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Bionics – a word formed from biology and electronics – has become a quickly expanding research field, exploring ways and materials to bridge the interface between electronics and biology Basically, there are three levels of biocommunications where electronics and biology could interface: molecular, cellular and skeletal. For any implanted bionic material it is the initial interactions at the biomolecular level that will determine longer term performance. While bionics is often associated with skeletal level enhancements, electronic communication with living cells is of interest with a view to improving the results of tissue engineering or the performance of implants such as...

In recent years, stem cell researchers have become very adept at manipulating the fate of adult stem cells cultured in the lab. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies achieved the same feat with adult neural stem cells still in place in the brain. They successfully coaxed mouse brain stem cells bound to join the neuronal network to differentiate into support cells instead. The discovery, which is published ahead of print on Nature Neuroscience's website, not only attests to the versatility of neural stem cells but also opens up new directions for the treatment of neurological diseases, such...

FALSE beliefs are everywhere. Eighteen percent of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth, one poll has found. Thus it seems slightly less egregious that, according to another poll, 10 percent of us think that Senator Barack Obama, a Christian, is instead a Muslim. The Obama campaign has created a Web site to dispel misinformation. But this effort may be more difficult than it seems, thanks to the quirky way in which our brains store memories — and mislead us along the way. The brain does not simply gather and stockpile information as a computer’s hard drive does. Facts...

Fishing in the stream of consciousness, researchers now can detect our intentions and predict our choices before we are aware of them ourselves. The brain, they have found, appears to make up its mind 10 seconds before we become conscious of a decision -- an eternity at the speed of thought.Their findings challenge conventional notions of choice. "We think our decisions are conscious," said neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, who is pioneering this research. "But these data show that consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg. This doesn't rule out free...

Breakthrough: Adult Stem Cells & Parkinson’s Great - and, for anyone following the stunning medical advances being made thanks to ADULT Stem Cell Research - unsurprising news on the Parkinson’s front. Just as numerous spinal cord injuries are being successfully treated with ASC taken from nasal cavities, it looks there sufferers of Parkinson’s Disease may be helped, too.Scientists Say Cure for Parkinson's Disease Right under Their Noses SYDNEY, Australia, June 12, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - New research on stem-cell therapy shows scientists have found that the cure for Parkinson’s disease may lie right under one’s nose - or rather, in it....

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have identified a primitive area of the brain that makes us adventurous -- a finding which may help explain why people routinely fall for "new" products when shopping. Using brain scans to measure blood flow, British researchers discovered that a brain region known as the ventral striatum was more active when subjects chose unusual objects in controlled tests. The ventral striatum is involved in processing rewards in the brain through the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine. Scientists believe the existence of this age-old reward mechanism indicates there is an evolutionary advantage in sampling the unknown.

SAN DIEGO – A team of San Diego scientists has moved embryonic stem cell research a step closer to helping repair the brains of stroke victims and people with diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. The team, led by the Burnham Institute's Stuart Lipton, figured out how to coax the embryonic stem cells of mice to become nerve cells that, when transplanted into a mouse brain damaged by stroke, link themselves to the existing network of neurons. The mice showed therapeutic improvement, and none of them developed tumors, which has been a problem associated with the implantation of stem cells,...

Look no farther than Portland's Eastern Promenade for proof on Sunday as the walking dead take to the baseball fields to play the time-honored sport of kickball. Picnics will be ruined, dog walks disrupted, and bike rides seriously altered. And it could be just the beginning – we could be looking at zombie scavenger hunts (for brains), zombie capture the flag (for brains) and zombie marches (for equal rights ... and brains). This is the third straight year of Zombie Kickball. Typically the pastime of elementary schoolers (and occasionally low-watt thrill-seeking 20- and 30-somethings), kickball has an unknown appeal to...

