Posts tagged brain function
Articles and news from the latest research reports.
Musical training shapes brain anatomy and affects function
New findings show that extensive musical training affects the structure and function of different brain regions, how those regions communicate during the creation of music, and how the brain interprets and integrates sensory information. The findings were presented at Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.
These insights suggest potential new roles for musical training including fostering plasticity in the brain, an alternative tool in education, and treating a range of learning disabilities.
Today’s new findings show that:
- Long-term high level musical training has a broader impact than previously thought. Researchers found that musicians have an enhanced ability to integrate sensory information from hearing, touch, and sight (Julie Roy, abstract 550.13, see attached summary).
- The age at which musical training begins affects brain anatomy as an adult; beginning training before the age of seven has the greatest impact (Yunxin Wang, abstract 765.07, see attached summary).
- Brain circuits involved in musical improvisation are shaped by systematic training, leading to less reliance on working memory and more extensive connectivity within the rain (Ana Pinho, MS, abstract 122.13, see attached summary).
Some of the brain changes that occur with musical training reflect the automation of task (much as one would recite a multiplication table) and the acquisition of highly specific sensorimotor and cognitive skills required for various aspects of musical expertise.
“Playing a musical instrument is a multisensory and motor experience that creates emotions and motions — from finger tapping to dancing — and engages pleasure and reward systems in the brain. It has the potential to change brain function and structure when done over a long period of time,” said press conference moderator Gottfried Schlaug, MD, PhD, of Harvard Medical School/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, an expert on music, neuroimaging and brain plasticity. “As today’s findings show, intense musical training generates new processes within the brain, at different stages of life, and with a range of impacts on creativity, cognition, and learning.”
Understanding ourselves by studying the animal kingdom
Research released today reveals a new model for a genetic eye disease, and shows how animal models — from fruit flies to armadillos and monkeys — can yield valuable information about the human brain. The findings were presented at Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world’s largest source of emerging news about brain science and health.
Animal models have long been central in how we understand the human brain, behavior, and nervous system due to similarities in many brain areas and functions across species. Almost every major medical advance in the last century was made possible by carefully regulated, humane animal research. Today’s findings build on this rich history and demonstrate what animals can teach us about ourselves.
Today’s new findings show that:
- The nine-banded armadillo may serve as a model for certain types of progressive blindness. The animal’s poor eyesight mimics many human disorders and may shed light on new treatment approaches for such diseases (Christopher Emerling, BS, abstract 150.06, see attached summary).
- Analysis of a baboon population reveals particular genes that may be involved in creating the “folds” in the structure of the brain. These findings provide information on how human genes may have evolved to create the brain’s shape and function (Elizabeth Atkinson, BA, abstract 195.13, see attached summary).
- Monkeys and humans use similar brain pathways while processing decisions. Detailed analyses of similarities and differences in brain wiring could provide new insights into decision-making in humans (Franz-Xaver Neubert, abstract 18.03, see attached summary).
Other recent findings discussed show that:
- Use of powerful genetic tools in fruit flies is helping to reveal the basic building blocks of brain circuitry and function. This work is furthering our understanding of the human brain and may be helpful in developing medical diagnostic devices (Rachel Wilson, PhD, presentation 302, see attached speaker summary).
- Research in a tiny worm (C. elegans) has allowed scientists to map all of the connections between neurons in the species, including the pathways for movement, sex, and more. The findings offer new insights into how the human nervous system functions (Scott Emmons, PhD, presentation 009, see attached speaker summary).
“Neuroscience has always relied on responsible animal research to better understand how our brains and bodies develop, function, and break down,” said press conference moderator Leslie Tolbert, of the University of Arizona, whose work in insects provides insights into brain development. “Today’s studies reveal new ways that research on unlikely-seeming animals, such as armadillos, fruit flies, and worms, could have real impact on our understanding of the human brain and what can go wrong in disease.”
Virginia Tech to Host Neuroscience Workshop in Switzerland
Neuroscientists will discuss cognition, computation, decisions
Nearly two dozen of the world’s leading neuroscientists will gather in Switzerland next month to share their latest findings on the mysteries of how the brain processes information and makes decisions.
The Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute European–U.S. Workshop on the Neuroscience of Cognition, Computation, and Decisions will be held at Virginia Tech’s Center for European Studies and Architecture at Riva San Vitale in Ticino on Oct. 16 to Oct. 18.
“We have two principal goals for this intensive workshop,” said Michael Friedlander, associate provost for health sciences at Virginia Tech and executive director of the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute. “First, we want to identify new and powerful integrated approaches to bridge multiple levels of understanding brain function. We are also hoping to lay the foundations for pioneering innovative and disruptive approaches to transcending disciplines and technologies across teams of leading European brain researchers and Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute neuroscientists.”
The workshop will convene 10 neuroscientists from the institute and 13 neuroscientists from prominent brain-research institutions in five European countries, includinbg the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and École Polytechnique in France; the Central Institute of Mental Health Mannheim, Freie Universität Berlin, the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and the University of Heidelberg in Germany; the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy; École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, ETH Zürich, and the University of Zurich in Switzerland; and University College London in the United Kingdom.
