Children’s Healthy Diets Lead to Healthier IQ
Children fed healthy diets in early age may have a slightly higher IQ, while those on heavier junk food diets may have a slightly reduced IQ, according to new research.
Making It Easier to Learn to Read: Dyslexia Caused by Signal Processing in the Brain
Major step in understanding the cause of dyslexia is taken. Scientists have discovered an important neural mechanism underlying dyslexia and shown that many difficulties associated with dyslexia can potentially be traced back to a malfunction of the medial geniculate body in the thalamus.
Study Shows the Deaf Brain Processes Touch Differently
Lacking sound input, the primary auditory cortex “feels” touch. The finding reveals how the early loss of a sense affects brain development. It adds to a growing list of discoveries that confirm the impact of experiences and outside influences in molding the developing brain.
Solvent Exposure in Work Place Associated With Cognitive Problems in Less Educated Workers
Working with solvents tied to cognitive problems for less-educated people Exposure to solvents at work may be associated with reduced thinking skills later in life for those who have less than a high school education, according to a study published in the May 29, 2012, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American [...]
Awake Mental Replay of Past Experiences Critical for Learning
Blocking it stumps memory-guided decision-making in rats – NIH-funded study Awake mental replay of past experiences is essential for making informed choices, suggests a study in rats. Without it, the animals’ memory-based decision-making faltered, say scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health. The researchers blocked learning from, and acting on, past experience by selectively [...]
How Your Eyes Deceive You
Researchers at the University of Sydney have thrown new light on the tricks the brain plays as it struggles to make sense of the visual and other sensory signals it constantly receives. The research has implications for understanding how the brain interprets the world visually and how the brain itself works. People rely on their [...]
New Finding Offers Neurological Support for Adam Smith’s Theories of Morality
The part of the brain we use when engaging in egalitarian behavior may also be linked to a larger sense of morality, researchers have found. Their conclusions, which offer scientific support for Adam Smith’s theories of morality, are based on experimental research published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of [...]
In Immersion Foreign Language Learning, Adults Attain, Retain Native Speaker Brain Pattern
A first-of-its kind series of brain studies shows how an adult learning a foreign language can come to use the same brain mechanisms as a native speaker. The research also demonstrates that the kind of exposure you have to the language can determine whether you achieve native-language brain processing, and that learning under immersion conditions [...]
New Software Responds to Students’ Emotions, Boredom
Emotion-sensing computer software that models and responds to students’ cognitive and emotional states – including frustration and boredom – has been developed by University of Notre Dame Assistant Professor of Psychology Sidney D’Mello and colleagues from the University of Memphis and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. D’Mello also is a concurrent assistant professor of computer science [...]
Researchers Rewrite Textbook on Location of Brain’s Speech Processing Center
New location of critical area provides hints on origin of language. Scientists have long believed that human speech is processed towards the back of the brain’s cerebral cortex, behind auditory cortex where all sounds are received — a place famously known as Wernicke’s area after the German neurologist who proposed this site in the late [...]