LONDON (Reuters) - Gay men and straight women share some characteristics in the area of the brain responsible for emotion, mood and anxiety, researchers said on Monday in a study highlighting the potential biological underpinning of sexuality. ADVERTISEMENT Brain scans also showed the same symmetry among lesbians and straight men, the researchers wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "The observations cannot be easily attributed to perception or behavior," the researchers from Sweden's Karolinska Institute wrote. "Whether they may relate to processes laid down during the fetal or postnatal development is an open question." A number of...

New evidence shows that the brains of adults with autism are "wired" differently from people without the disorder, and this abnormal pattern of connectivity may be responsible for the social impairments that are characteristic of autism. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a team of researchers affiliated with the University of Washington's Autism Center also found that the most severely socially impaired subjects in the study exhibited the most abnormal pattern of connectivity among a network of brain regions involved in face processing. "This study shows that these brain regions are failing to work together efficiently," said Natalia Kleinhans, a research...

Scientists: 115-year-old's brain worked perfectly By ANRICA DEB , Associated Press WriterJune 13, 2008 Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper, who died at age 115 in 2005, is seen in this May 26, 2004 photo at de Westerkim, home for the elderly, in Hoogeveen, Netherlands. Scientists say that Henrikje van Andel-Schipper's mind was probably as good as it seemed: a post-mortem analysis of her brain revealed few signs of Alzheimer's or other diseases commonly associated with a decline in mental ability in old age. "This is the first (extremely old) brain that did not have these problems," Professor Gert Holstege of Groningen University...

What's mine is mine: Brain scans reveal what's behind the aversion to loss of possessions Did you ever wonder why it is so difficult to part with your stuff? A new study reveals fascinating insights into the specific neuropsychological mechanisms that are linked with the potential loss of possessions. The research, published by Cell Press in the June 12 issue of the journal Neuron, has important implications for both neuroscience and economics and may even explain why you are reluctant to sell your iPod. People tend to prefer the items they own when compared to similar items that they do...

Who Shalt Not Kill? Brain Power Leads To Level-headedness When Faced With Moral Dilemmas ScienceDaily (Jun. 11, 2008) — Should a sergeant sacrifice a wounded private on the battlefield in order to save the rest of his troops? Is euthanasia acceptable if it prevents needless suffering? Many of us will have to face some sort of extreme moral choice such as these at least once in our life. And we are also surrounded by less dramatic moral choices everyday: Do I buy the hybrid? Do I vote for a particular presidential candidate? Unfortunately, very little is known beyond philosophical speculation...

enlarge Magnetic resonance imaging of the brains of healthy adults more than three years after Sept. 11, 2001, shows areas that have less gray matter volume in those who were near ground zero on 9/11, compared with those who were much farther away. This is three views of the brain areas that have lower gray matter volume in the 9/11-exposed group. Notably, all of these areas (which show up brighter in this image) are associated with the processing of emotion. (Credit: Image courtesy of Cornell University) ScienceDaily (Jun. 4, 2008) — Healthy adults who were close to the World Trade...

WASHINGTON - Senator Edward M. Kennedy will undergo surgery Monday at Duke University Medical Center for his cancerous brain tumor, his office said. The 76-year-old senator was diagnosed last month with a malignant glioma, an especially lethal type of brain tumor. A statement from the Massachusetts Democrat's office said he will be operated on Monday morning in Durham, North Carolina, by Dr. Allan Friedman. After the surgery, he will undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

Long-term heavy use of marijuana may cause two important brain structures to shrink, Australian researchers said on Monday. Brain scans showed the hippocampus and amygdala were smaller in men who were heavy marijuana users compared to nonusers, the researchers said. The men had smoked at least five marijuana cigarettes daily for on average 20 years. The hippocampus regulates memory and emotion, while the amygdala plays a critical role in fear and aggression. The study, published in the American Medical Association's journal Archives of General Psychiatry, also found the heavy cannabis users earned lower scores than the nonusers in a verbal...

When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong. Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit. The studies are analyzed in a new edition of a neurology book, “Progress in Brain Research.” Some brains do deteriorate with age. Alzheimer’s disease, for example, strikes 13 percent of Americans 65 and older. But for most aging adults,...

