you work it the more efficient it gets."

So people who practice the violin, or do math problems, or learn a foreign language are constantly strengthening certain pathways in their brains.

And Thompson notes that our brains, unlike our bodies, peak relatively late in life.

"The wires between the brain cells, the connections, are the things that you can modify throughout life," he says. "They change and they improve through your 40s and 50s and 60s."

Woohoo!

Labels: brain, intellect, neurology

I knew this would happen in the future and I'm so glad it was sooner rather than later. All the reading I have done on the brain's amygdala has made it clear to me it plays a huge role in your body's immune system and neurological behavior, but of course I have no proof of means of finding proof.

For the first time, scientists at Children's National Medical Center have successfully identified a key developmental program for the amygdala - the part of the limbic system that impacts how the brain creates emotional memories and responses.

Using studies of embryonic mice, Corbin and his team located two specific pools of precursor cells marked by the transcription factor Dbx1 that migrate from both the ventral pallium and the preoptic area-a previously undiscovered pool of migratory cells-to create the requisite mix of excitatory and inhibitory neurons that ultimately comprise the amygdala. Remarkably, the preoptic area precursor cells are exclusive contributors to the development of the limbic system, and no other portion of the brain.

"Altered function of the amygdala is a hallmark characteristic of disorders such as autism," said Dr. Corbin. "A more clear understanding of the normal development of this important brain structure provides a roadmap to understand the consequences of altered brain development in neurodevelopmental disorders."

The Dbx1-positive, POA-derived population migrated specifically to the amygdala and, as defined by both immunochemical and electrophysiological criteria, generated a unique subclass of inhibitory neurons in the medial amygdala nucleus. Thus, this POA-derived population represents a previously unknown progenitor pool dedicated to the limbic system.

I can't wait until they publish the complete research.

SOURCE

To further explain the importance of understanding the amygdala you should know what it is suspected the amygdala controls.

"Compared with young adults, older adults had greater functional connectivity between the right amygdala and bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, a possible reflection of increased emotional regulation of negative pictures, but decreased functional connectivity between the amygdala and typical subsequent-memory regions such as the hippocampus, a possible reflection of decreased modulation by the amygdala and decreased memory retrieval for negative pictures."

A new study appearing online January 2, 2009 reports that high levels of brain activity in an emotional center called the amygdala reflect patients' hypersensitivity to anticipation of adverse events. At the same time, high activity in a regulatory region known as the anterior cingulate cortex is associated with a positive clinical response to a common antidepressant medication.

The study will appear in an upcoming issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Labels: amygdala, brain, children, Immune System, neurology

Researchers at UC-Berkeley have found that kids from low-income backgrounds demonstrate "a noticeably lower level of activity in the prefrontal cortext, the part of the brain that is important for creativity and problem solving."

From study co-author Robert Knight:

"Kids from lower socioeconomic levels show brain physiology patterns similar to someone who actually had damage in the frontal lobe as an adult.

"We found that kids are more likely to have a low response if they have low socioeconomic status, though not everyone who is poor has low frontal lobe response."

I'd like to know what other similarities these children have, because I just cannot believe this is the only correlation. Could it just be a coincidence, is it because these children haven't been stimulated as much? It's all interesting to me, but at the same time I find it hard to believe that "status" could cause such a difference in brain function.

The frontal lobes are considered our emotional control center and home to our personality. So does this mean children who come from a low-income home have trouble with their emotions? Maybe because their parents are stressed about finances or their parents aren't around much because they are out trying to make ends meet?

So why doesn't the study say anything about the impact of parental involvement or lack thereof? One of the most common characteristics of frontal lobe damage is difficulty in interpreting feedback from the environment. So would this mean with proper behavioral therapy or stimulation that they would be able to learn how to better interpret things? It just seems like something is missing from this research. That's just me though. =o)

Labels: brain, status

Do you know someone who has been diagnosed with psychiatric condition called borderline personality disorder (BPD)?

