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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...

Employers, the military and intelligence services may soon be using computerised mind-reading techniques and there is a need for a public debate about "mental privacy," a leading neuroscientist said yesterday. At the Cheltenham Science Festival, backed by The Daily Telegraph, Prof Geraint Rees of University College London said that, although hospital patients and experimental volunteers are protected, there is a need for debate about, for example, whether employers could use mind reading methods to decode brain activity to screen job applicants. Another possibility raised by studies of how the brain encodes memories and other information is that these methods could...

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...

Enlarge ImageBrain trust. The hormone oxytocin may spur us to trust others even when they betray us by suppressing activity in the dorsal striatum (top, red regions) and amygdala (bottom).Credit: Thomas Baumgartner/University of Zürich Trust forms the foundation of healthy relationships, and now scientists are zeroing in on how the feeling is triggered by chemicals in the brain. A new study shows that the hormone oxytocin may spur us to trust others even after they have betrayed us by suppressing a region of the brain that signals fear. The findings could lead to a better understanding of social phobias...

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...

All dyslexics are not alike. According to new research, Chinese- and English-speaking people with the disorder have impairments in different regions of their brains. The findings shed light on the neurological basis of dyslexia and reveal fundamental differences in how brains process the two languages. Dyslexics, about 5% to 10% of the population in both the United States and China, have trouble making the connection between the sight and sound of a word. In English, this results in word distortions or transpositions of letters. "Dyslexia," for example, might be read as "Lysdexia." In Chinese, the problem can affect how a...

Modern brain science is confirming an 18th century philosopher's moral theories"As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation," observed British philosopher and economist Adam Smith in the first chapter of his magisterial The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). "Whatever is the passion which arises from any object in the person principally concerned, an analogous emotion springs up, at the thought of his situation, in the breast of every attentive spectator." Smith's argument...

IN anticipation of the 2008 presidential election, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to watch the brains of a group of swing voters as they responded to the leading presidential candidates. Our results reveal some voter impressions on which this election may well turn. Our 20 subjects — registered voters who stated that they were open to choosing a candidate from either party next November — included 10 men and 10 women. In late summer, we asked them to answer a list of questions about their political preferences, then observed their brain activity for nearly an hour in the scanner...

Frank Tong is peering into another man’s mind...On the other side of a plate-glass window, an undergraduate lies immobile, his legs protruding from a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. A display unit above the young man’s eyes flashes a picture of a pigeon or a penguin—at this point Tong doesn’t know which.... On Tong’s screens a series of images appear: black-and-white cross sections of the living brain...Tong extracts the data from the scanner, takes it back to his lab and runs it through his processing software. After several hours he has a prediction: The test subject was looking...

The University of Oregon announced a new piece of research last week with a startling headline: “Paying taxes, according to the brain, can bring satisfaction.” Could this be true? The research is in the new issue of Science, so it’s got the right pedigree, but still. How could politicians have gotten it so wrong? Even the most liberal Democratic candidates never imagined a lot of voters whistling as they merrily write out checks to the I.R.S. Before any campaign strategists start poring over brain-scan data in the paper, let me temper the happy news. First, this study did not exactly...

Magnetic brain scans reveal patients are not imagining numbness that conventional diagnosis cannot pin down. Is a person hysterical if he or she complains of numbness in a limb but conventional tests reveal no underlying cause? A new study argues yes. While the term hysteria has fallen out of favor--replaced by the more reasonable sounding "conversion disorder," after Freud's explanation of such symptoms as the conversion of intolerable emotional impulses into physical manifestations--the condition has not disappeared. Recent fMRI scans of three women insisting they had no feeling in either a hand or a foot revealed that their brains really...

ATLANTA, GEORGIA--Going a night without sleep may cause your hippocampus to go on strike. A new study has caught this crucial memory-encoding brain region slacking off in college students the day after they've pulled an all-nighter. The study is one of the first to investigate how sleep deprivation interferes with memory mechanisms in the human brain. Neuroscientist Matthew Walker of Harvard University and his colleagues paid 10 undergraduate students to forgo a night's sleep. The next day, the students viewed a series of 30 words, and two days later--after having two nights to catch up on their sleep--the students returned...