The statement that Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s doctors issued on Tuesday made clear that his malignant tumor was a glioma, a cancer that arises in the brain and that often carries a bleak prognosis. Gliomas occur more frequently with advancing age, and studies have shown that in general patients in their 70s fare less well than those 45 and younger. Still, the statement also said Mr. Kennedy, 76, was in “good spirits and full of energy” and walking around his room at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Mr. Kennedy’s glioma is in the parietal area in the upper part...

About 10,000 Americans are diagnosed each year with malignant gliomas, the kind of tumor that Sen. Edward Kennedy is fighting, according to the National Cancer Institute. Only about half are alive a year after being diagnosed, and only about 25 percent survive two years, said Robert Laureno, chief of neurology at the Washington Hospital Center. "In general, it's a very grim kind of prognosis," he said.

A 53-year-old man in Saanich, B.C., managed to drive to safety after a grizzly bear mauled his head and tossed him to the ground in the woods near Bella Coola, about 700 kilometres north of Vancouver. The attack took place on May 3 when Brent Case was on a surveying job along the rugged Central Coast area. "He came up from behind me and started gnawing at the back of my head. It just started ripping the scalp off the head," Case told CBC News on Friday. "The pain was so excruciating that I don't know why I didn't yell...

The woman who can remember everything Last updated: 10:15 AM BST 09/05/2008 A woman who has baffled doctors with her ability to remember every detail of every day has broken her anonymity to speak of her condition. Jill Price, 42, can remember every part of her life since she was 14 but considers her ability a curse as she cannot switch off. She described her life as like a split-screen television, with one side showing what she is doing in the present, and the other showing the memories which she cannot hold back. Every detail about every day since 1980...

The study sought to shed light on the neurological underpinnings of moral decision-making, said Ming Hsu, a fellow at the U. of I.'s Beckman Institute and co-principal investigator. (Credit: Photo by L. Brian Stauffer) ScienceDaily (May 10, 2008) — Which is better, giving more food to a few hungry people or letting some food go to waste so that everyone gets a share" A study appearing in Science finds that most people choose the latter, and that the brain responds in unique ways to inefficiency and inequity. The study, by researchers at the University of Illinois and the California Institute...

Anyone who dreams of a "classless society" may be disheartened by the results of a brain-scanning study reported today: Hierarchical awareness seems to be deeply embedded in the human brain, so much so that there are distinct circuits activated by concerns over social rank. In the study, a team led by neuroscientist Caroline Zink of the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, first set up a "stable hierarchy." Twenty-four adult subjects were asked to press a button quickly whenever a blue circle changed to green. Ostensibly based on their skill at the task, the subjects were assigned a...

SAN FRANCISCO — When David Bunnell, a magazine publisher who lives in Berkeley, Calif., went to a FedEx store to send a package a few years ago, he suddenly drew a blank as he was filling out the forms. “I couldn’t remember my address,” said Mr. Bunnell, 60, with a measure of horror in his voice. “I knew where I lived, and I knew how to get there, but I didn’t know what the address was.” Mr. Bunnell is among tens of millions of baby boomers who are encountering the signs, by turns amusing and disconcerting, that accompany the decline...

A new study has found that it may be possible to train people to be more intelligent, increasing the brainpower they had at birth. Until now, it had been widely assumed that the kind of mental ability that allows us to solve new problems without having any relevant previous experience — what psychologists call fluid intelligence — is innate and cannot be taught (though people can raise their grades on tests of it by practicing). But in the new study, researchers describe a method for improving this skill, along with experiments to prove it works. The key, researchers found, was...

"Different is not deficient," is the theme of this speech by Obama mentor Wright. That and a crash course in black eugenics and phrenology that would make a fascist blush. It would seem there is a profound difference between the black brain and other brains after all. At least according to Reverend Wright. According to this shining exemplar of Barack Obama and his deep "scholarship," is vast learning concerning black liberation theology, black people are right-brained, white people are left-brained. and never the twain shall meet.

