The human brain naturally produces and processes compounds closely related to those found in Cannabis sativa, better known as marijuana [see "The Brain's Own Marijuana," by Roger A. Nicoll and Bradley E. Alger. These compounds are called endogenous cannabinoids or endocannabinoids. As the journal Nature Medicine put it in 2003, "the endocannabinoid system has an important role in nearly every paradigm of pain, in memory, in neurodegeneration and in inflammation." The journal goes on to note that cannabinoids' "clinical potential is enormous." That potential may include treatments for pain, nerve injury, the nausea associated with chemotherapy, the wasting related to AIDS and more. Yet outdated regulations and attitudes thwart legitimate research with marijuana. Indeed, American biomedical researchers can more easily acquire and investigate cocaine. Marijuana is classified as a so-called Schedule 1 drug, alongside LSD and heroin. As such, it is defined as being potentially addictive and having no medical use, which under the circumstances becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Any researcher attempting to study marijuana must obtain it through the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The U.S. research crop, grown at a single facility, is regarded as less potent--and therefore less medicinally interesting--than the marijuana often easily available on the street. Thus, the legal supply is a poor vehicle for studying the approximately 60 cannabinoids that might have medical applications. © 1996-2004 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 6477 - Posted: 06.24.2010

The world's most popular drug is something your kid could very well have in a can next to his computer right now—caffeine. "Caffeine is the world's most widely used mood-altering drug," says Roland Griffiths, professor of behavioral biology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Some 80 percent of the population use caffeine on a daily basis. Caffeine is so available in our culture and society that many people consume coffee and soft drinks without the realization that they're actually involved in a drug self-administration behavior." If caffeine is a drug, then shouldn't stopping the intake of caffeine cause feelings of withdrawal? Griffiths analyzed medical studies of caffeine withdrawal dating back 170 years. "Sixty-six different studies had been done over time, most of which actually had been done in the last 10 years," he says. "We went about determining which symptoms of caffeine withdrawal were valid, which symptoms occur reliably, and then we determined what proportion of the population experiences these symptoms. And we asked the question, 'Are these symptoms clinically significant, that is, do people experience distress when they abstain from caffeine?'" © ScienCentral, 2000- 2004.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 6476 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Durham, N.C. – Duke University Medical Center geneticists have discovered new proteins that help the olfactory system in mammals organize properly. Thus the proteins are key to the ability of mammals, including humans, to detect and respond appropriately to chemicals in the environment via their sense of smell. The finding in mice paves the way for scientists to unravel the underlying code that allows the brain to interpret smells, according to the researchers. Using genetic manipulations, the team found two proteins in mice that chaperone odorant receptors to the surface of olfactory nerves in the nose. Odorant receptors are the protein switches nestled in nerve cell membranes that trigger responses to specific volatile chemicals. The discovery of the chaperone proteins reveals the first molecular components of the olfactory machinery that promotes proper targeting of olfactory receptors to the neuronal cell surface, said Hiroaki Matsunami, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke. By taking advantage of the newly discovered components of the olfactory machinery, the Duke researchers have already begun tests to match the nearly 1,000 different mouse odorant receptors with the very specific chemical or chemicals to which they respond. © 2001-2004 Duke University Medical Center.

Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 6475 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers have discovered that individual fibroblast cells contain independent, self-sustaining circadian (ca. 24 hr) clocks. Circadian clocks are important for synchronizing many physiological and behavioral processes to the day/night cycle. For decades it has been known that a tiny cluster of brain cells known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) is required for expression of circadian rhythms in mammals. When clock genes were identified in the late '90s, they were found to be expressed rhythmically not only in SCN but also in many other tissues. Some of these studies used the firefly luciferase gene, introduced into cells with regulatory elements from a clock gene, so that cell cultures emitted light with a circadian rhythm. However, peripheral tissue rhythms tended diminish after a few cycles in culture, suggesting that they might depend on the central nervous system's SCN to drive them. In the new work, performed by researchers at The Scripps Research Institute and Northwestern University, Dr. David Welsh and colleagues used bioluminescence imaging to monitor circadian rhythms of clock gene expression from individual rat or mouse fibroblasts. Robust rhythms of single cells persisted without diminishing for at least 1–2 weeks in culture. Cells were partially synchronized by medium change at the start of an experiment, but because of different circadian periods drifted out of phase after several days, leading the ensemble rhythm to diminish. Thus, even cells outside the brain contain bona fide circadian clocks.

