Changing how people direct their attention – and the associated brain patterns – could be key to some promising behavioral therapies to help everyone from smokers to patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A symposium Tuesday morning at CNS 2013 set out to integrate the current state of research on the neural networks involved […]
Behavioral scientists need to move away from using terms like “fear” when discussing the workings of the brain, to better integrate the study of the mind. That was Joseph LeDoux’s message during Tuesday morning’s keynote session at CNS 2013. The New York University-based scientist argued that, to minimize confusion around such terms as “fear” and […]
April 16, 2013 – San Francisco – Brain scans are increasingly able to reveal whether or not you believe you remember some person or event in your life. In a new study presented at a cognitive neuroscience meeting today, researchers used fMRI brain scans to detect whether a person recognized scenes from their own […]
Language plays a critical role in the development of the brain. As Patricia Kuhl demonstrated during Monday morning’s keynote session at CNS 2013, early childhood exposure to multiple languages not only enhances the ability to learn languages later in life, but also improves mental flexibility and creative thinking. But what can the way the brain […]
A neural device to help patients who do not have the ability to speak is now possible, thanks in part to the work of Robert Knight. Celebrating career accomplishments, leadership, and mentoring, CNS presented the second annual Distinguished Career Contributions Award to Knight on Monday afternoon at the annual meeting in San Francisco. For the […]
The recently discovered neurons that keep track of time – so-called time cells – are gaining traction in the memory community. Audience members found out why at a session for the CNS meeting Monday, as several researchers presented the latest on how these cells encode memories over time in rats, humans, and other primates. Just as […]
April 15, 2013 – San Francisco – A brain-training task that increases the number of items an individual can remember over a short period of time may boost performance in other problem-solving tasks by enhancing communication between different brain areas. The new study being presented this week in San Francisco is one of a growing […]
Everyone attending CNS 2013’s first symposium Sunday morning on the regulation of emotion and mental illness took part in a group belly laugh when James Gross played a video to open his talk. In the clip, a newscaster nervously interviews an animal handler holding a 5-foot snake. Unbeknownst to the viewers (and perhaps the newscaster), […]
The audience for Sunday morning’s keynote lecture at CNS 2013 got to play the part of monkeys during a talk by William Newsome of Stanford University, though our task was a bit easier than what his test monkeys usually experience. Normally, in Newsome’s experiment, monkeys have 750 milliseconds to determine either whether a flashing field […]
Unlike in other organs in the body, in the adult brain, new cells form throughout our lifetimes – creating new opportunities to learn. Turns out that the same region of the brain where new nerve cells are generated is the same region of the brain involved in distinguishing events in our memories. Researchers are now […]
