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SCIENTISTS have controversially yet successfully grown part of a human brain inside a mouse and the organ even managed to survive for months in a major scientific breakthrough. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ For the first ever time miniature human brains have grown in a new species and scientists have suggested the breakthrough could help with stem cell research. Scientists created the pin-sized human brains from stem cells and then placed them inside the skulls of mice, where a piece of tissue had been removed to make room for the new organ. Of the test mice, roughly 80 percent survived the operation, and within...

I’ll admit it. I’m addicted to learning. There’s nothing quite like the thrill that comes with finding out something new.It’s no surprise I ended up this way. My parents were public school teachers. They instilled in me the belief that education not only opens up new opportunities but also is enjoyable in itself. My parents regularly took my siblings and me to museums, encouraged us to read widely and entertained our incessant “whys?” and “hows?” And though neither of my parents taught science, I remember studying constellations at night and experimenting with chemistry at the dining table. (My parents passed...

There could be a very serious problem with the past 15 years of research into human brain activity, with a new study suggesting that a bug in fMRI software could invalidate the results of some 40,000 papers. That's massive, because functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is one of the best tools we have to measure brain activity, and if it’s flawed, it means all those conclusions about what our brains look like

As neuroscientists from around the world continue to unravel brain processes they include a multidisciplinary approach that goes beyond the brain cells. New research has used neurobiology and nano-scale engineering to study neural circuits and their link to behavior.

As scanning becomes more sophisticated researchers are finding that there is actually a difference in the way development takes place in the brains of men and women starting in the teenage years.

Brain research and associated advances such as brain-machine interfaces that are funded by the U.S. military and intelligence communities raise profound ethical concerns, caution researchers who cite the potentially lethal applications of such work and other consequences. Rapid advances in neuroscience made over the last decade have many dual-use applications of both military and civilian interest. Researchers who receive military funding — with the U.S. Department of Defense spending more than $350 million on neuroscience in 2011 — may not fully realize how dangerous their work might be, say scientists in an essay published online today (March 20) in the...

Missing link only - Brain thickness determines political leaning: study

People are afraid to lose money and an unusual study released on Monday explains why -- the brain's fear center controls the response to a gamble. U.S. | Science | Health | Lifestyle The study of two women with brain lesions that made them unafraid to lose on a gamble showed the amygdala, the brain's fear center, activates at the very thought of losing money. [...]

The military has given Paul Allen's brain research project $1.8 million to incorporate into its overall mission of gene-mapping the mind some additional work on sleep deprivation. Rep. George Nethercutt, vice chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and a GOP challenger to Sen. Patty Murray, yesterday visited the Allen Institute for Brain Science to announce the grant from the Army's medical technology program. "This is a prominent problem for the military that's perfectly suited to the (brain) institute," he said. Nethercutt said the one-year Army research grant was a line item in the 2005 Defense Appropriations Act. The Allen...