Workshop participants will address emerging views of how neuronal and synaptic networks in the brain assemble, process, store, and access information and how large-scale networks of interconnected neurons perform in humans and other mammals. The participants will also consider the functional architecture that underlies the brain’s decision-making capacity, the neural basis of social interactions, the effects of the environment on information processing, and the consequences of a range of disorders on the function of the human brain.
Participants will share their newest discoveries in multiple sessions of several speakers each, followed by in-depth discussions to identify congruent perspectives and converging insights from multiple disciplines.
The discoveries will represent a broad array of technological and conceptual approaches, including analysis of detailed structural and functional properties of individual neurons and synaptic networks obtained with powerful electrophysiological, genetic, and optical imaging methods; functional brain imaging and behavioral studies in individuals and groups of interacting humans; and computational analysis and modeling of brain function and behavior.
Additional experts will address economics and game theory applications to human brain function and behavior in health and in disease; analysis of development, aging, and educational interventions on brain function; and the modulation of brain function acutely and over time in health and in various disorders that affect behavior, neural information processing, and decision-making.
“This workshop is taking place at a confluence of important national and international milestones in brain research in both Europe and the United States,” Friedlander said. “The Blue Brain Project in Europe represents a major international coalition to support large-scale, detailed analysis of the circuitry of the brain, while in the United States, President Barack Obama’s BRAIN Initiative will support innovative new approaches to high-resolution, large-scale functional mapping of the brain. We’re hoping to harness the wisdom of experts on both continents to develop new approaches and better technologies for diagnosing and treating neurological and psychiatric disorders that affect people worldwide.”
Capturing brain activity with sculpted light
Researchers in Vienna develop new imaging technique to study the function of entire nervous systems. Scientists at the Campus Vienna Biocenter (Austria) have found a way to overcome some of the limitations of light microscopy. Applying the new technique, they can record the activity of a worm’s brain with high temporal and spatial resolution, ultimately linking brain anatomy to brain function. The journal Nature Methods publishes the details in its current issue.
A major aim of today’s neuroscience is to understand how an organism’s nervous system processes sensory input and generates behavior. To achieve this goal, scientists must obtain detailed maps of how the nerve cells are wired up in the brain, as well as information on how these networks interact in real time.
The organism many neuroscientists turn to in order to study brain function is a tiny, transparent worm found in rotting soil. The simple nematode C. elegans is equipped with just 302 neurons that are connected by roughly 8000 synapses. It is the only animal for which a complete nervous system has been anatomically mapped.
Researchers have so far focused on studying the activity of single neurons and small networks in the worm, but have not been able to establish a functional map of the entire nervous system. This is mainly due to limitations in the imaging-techniques they employ: the activity of single cells can be resolved with high precision, but simultaneously looking at the function of all neurons that comprise entire brains has been a major challenge. Thus, there was always a trade-off between spatial or temporal accuracy and the size of brain regions that could be studied.
Scientists at Vienna’s Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), the Max Perutz Laboratories (MFPL), and the Research Platform Quantum Phenomena & Nanoscale Biological Systems (QuNaBioS) of the University of Vienna have now closed this gap and developed a high speed imaging technique with single neuron resolution that bypasses these limitations. In a paper published online in Nature Methods, the teams of Alipasha Vaziri and Manuel Zimmer describe the technique which is based on their ability to “sculpt” the three-dimensional distribution of light in the sample. With this new kind of microscopy, they are able to record the activity of 70% of the nerve cells in a worm’s head with high spatial and temporal resolution.
“Previously, we would have to scan the focused light by the microscope in all three dimensions”, says quantum physicist Robert Prevedel. “That takes far too long to record the activity of all neurons at the same time. The trick we invented tinkers with the light waves in a way that allows us to generate “discs” of light in the sample. Therefore, we only have to scan in one dimension to get the information we need. We end up with three-dimensional videos that show the simultaneous activities of a large number of neurons and how they change over time.” Robert Prevedel is a Senior Postdoc in the lab of Alipasha Vaziri, who is an IMP-MFPL Group Leader and is heading the Research Platform Quantum Phenomena & Nanoscale Biological Systems (QuNaBioS) of the University of Vienna, where the new technique was developed.
However, the new microscopic method is only half the story. Visualising the neurons requires tagging them with a fluorescent protein that lights up when it binds to calcium, signaling the nerve cells’ activity. “The neurons in a worm’s head are so densely packed that we could not distinguish them on our first images”, explains neurobiologist Tina Schrödel, co-first author of the study. “Our solution was to insert the calcium sensor into the nuclei rather than the entire cells, thereby sharpening the image so we could identify single neurons.” Tina Schrödel is a Doctoral Student in the lab of the IMP Group Leader Manuel Zimmer.
The new technique that came about by a close collaboration of physicists and neurobiologists has great potentials beyond studies in worms, according to the researchers. It will open up the way for experiments that were not possible before. One of the questions that will be addressed is how the brain processes sensory information to “plan” specific movements and then executes them. This ambitious project will require further refinement of both the microscopy methods and computational methods in order to study freely moving animals. The team in Vienna is set to achieve this goal in the coming two years.