Simple brain exercise can boost IQ 22:00 28 April 2008 NewScientist.com news service Alison Motluk Can mental training improve your intelligence? No video game or mental puzzle has convincingly been shown to work. But now a group of neuropsychologists claims it has found a task that can add points to a person's IQ – and the harder you train, they say, the more you gain. So-called "fluid intelligence", or Gf, is the ability to reason, solve new problems and think in the abstract. It correlates with professional and educational success and it appears to be largely genetic. Past attempts to...

April 27, 2008 "In comparing African-American children and European-American children, we were comparing apples and rocks." "Different is not deficient." It would seem there is a profound difference between the black brain and other brains after all. At least according to Reverend Wright. According to this shining exemplar of Barack Obama and the deep scholarship of black liberation theology, black people are right-brained and white people are left-brained. Asian people don't make the discussion since that would be, well, unfortunate. If you're like me you've probably been wandering about the world babbling something about racial equality in America that affirms,...

Vitamin D supplementation for high risk groups may be warrantedIn a definitive critical review, scientists at Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland ask whether there is convincing biological or behavioral evidence linking vitamin D deficiency to brain dysfunction. Joyce C. McCann, Ph.D., assistant staff scientist and Bruce N. Ames, Ph.D., senior scientist at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) conclude that there is ample biological evidence to suggest an important role for vitamin D in brain development and function, and that supplementation for groups chronically low in vitamin D is warranted. Their conclusions will be published on April 22, 2008...

Roughly one in every five U.S. troops who have survived the bombs and other dangers of Iraq and Afghanistan now suffers from major depression or post-traumatic stress, an independent study said Thursday. It estimated the toll at 300,000 or more. As many or more report possible brain injuries from explosions or other head wounds, said the study, the first major survey from outside the government. Only about half of those with mental health problems have sought treatment. Even fewer of those with head injuries have seen doctors. Army Surgeon General Eric Schoomaker said the report, from the Rand Corp., was...

'One in five US servicemen has brain injury' By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 3:26am BST 18/04/2008 The psychological toll of America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has touched one in five servicemen and its consequences will be long-lasting, a study suggested yesterday. The Rand Corporation, a leading research operation, said that 320,000 soldiers suffered brain injuries on the battlefield, while more than 300,000 suffered mental disorders on returning home. The report said that US veterans are incurring "invisible wounds" of war, most notably traumatic brain injury. A survey of 1,926 soldiers represented a statistically significant sample of...

Getting Forgetful? Then Blueberries May Hold The Key ScienceDaily (Apr. 12, 2008) — If you are getting forgetful as you get older, then a research team from the University of Reading and the Peninsula Medical School in the Southwest of England may have good news for you They have found that phytochemical-rich foods, such as blueberries, are effective at reversing age-related deficits in memory, according to a study soon to be published in the science journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine. The researchers working at the Schools of Food Biosciences and Psychology in Reading and the Institute of Biomedical and...

A new brain-scan study may help explain what's going on in the minds of financial titans when they take risky monetary gambles — sex. When young men were shown erotic pictures, they were more likely to make a larger financial gamble than if they were shown a picture of something scary, such a snake, or something neutral, such as a stapler, university researchers reported. The arousing pictures lit up the same part of the brain that lights up when financial risks are taken. "You have a need in an evolutionary sense for both money and women. They trigger the same...

A daily dose of caffeine blocks the disruptive effects of high cholesterol that scientists have linked to Alzheimer's disease. A study in the open access publication, Journal of Neuroinflammation revealed that caffeine equivalent to just one cup of coffee a day could protect the blood-brain barrier (BBB) from damage that occurred with a high-fat diet. The BBB protects the central nervous system from the rest of the body's circulation, providing the brain with its own regulated microenvironment. Previous studies have shown that high levels of cholesterol break down the BBB which can then no longer protect the central nervous system...