Keyword: Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 6474 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Women who are obese for many years are more likely to suffer brain cell loss linked to dementia, according to new research. The Swedish team followed 290 women over 24 years and found that women who were obese during this period were much more likely than slim women to show brain atrophy - the abnormal loss of neurons - by the end of the study. Deborah Gustafson and colleagues at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden measured the body mass index (BMI) of the women between 1968 and 1992. On their final visit the women – then aged between 70 and 84 – also underwent CT scans of their brains. The researchers found that almost half of the women showed brain cell death in the temporal lobes in 1992 and on average these women had a higher BMI – their height in metres, divided by the square of their weight in kilograms – than those who showed no brain cell loss. Brain shrinkage in this area is associated with Alzheimer’s disease and loss of cognitive function. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Obesity; Alzheimers
Link ID: 6473 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Computer model will track, isolate facial expressions - Dan Fost, Chronicle Staff Writer Psychologists for years have studied every little tic and twitch of facial muscles, looking for insight into how people communicate. Now those scientists will get some help from computers -- the same type of high-powered machines that have created some of Hollywood's most dazzling special effects. A team of Canadian psychologists plans to use technology from Silicon Graphics Inc. to isolate facial patterns with precision. By doing so, the researchers hope to see how an expression might change with the twitch of an eyebrow -- or when that eyebrow is taken away. Much like in the Hollywood film "Polar Express," researchers will use three-dimensional scanners to measure, record and digitize every millimeter of a human face. Then, using the hardware and software provided by SGI, they'll produce an interactive model that can be easily manipulated. The simulated face will work in real time, which requires tremendous processing power, but will enable researchers to do things that would be impossible with human subjects. For instance, researchers could gauge people's reactions to one of the computer model's expressions, and then alter the expression ever so slightly -- removing the eyebrow twitch or a slight squint -- to see if the reaction or interpretation changes. ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 6472 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - A collection of drunken rats is helping University of North Carolina researchers understand how brains repair themselves after chronic drinking — and possibly find new ways to help alcoholics recover full mental capacity. Fulton T. Crews and Kimberly Nixon have discovered that heavy drinking slows the creation of new brain nerve cells, or neurons, in animals. Rats that have been intoxicated and then sobered up produce more than normal amounts of neurons. That might explain why the brains of rats with simulated alcoholism shrink during chronic drinking but grow after the abuse stops — just like the brains of alcoholic people. That growth is often accompanied in people by life-saving behavioral changes, such as the ability to understand how drinking harms them and their families. If that insight is tied to replenishing neurons, medicine may get a new way to speed healing among alcoholics. "More experiments are needed, but this is a first tantalizing step," said Antonio Noronha, director of the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's division of neuroscience and behavior. For decades, scientists thought that adult humans and other animals had a finite number of neurons. But brain stem cells producing neurons even in adults were discovered in 1997. Counting new cells made in living human brains is impossible. So Crews, who runs the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies at UNC, asked Nixon in 2001 to find out how alcohol affects the production of new neurons in rats. Copyright © 2004 Yahoo! Inc.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 6471 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Chronic pain may permanently shrink the brain, US researchers believe. The Northwestern University team had previously shown patients with back pain had decreased activity in the same brain region called the thalamus. This area is known to be important in decision-making and social behaviour. The team's current study in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests some of the changes may be irreversible and render pain treatment ineffective. More research is needed, they say. If true, it makes it all the more important to treat pain early to prevent any permanent change, say Dr Vania Apkarian and colleagues. They scanned the brains of 26 patients with chronic back pain and 26 healthy people. The patients with chronic pain caused by damage to the nervous system showed shrinks in the brain by as much as 11% - equivalent to the amount of gray matter that is lost in 10-20 years of normal aging. The decrease in volume, in the prefrontal cortex and the thalamus of the brain, was related to the duration of pain. Every year of pain appeared to decrease gray matter by 1.3 cubic centimetres. What the researchers now need to find out is whether this loss is permanent or whether it can be reversed with treatment. Dr Apkarian said: "It is possible that some of the observed decreased gray matter shown in this study reflects tissue shrinkage without substantial neuronal loss, suggesting that proper treatment would reverse this portion of the decreased brain matter." (C)BBC