People who suffer from BPD show erratic mood-swings and find it difficult to trust and understand the motives of others. As a result, they suffer from fraught personal relationships with friends, colleagues and partners.

Brooks King-Casas at Baylor College of Medicine has researched possible activity in the brain that might reflect BPD behavioural tics. Specifically, he searched for areas which respond differently in healthy and BPD brains, in response to the size of the investors' investment. He found one - the anterior insula.

The insula has increasingly become the focus of attention for its role in body representation and subjective emotional experience. Functionally speaking, the insula is believed to process convergent information to produce an emotionally relevant context for sensory experience.

Other psychological studies have suggested that this part of the brain plays a role in assessing fairness, and it has a particular propensity for reacting to injustice. In ultimatum games, where one player offers a share of a pot and the other decides whether to take it, the anterior insula is most active when offers are low and when players reject. When people watch someone else being punished, their anterior insula is most active when the parties are punished after apparent fair play, and least active when the person actually cheated.

Regular meditation has been shown to thicken the cortical region of the brain. This region is related to somatosensory, auditory, visual and interoceptive processing. Regular meditation practice may also slow age-related thinning of the frontal cortex. Who knew meditation may be associated with structural changes in areas of the brain that are important for sensory, cognitive and emotional processing?

It is amazing how the brain works isn't it? I always say if we understood our brains better and could somehow work on fine tuning our use of our brain imagine all we could do.

Labels: borderline personality disorder, brain, Emotional, neurology

Cognitive Daily posted a really interesting article on their site this morning.

In 5 experiments, the authors examined the perceptual and cognitive processes used to track the locations of objects during locomotion. Participants learned locations of 9 objects on the outer part of a turntable from a single viewpoint while standing in the middle of the turntable. They subsequently pointed to objects while facing the learning heading and a new heading, using imagined headings that corresponded to their current actual body heading and the other actual heading.

There are times when it's just as easy to imagine an object moving along with us as it is to imagine it staying in the same place as we ourselves moves. Previously, many researchers had assumed that we are simply better at imagining objects staying in the same place, but this study demonstrates that when we truly believe an object is moving along with us, we can track it in our minds just as easily as if it was standing still.

SOURCE

Labels: brain, cognitive daily, memory

As a parent I can tell you I would do anything for my son. We're talking walking on coals, swimming oceans, walking to the ends of the earth and back again DAILY if it were necessary. So while I do not understand the plight of parents fighting for the life of their child, I do understand the love behind it.

Chad Czapor is 17 years old. He is a junior in high school. He has tons of friends and can be found helping out at sporting events whether with coaching or cheering on his brothers.

Recently doctors told him he has a brain tumor. His parents, Stephani and John, are now crusading, along with their community, to raise money for a procedure that could save his life.

Stephani and John are searching endlessly to find a doctor to operate on Chad. It is a delicate operation. They found a surgeon in New York who specializes in this type of brain tumor, but unfortunately, their insurance will not pay for the surgery.

Perhaps the risks are too great, perhaps the insurance fears such an operation would be fruitless. I won't pretend to understand how any person or business can put a price on a life or some how calculate whether or not a patient deserves a chance to fight, but this is our world.

And so, even in a time of struggle when it is hard for anyone to meet ends meet, I am asking you to put some spare cash (or even change) aside and add it to the Czapor Family Fund.

You may not have healing hands or be able to fulfill wishes, but you do have the ability to put a $1 to a cause which could save a human life and that my friends is a priceless and selfless honor.

"You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result." - Mahatma Gandhi

Labels: brain, cancer, funding, insurance

Boston College psychologist, Elizabeth Kensinger did a study on how emotions impact memory. She found negative events being remembered in greater detail than positive ones.

"Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), studies have shown increased cellular activity in emotion-processing regions at the time that a negative event is experienced."

You can read more about the research in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science. But essentially Kensinger says this knowledge of memory/emotion connections can help to prove the validity of eyewitness testimonies in a court of law, amongst other things.

Labels: brain, memory