The Wal-Mart company health insurance plan won't seek to take other assets from a family that has lost its last court battle to keep a severely injured woman's trust fund from being seized, a company representative said. Former Wal-Mart employee Debbie Shank of Jackson racked up $469,000 in medical costs after a 2000 traffic collision. In a subsequent lawsuit, GEM Transportation Inc. agreed to pay $1 million as a settlement of her claims. Debbie Shank received $417,477 from her share after legal fees; her then-husband, Jim Shank, received $200,000, and about $119,000 remained after legal bills.

Skeleton May Show Ancient Brain Surgery The skeleton of a young woman from a 3rd century A.D. grave in Veria, northern Greece, is seen in this undated handout photo provided by the Greek Culture Ministry on Tuesday, March 11, 2008. Archaeologists believe a large hole on the front of the skull, above the eyes, was caused by -- apparently failed -- brain surgery nearly 1,800 years ago. Although references to such delicate operations abound in ancient writings, discoveries of surgically perforated skulls are uncommon in Greece. (AP Photo/Greek Culture Ministry) (AP) -- Greek archaeologists said Tuesday they have unearthed rare...

Scientists have developed a computerised mind-reading technique which lets them accurately predict the images that people are looking at by using scanners to study brain activity. The breakthrough by American scientists took MRI scanning equipment normally used in hospital diagnosis to observe patterns of brain activity when a subject examined a range of black and white photographs. Then a computer was able to correctly predict in nine out of 10 cases which image people were focused on. Guesswork would have been accurate only eight times in every 1,000 attempts. The study raises the possibility in the future of the technology...

Not even Obama thinks America is 'post racial.' But neuroscience, like the primary results, suggests we are not doomed to see things in black and white. Robert Kurzban remembers when he felt a whisper of hope that racism was neither inevitable nor permanent, and certainly not something hard-wired into the human brain. He had just Photoshopped different colored basketball jerseys onto images of eight young men, some black and some white, that he was using for a psychology experiment. Volunteers viewing the photos on a computer screen heard each man say something like "you were the ones that started the...

Radiation From Mobile Phones Changes Protein Expression In Living People, Study SuggestsA new study on effects of mobile phone radiation on human skin strengthens the results of the human cell line analyses: living tissue responds to mobile phone radiation. (Credit: iStockphoto/Luis Pedrosa) ScienceDaily (Feb. 25, 2008) — A new study completed by the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK) on effects of mobile phone radiation on human skin strengthens the results of the human cell line analyses: living tissue responds to mobile phone radiation. Earlier studies have shown that mobile phone radiation (radiofrequency modulated electromagnetic fields; RF-EMF) alters protein...

Biggest brain drain from UK in 50 years By Robert Winnett, Deputy Political Editor Last Updated: 2:08am GMT 21/02/2008 Britain is experiencing the worst "brain drain" of any country as highly qualified professionals settle abroad, an authoritative international study showed yesterday. Record numbers of Britons are leaving - many of them doctors, teachers and engineers - in the biggest exodus for almost 50 years. Over a quarter of qualified professionals who have moved abroad had health or education qualifications There are now 3.247 million British-born people living abroad, of whom more than 1.1 million are highly-skilled university graduates, say the...

Brain blanket boosts mind control 18:00 15 February 2008 NewScientist.com news service Tom Simonite With a sheet of electrodes placed over the brain, people can quickly learn to move a cursor around a computer screen using their thoughts. Early trials suggest that this new procedure could overtake more established brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). The two established techniques involve inserting electrodes into the brain or attaching them onto the scalp. These approaches have let people control robotic limbs, steer wheelchairs, type messages and walk in virtual worlds using thought alone. BCIs will one day transform the lives of people with disabilities and...

Babies reveal natural gift for numbers 09 February 2008 From New Scientist Print Edition. They may seem to just eat, cry, sleep and poo, but 3-month-old babies may already be aware of how many animals are dangling from their mobiles. Véronique Izard at the University of Paris-South in France and her colleagues have discovered that babies have brain circuits dedicated to noticing quantity, adding weight to the argument that humans possess an innate sense of numbers. Izard had already shown in adults and 4-year-olds that numbers seem to be processed in a particular part of the brain, and separately from...