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 6470 - Posted: 11.23.2004

St. Paul, Minn. – Women who are obese throughout life are more likely to lose brain tissue, according to a study published in the November 23 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Loss of brain tissue has been linked to cognitive decline. Researchers in Sweden studied the relationship between body mass index and brain atrophy (loss of brain tissue) in 290 women. The women were born between 1908 and 1922 and had four follow-up examinations between 1968 and 1992. During the final exam, they had a computed tomography (CT) scan to measure for any loss of brain tissue. Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat that shows weight adjusted for height. Overweight is a BMI of 25 to 30 kg/m2. Obesity is a BMI of 30 kg/m2 and above. An overweight or obese BMI was linked to a loss of tissue specifically in the temporal lobe. Nearly 50 percent (144) of the women had temporal atrophy. At the time of CT scan, their body mass index was an average of 27 kg/m2, which was 1.1 to 1.5 kg/m2 higher than the women without brain atrophy. Overall the women’s BMI increased over the 24-year period, but the increase was greater for those who lost tissue in the temporal lobe. The risk of atrophy increased 13 to 16 percent per 1.0 kg/m2 increase in BMI.

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 6469 - Posted: 06.24.2010

For the first time, researchers have used human embryonic stem cells to create new insulating tissue for nerve fibers in a live animal model – a finding that has potentially important implications for treatment of spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis. Researchers at the UC Irvine Reeve-Irvine Research Center used human embryonic stem cells to create cells called oligodendrocytes, which are the building blocks of the myelin tissue that wraps around and insulates nerve fibers. This tissue is critical for maintenance of proper nerve signaling in the central nervous system, and, when it is stripped away through injury or disease, sensory and motor deficiencies and, in some cases, paralysis result. In this study, neurologist Hans Keirstead and colleagues at UCI and the Geron Corporation devised a novel technique that allows human embryonic stem cells to differentiate into high-purity, early-stage oligodendrocyte cells. The researchers then injected these cells into the spinal cords of mice genetically engineered to have no myelin tissue. After transplantation into mice, the early-stage cells formed into full-grown oligodendrocyte cells and migrated to appropriate neuronal sites within the spinal cord. More importantly, the researchers discovered the oligodendrocyte cells forming patches of myelin’s basic protein, and they observed compact myelin tissue wrapping around neurons in the spinal cord. These studies demonstrated that the oligodendrocytes derived from human embryonic stem cells can function in a living system. © Copyright 2002-2004 UC Regents

Keyword: Regeneration; Glia
Link ID: 6468 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By JONATHAN MAHLER Looking back, Mark and Cheryl Miller would have done a lot of things differently with their 13-year-old son, Matt. They probably would never have left Lenexa, Kan. They would have sent him to a different school, and they certainly would have chosen a different therapist. But most of all, they wouldn't have given him Zoloft. ''It's not a pleasant thing living with the thought that you had a hand in your son's death,'' Mark Miller told me recently. ''Making him take those pills was done out of love for Matt, but it was still the wrong thing to do.'' We were on our way back from Mark and Cheryl's Wednesday-night Bible-study class. I was riding with Mark, who had come straight from the advertising agency where he works as a vice president and creative director. A young-looking 55, with neatly combed hair and wire-rimmed glasses, he was wearing a striped Polo button-down and pressed blue jeans. A few minutes later Mark eased his white Volvo into the garage of their home, a meticulously decorated two-story Tudor in Overland Park, Kan. The Millers moved here from Lenexa, like Overland Park a suburb of Kansas City, in the summer of 1996, though they'd been talking about relocating for years. They liked Lenexa, but Mark was doing well, and they could afford a bigger house in a more upscale neighborhood. Their new home was only 30 minutes away from their old one, but it meant a new school district for their two children. Their 15-year-old, Jenny, was going to be a freshman in high school and was nervous about the move. Her 12-year-old brother, Matt, a slight, fair-haired boy who wore skateboard-style clothing, was excited. As a Cub Scout, he had built the fastest pine-wood derby car in his age division, and he was looking forward to taking flying lessons at a flight school near their house when he turned 14. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 6467 - Posted: 11.23.2004

