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visual neuroscience

A robot head is shown from the Roboy AI.

·October 19, 2012·4 min read

Robots that Perceive the World Like Humans

Researchers attempt to improve robot behavior by means of perception models closer to those of humans. One of the experiments involves a robot simulation in which an agent has to discriminate between what we could call an acne pimple and a bite or lump on the skin.

An old picture shows a man on a tight rope crossing Niagara River.

Electrophysiology Featured Neuroscience

·October 19, 2012·4 min read

Researchers Explore How the Brain Perceives Direction and Location

The Who asked “who are you?” but Dartmouth neurobiologist Jeffrey Taube “where are you?” and “where are you going?” Taube is not asking philosophical or theological questions. He is investigating nerve cells in the brain that function in establishing one’s location and direction.

Featured Neurology

·October 18, 2012·5 min read

Using the Eye as a Window into the Brain

An inexpensive, five-minute eye scan can accurately assess the amount of brain damage in people with the debilitating autoimmune disorder multiple sclerosis (MS), and offer clues about how quickly the disease is progressing.

A brain image is next to a drawing of a 1918 brain map.

Featured Neuroscience

·October 4, 2012·2 min read

Researchers Create a Universal Map of Vision in the Human Brain

Researchers create a map of vision in the brain based upon an individual's brain structure, even for people who cannot see. Their result can, among other things, guide efforts to restore vision using a neural prosthesis that stimulates the surface of the brain.

Two pictures of a man from different distances are side by side.

Featured Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·September 26, 2012·3 min read

Ready for Your Close-Up?

Caltech study shows that the distance at which facial photos are taken influences perception.

Autism Featured

·September 19, 2012·5 min read

Autistic Adults Have Unreliable Neural Responses, Carnegie Mellon-Led Research Team Finds

Neuroscientists take the first step toward deciphering the connection between general brain function and emergent behavioral patterns in autism. Study shows that autistic adults have unreliable neural sensory responses to visual, auditory and somatosensory, or touch, stimuli.

Featured Neurology

·September 10, 2012·3 min read

Her Vision is 20/20, But She Can’t Make Sense of What She Sees

A rare and baffling neurological disorder called Bálint syndrome, which badly impairs a patient's ability to make sense of what he or she sees is discussed. The article describes, in novelistic detail, the difficult adjustments two patients have had to make in their lives.

Featured Neurology Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·September 7, 2012·4 min read

Predicting How Patients Respond to Therapy

A new study led by MIT neuroscientists has found that brain scans of patients with social anxiety disorder can help predict whether they will benefit from cognitive behavioral therapy.

Electrophysiology Featured Psychology

·August 20, 2012·5 min read

Psychologists Link Emotion to Vividness of Perception and Creation of Vivid Memories

Have you ever wondered why you can remember things from long ago as if they happened yesterday, yet sometimes can't recall what you ate for dinner last night? A new study suggests it's because how much something means to you actually influences how you see it as well as how vividly you can recall it later.

Featured Neuroscience

·August 14, 2012·5 min read

An Artificial Retina With the Capacity to Restore Normal Vision

Researchers decipher the retina's neural code for brain communication to create novel, more effective prosthetic retinal device for blindness.

Featured Neuroethics Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·August 6, 2012·2 min read

Pupil Dilation Reveals Sexual Orientation

Researchers used a specialized infrared lens to measure pupillary changes to participants watching erotic videos. Pupils widened most to videos of people who participants found attractive, thereby revealing where they were on the sexual spectrum from heterosexual to homosexual.

Featured Genetics

·August 2, 2012·3 min read

Planarians Offer A Better View of Eye Development

Planarian flatworms have come under intense study for their renowned ability to regenerate any missing body part, even as adults. But now they may take on a starring role as a model system for studying eye development and eye diseases in vertebrates, including humans.