A severely brain-damaged woman in an unresponsive, vegetative state showed clear signs on brain imaging tests that she was aware of herself and her surroundings, researchers are reporting today, in a finding that could have far-reaching consequences for how unconscious patients are cared for and how their conditions are diagnosed. In response to commands, the patient’s brain flared with activity, lighting the same language and movement-planning regions that are active when healthy people hear the commands. Previous studies had found similar activity in partly conscious patients, who occasionally respond to commands, but never before in someone who was totally unresponsive....

CHARLESTON, S.C. - Picture this: Your boss is threatening to fire you because he thinks you stole company property. He doesn't believe your denials. Your lawyer suggests you deny it one more time — in a brain scanner that will show you're telling the truth. Wacky? Science fiction? It might happen this summer. Just the other day I lay flat on my back as a scanner probed the tiniest crevices of my brain and a computer screen asked, "Did you take the watch?" The lab I was visiting recently reported catching lies with 90 percent accuracy. And an entrepreneur in...

Associated Press CHARLESTON, S.C. — Picture this: Your boss is threatening to fire you because he thinks you stole company property. He doesn't believe your denials. Your lawyer suggests you deny it one more time, in a brain scanner that will show you're telling the truth. Wacky? Science fiction? It might happen this summer. Just the other day I lay flat on my back as a scanner probed the tiniest crevices of my brain and a computer screen asked, "Did you take the watch?" And two outfits, Cephos and No Lie MRI, say they'll start offering brain scans for lie...

Following the lead of astronomers who build their telescopes on remote mountaintops, German researchers have taken to the woods to generate ultrahigh-precision chemical measurements. By fleeing the magnetic interference common to civilization, a team at Forschungszentrum Jülich and Aachen University has devised a low-tech version of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy that can outperform multimillion-dollar lab instruments. The tabletop-sized device could hold the key to a new low-cost version of NMR spectroscopy. NMR works because some atomic nuclei behave like tiny bar magnets. In typical NMR experiments, researchers place a chemical sample at the center of a giant high-field superconducting...

Liberals and conservatives can become equally bug-eyed and irrational when talking politics, especially when they are on the defensive. Using M.R.I. scanners, neuroscientists have now tracked what happens in the politically partisan brain when it tries to digest damning facts about favored candidates or criticisms of them. The process is almost entirely emotional and unconscious, the researchers report, and there are flares of activity in the brain's pleasure centers when unwelcome information is being rejected. "Everything we know about cognition suggests that, when faced with a contradiction, we use the rational regions of our brain to think about it, but...

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University have provided evidence that the act of recalling a memory is a bit like mental time travel. Their study, presented in the Dec. 23 edition of the journal Science, demonstrates that the same areas of the brain that are active during an event are activated when a person attempts to recall that event -- seconds before the memory surfaces. "This study shows that, as you search for memories of a particular event, your brain state progressively comes to resemble the state it was in...

GUEST OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Los Angeles — PRESIDENT BUSH begins his second term this week as the leader of a nation that appears to be sharply divided. Since the election, there's been endless discussion about the growing gap between "red" and "blue" America. When former President Bill Clinton said a few months ago that he was probably the only person in America who liked both Mr. Bush and Senator John Kerry, it seemed it might be true. Yet, surprisingly, recent neuroscience research suggests that Democrats and Republicans are not nearly as far apart as they seem. In fact, there is empirical...

A brain scan that can apparently root out racists has been developed by scientists. The technique was used on white volunteers shown photographs of black individuals. In those with racist tendencies, a surge of activity was seen in part of the brain that controls thoughts and behaviour. Scientists believe this reflected volunteers' attempts to to curb their latent racism. After interacting with real black individuals, the same group performed poorly in a task designed to test mental resources. The American researchers concluded that harbouring racial prejudice, even unintentionally, stirred up an inner struggle that exhausted the brain. Dr Jennifer Richeson,...