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE Cheryl Schiltz vividly recalls the morning she became a wobbler. Seven years ago, recovering from an infection after surgery with the aid of a common antibiotic, she climbed out of bed feeling pretty good. "Then I literally fell to the floor," she said recently. "The whole world started wobbling. When I turned my head, the room tilted. My vision blurred. Even the air felt heavy." The antibiotic, Ms. Schiltz learned, had damaged her vestibular system, the part of the brain that provides visual and gravitational stability. She was forced to quit her job and stay home, clinging to the walls to keep from toppling over. But three years ago, Ms. Schiltz volunteered for an experimental treatment - a fat strip of tape, placed on her tongue, with an array of 144 microelectrodes about the size of a postage stamp. The strip was wired to a kind of carpenter's level, which was mounted on a hard hat that she placed on her head. The level determined her spatial coordinates and sent the information as tiny pulses to her tongue. The apparatus, called a BrainPort, worked beautifully. By "buzzing" her tongue once a day for 20 minutes, keeping the pulses centered, she regained normal vestibular function and was able to balance. Ms. Schiltz and other patients like her are the beneficiaries of an astonishing new technology that allows one set of sensory information to substitute for another in the brain. Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Movement Disorders
Link ID: 6466 - Posted: 11.23.2004

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and New York University have discovered a gene mutation in fruit flies that alters sensitivity to crack cocaine and also regulates their internal body clock. The findings, reported in the December issue of Public Library of Science (PLoS) Biology, may have implications for understanding innate differences in sensitivity to cocaine in humans, potentially providing targets for development of drugs to treat or prevent addiction. Headed by UCSF's Ulrike Heberlein, the research team discovered a mutation of the Drosophila LIM-only (Lmo) gene. Normal fruit flies increase their activity when exposed to low doses of crack cocaine over a one-minute period. At medium levels, fruit flies exhibit frenzied, jerky motions. At high doses, the flies become immobile. However, flies with the Lmo gene mutated were much more sensitive to crack cocaine and became immobile at much lower levels than normal fruit flies. Heberlein's group also showed that Lmo is normally produced in the pacemaker neurons that control 24-hour--or circadian--rhythms of sleep/wake cycles in flies. Comprising about 10 cells per hemisphere, these neurons provide the fly with an internal clock, driving circadian rhythms of behavior even in the absence of light. While Lmo is found throughout the body, it is enriched in the brain. By expressing normal Lmo in over-sensitive mutants, the researchers discovered that Lmo's cocaine-related effects were localized to the circadian pacemaker neurons.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 6465 - Posted: 11.23.2004