Is pig-brain 'mist' linked to mystery ailment? 09 February 2008 NewScientist.com news service WORKERS at two pork-processing plants in the US have developed a mysterious nervous ailment after using compressed air to blast brain tissue from severed pig heads. The end product is a pink food paste that is canned and exported, but the process also generates an aerosol of brain matter that workers may inhale. Since 2006, 12 workers at a Minnesota slaughterhouse have developed symptoms ranging from weakness, tingling and numbness to acute paralysis, US health authorities reported on 31 January (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, vol 57,...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 28, 2008 – Army Col. (Dr.) Loree Sutton is a woman on a mission. Army Col. (Dr.) Loree Sutton, chief of the newly created Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, sits in her temporary Rosslyn, Va., office suite. The Defense Department created the center in its effort to step up the quality of care for wounded warriors and their families. Photo by Fred W. Baker III  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The military psychiatrist has, for the last month, ricocheted across the Capital Beltway landscape and beyond, setting up a Defense...

Yahoo! News Lead linked to aging in older brains By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science WriterSun Jan 27, 3:28 PM ET Could it be that the "natural" mental decline that afflicts many older people is related to how much lead they absorbed decades before? That's the provocative idea emerging from some recent studies, part of a broader area of new research that suggests some pollutants can cause harm that shows up only years after someone is exposed. The new work suggests long-ago lead exposure can make an aging person's brain work as if it's five years older than it really is....

Could it be that the "natural" mental decline that afflicts many older people is related to how much lead they absorbed decades before? That's the provocative idea emerging from some recent studies, part of a broader area of new research that suggests some pollutants can cause harm that shows up only years after someone is exposed. The new work suggests long-ago lead exposure can make an aging person's brain work as if it's five years older than it really is. If that's verified by more research, it means that sharp cuts in environmental lead levels more than 20 years ago...

Over the past decade, two facts have become increasingly obvious – that our ever-increasing consumption is wrecking the planet, and that continually chasing more stuff, more food and more entertainment no longer makes us any happier. Instead, levels of stress, obesity and dissatisfaction are spiralling. So why is our culture still chasing, consuming, striving ever harder, even though we know in our sophisticated minds that it’s an unrewarding route to eco-geddon? New scientific studies are helping to reveal why. It’s our primitive brains. These marvellous machines got us down from the trees and around the world, through ice ages, famines,...

New research on mice shows the brain processes aggressive behavior as it does other rewards. Mice sought violence, in fact, picking fights for no apparent reason other than the rewarding feeling. The mouse brain is thought to be analogous to the human brain in this study, which could shed light on our fascination with brutal sports as well as our own penchant for the classic bar brawl. In fact, the researcher say, humans seem to crave violence just like they do sex, food or drugs. Love to fight Scientists have known that mice and other animals are drawn to fights....

Culture Influences Brain Function, Study ShowsBrain activity in East Asians and Americans as they make relative and absolute judgments. The arrows point to brain regions involved in attention that are engaged by more demanding tasks. Americans show more activity during relative judgments than absolute judgments, presumably because the former task is less familiar and hence more demanding for them. East Asians show the opposite pattern. (Credit: Image courtesy Trey Hedden) ScienceDaily (Jan. 13, 2008) — People from different cultures use their brains differently to solve the same visual perceptual tasks, MIT researchers and colleagues report in the first brain imaging...

Reversal Of Alzheimer's Symptoms Within Minutes In Human StudyPET Scan of Alzheimer's Disease Brain. (Credit: NIH/National Institute On Aging) ScienceDaily (Jan. 9, 2008) — An extraordinary new scientific study, which for the first time documents marked improvement in Alzheimer’s disease within minutes of administration of a therapeutic molecule, has just been published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation. This new study highlights the importance of certain soluble proteins, called cytokines, in Alzheimer’s disease. The study focuses on one of these cytokines, tumor necrosis factor-alpha(TNF), a critical component of the brain’s immune system. Normally, TNF finely regulates the transmission of neural impulses...