By Roger A. Nicoll and Bradley N. Alger Marijuana is a drug with a mixed history. Mention it to one person, and it will conjure images of potheads lost in a spaced-out stupor. To another, it may represent relaxation, a slowing down of modern madness. To yet another, marijuana means hope for cancer patients suffering from the debilitating nausea of chemotherapy, or it is the promise of relief from chronic pain. The drug is all these things and more, for its history is a long one, spanning millennia and continents. It is also something everyone is familiar with, whether they know it or not. Everyone grows a form of the drug, regardless of their political leanings or recreational proclivities. That is because the brain makes its own marijuana, natural compounds called endocannabinoids (after the plant's formal name, Cannabis sativa). The study of endocannabinoids in recent years has led to exciting discoveries. By examining these substances, researchers have exposed an entirely new signaling system in the brain: a way that nerve cells communicate that no one anticipated even 15 years ago. Fully understanding this signaling system could have far-reaching implications. The details appear to hold a key to devising treatments for anxiety, pain, nausea, obesity, brain injury and many other medical problems. Ultimately such treatments could be tailored precisely so that they would not initiate the unwanted side effects produced by marijuana itself. Marijuana and its various alter egos, such as bhang and hashish, are among the most widely used psychoactive drugs in the world. How the plant has been used varies by culture. The ancient Chinese knew of marijuana's pain-relieving and mind-altering effects, yet it was not widely employed for its psychoactive properties; instead it was cultivated as hemp for the manufacture of rope and fabric. © 1996-2004 Scientific American, Inc.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 6464 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Kiran Rabheru, M.D. The occurrence of neuropsychiatric symptoms in dementia patients has been well established (Rovner et al., 1990). Of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), 78% suffer depressive symptoms, 77% have agitation and 69% have psychotic symptoms, with over half experiencing all three symptoms (Tractenberg et al., 2003). The diagnosis and treatment of mood symptoms in this population remains a challenge for physicians (Harman et al., 2002). It is important to recognize and treat these neuropsychiatric symptoms, as they result in increased morbidity, mortality and health care costs (Janzing et al., 1999). Mandatory depression screening in nursing homes can improve treatment rates (Cohen et al., 2003). Major depression and other, less severe forms of depression frequently form part of the clinical presentation of dementia. Depression with reversible cognitive impairment may be a prodrome for dementia rather than a separate and distinct disorder (Janzing et al., 1999). Depression may be challenging to assess in a patient with dementia. In patients with AD, the presence of depression may range from 6% to 30%, depending on the diagnostic criteria employed (Cummings et al., 1995). The prevalence and course of depression in dementia are controversial, due to several confounding factors. Family members tend to report much greater levels of depression in patients than do clinicians. © 2004 Psychiatric Times. All rights reserved.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Depression
Link ID: 6463 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Ruth M. Benca, M.D., Ph.D., and Timothy Juergens, M.D. We sleep for one-third of our lives, more time than we spend in any other single behavior, yet sleep is still a mystery in many ways. The high rates of comorbidity between sleep disturbance and psychiatric and medical disorders, however, suggest that sleep is important for normal regulation of physiology and behavior. Insomnia is by far the most common sleep complaint, and it may include difficulty falling asleep, difficulty staying asleep and/or nonrestorative sleep, with significant daytime consequences, often including daytime fatigue (Anonymous, 1999). In the general adult population, complaints of insomnia have a prevalence of about 30% (Ford and Kamerow, 1989; Mellinger et al., 1985), and severe insomnia affects 10% to 15% of the population (Ancoli-Israel and Roth, 1999). Unfortunately, patients with insomnia are frequently undiagnosed and/or untreated (Ancoli-Israel and Roth, 1999). This lack of attention to insomnia may be due in part to the failure to recognize its significant interactions with psychiatric and medical illnesses. The increased prevalence of insomnia in patients with psychiatric disorders is not surprising given that sleep disturbance is part of the diagnostic criteria for many disorders, particularly mood and anxiety disorders. Sixty percent to 90% of patients seeking treatment for depression complain of sleep disruption (Hamilton, 1989; McCall et al., 2000; Perlis et al., 1997). There is also an increased incidence of insomnia in patients with anxiety disorders, with rates of 50% to 70% reported in generalized anxiety disorder and 60% to 80% in panic disorder, as well as elevated rates of sleep disturbance in posttraumatic stress disorder, where difficulty with sleep is part of the diagnostic criteria (Anderson et al., 1984; Mellman et al., 1995; Uhde et al., 1984). Many patients with psychiatric disorders complain of sleep difficulties not only during acute illness but also during periods of remission (Reynolds et al., 1991). Copyright 1995-2004 CME LLC

Keyword: Sleep; Depression
Link ID: 6462 - Posted: 11.23.2004

A University of Southern California biomedical engineer's pioneering brain cell research has led directly to a patented system that is now being rolled out to stem gun violence on the streets of Chicago and Los Angeles. The engineer is Theodore Berger, director of the USC Center for Neural Engineering whose life's work has been deciphering the way in which nerve cells code messages to each other. Now, a camera-and-microphone surveillance system is using his insights to recognize -- instantly, and with high accuracy - the sound of a gunshot, and only a gunshot within a two-block radius. It can then locate, precisely, where the shot was fired; turn a camera to center the shooter in the camera viewfinder, and make a 911 call to a central police station. The police can then take control of the camera to track the shooter and dispatch officers to the scene. The city of Chicago is now installing the first five of 80 of the devices in high crime neighborhoods. In Los Angeles County, Sheriff Lee Baca is now soliciting community involvement and participation to deploy 10 of the units in a pilot test, to be followed by more if the results are successful.

Keyword: Hearing
Link ID: 6461 - Posted: 11.23.2004

By RISHENG XU According to a recent study by Harvard researchers—including the University’s provost—cocaine addiction may be caused by more than simple use of the drug. Released last Thursday in the journal Neuron, the article indicates that certain people may have a genetic predisposition toward cocaine addiction, raising important public policy issues and ethical questions about the nature of addiction. According to Hans C. Breiter, co-director of the Motivation and Emotion Neuroscience Collaboration (MENC) and senior author of the study, this key discovery lies in the structural differences within a specific part of the brains of cocaine addicts. This section of the brain, the amygdala, is responsible for creating the feeling of craving, according to Breiter, who is also an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. More importantly, he said, the amygdala allows people to see potentially harmful outcomes of their actions, thus serving as a deterrent for most people from abusing drugs. “Cocaine addicts have a terrible time seeing negative consequences of their actions—this is why they have to ‘hit bottom,’” said Breiter. Copyright © 2004, The Harvard Crimson Inc.

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Emotions
Link ID: 6460 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Ion channels made light sensitive, allowing remote control of firing Berkeley -- Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have given "blind" nerve cells the ability to detect light, paving the way for an innovative therapy that could restore sight to those who have lost it through disease. A team lead by neurobiologist Richard H. Kramer, UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology, and Dirk Trauner, assistant professor of chemistry, inserted a light-activated switch into brain cells normally insensitive to light, enabling the researchers to turn the cells on with green light and turn them off with ultraviolet light. This trick could potentially help those who have lost the light-sensitive rods and cones in their eyes because of nerve damage or diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa or age-related macular degeneration. In these cases, the photoreceptor cells are dead, but other nerve cells downstream of the photoreceptors are still alive. In particular, retinal ganglion cells, which are the third cell in the path from photoreceptor to brain, could take over some of the functions of the photoreceptors if they could be genetically engineered to respond to light. Kramer envisions a device, reminiscent of the eyepiece worn by the blind Geordi La Forge in "Star Trek – The Next Generation," that would provide some semblance of the real world.

Keyword: Vision
Link ID: 6459 - Posted: 06.24.2010

It depends on what we're thinking about! Toronto, CANADA -- What happens in the brain when we remember our own past? Researchers are using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to probe brain activity in search of the answer. According to a new fMRI study using a "diary" method to collect memories, it all depends on what we're thinking about! Researchers have known for decades that thinking about autobiographical facts is different from thinking about autobiographical episodes that happened only once. Since both kinds of thoughts can occur at the same time when people talk about their past, researchers have struggled to find an effective way to separate them. The new study, published in the current issue of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (16:9), is the first brain imaging study of its kind to use diary-like memories collected by volunteers. It was led by The Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care. Over a period of several months prior to the brain scan, volunteers documented dozens of unique events from their personal lives on a micro cassette recorder (episodic memories). At the same time, they recorded statements about personal facts of their lives (semantic memories). The researchers played these recordings back to the volunteers while their brains were being scanned with fMRI.

Keyword: Learning & Memory
Link ID: 6458 - Posted: 11.23.2004