Migraine May Permanently Change Brain Structure
Migraine may have long-lasting effects on the brain’s structure, according to a study published in the August 28, 2013, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
“Traditionally, migraine has been considered a benign disorder without long-term consequences for the brain,” said study author Messoud Ashina, MD, PhD, with the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. “Our review and meta-analysis study suggests that the disorder may permanently alter brain structure in multiple ways.”
The study found that migraine raised the risk of brain lesions, white matter abnormalities and altered brain volume compared to people without the disorder. The association was even stronger in those with migraine with aura.
For the meta-analysis, researchers reviewed six population-based studies and 13 clinic-based studies to see whether people who experienced migraine or migraine with aura had an increased risk of brain lesions, silent abnormalities or brain volume changes on MRI brain scans compared to those without the conditions.
The results showed that migraine with aura increased the risk of white matter brain lesions by 68 percent and migraine with no aura increased the risk by 34 percent, compared to those without migraine. The risk for infarct-like abnormalities increased by 44 percent for those with migraine with aura compared to those without aura. Brain volume changes were more common in people with migraine and migraine with aura than those with no migraines.
“Migraine affects about 10 to 15 percent of the general population and can cause a substantial personal, occupational and social burden,” said Ashina. “We hope that through more study, we can clarify the association of brain structure changes to attack frequency and length of the disease. We also want to find out how these lesions may influence brain function.”
(Image: Getty images)
Combination of Two Imaging Techniques Allows New Insights into Brain Function
The ability to measure brain functions non-invasively is important both
for clinical diagnoses and research in Neurology and Psychology. Two main imaging techniques are used: positron emission tomography (PET), which reveals metabolic processes in the brain; and activity of different brain regions is measured on the basis of the cells’ oxygen consumption by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). A direct comparison of PET and MRI measurements was previously difficult because each had to be performed in a separate machine.
Researchers from the Werner Siemens Imaging Center at the University of Tübingen under the direction of Professor Bernd J. Pichler in collaboration with the Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, University Hospital Tübingen, and the Tübingen Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems have now successfully combined both methods. The researchers are able to explore functional processes in the brain in detail and can better assess what course of action to take. These results were achieved by the use of a PET insert enabling complementary, simultaneous PET/MRI scans. It was developed and built at the University of Tübingen.
The researchers could identify in certain regions a mismatch between glucose metabolism related brain activation measured with PET and oxygenation related signals, measured with MRI. Furthermore information about functional connectivity in the brain could be derived from MRI and from dynamic PET data. These results help to further decipher the nature of brain function, and are ultimately useful for basic research as well as clinical practice. The study, by lead author Dr. Hans Wehrl of Professor Bernd J. Pichler’s research team is soon to be published in the journal “Nature Medicine”.
In PET imaging the distribution of a weakly radioactive substance is shown in cross sections of the body, enabling doctors to see many different metabolic and physiological functions at work. Functional MRI (fMRI) allows researchers to depict changes in blood oxygenation that are associated with brain function. This measurement of functional active brain regions is also important for the planning of brain surgeries, where particular care must be taken in certain areas. The ability to collect different kinds of data from different scans simultaneously represents a major step forward in the fields using these technologies.
(Source: alphagalileo.org)
A new role for sodium in the brain
Researchers at McGill University have found that sodium – the main chemical component in table salt – is a unique “on/off” switch for a major neurotransmitter receptor in the brain. This receptor, known as the kainate receptor, is fundamental for normal brain function and is implicated in numerous diseases, such as epilepsy and neuropathic pain.
Prof. Derek Bowie and his laboratory in McGill’s Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, worked with University of Oxford researchers to make the discovery. By offering a different view of how the brain transmits information, their research highlights a new target for drug development. The findings are published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.
Balancing kainate receptor activity is the key to maintaining normal brain function. For example, in epilepsy, kainate activity is thought to be excessive. Thus, drugs which would shut down this activity are expected to be beneficial.
“It has been assumed for decades that the “on/off” switch for all brain receptors lies where the neurotransmitter binds,” says Prof. Bowie, who also holds a Canada Research Chair in Receptor Pharmacology. “However, we found a completely separate site that binds individual atoms of sodium and controls when kainate receptors get turned on and off.”
The sodium switch is unique to kainate receptors, which means that drugs designed to stimulate this switch, should not act elsewhere in the brain. This would be a major step forward, since drugs often affect many locations, in addition to those they were intended to act on, producing negative side-effects as a result. These so called “off-target effects” for drugs represent one of the greatest challenges facing modern medicine.
“Now that we know how to stimulate kainate receptors, we should be able to design drugs to essentially switch them off,” says Dr. Bowie.
Dr. Philip Biggin’s lab at Oxford University used computer simulations to predict how the presence or absence of sodium would affect the kainate receptor.
(Source: mcgill.ca)
Researchers Debunk Myth of “Right-brain” and “Left-brain”Personality Traits
Newly released research findings from University of Utah neuroscientists assert that there is no evidence within brain imaging that indicates some people are right-brained or left-brained.
Chances are, you’ve heard the label of being a “right-brained” or “left-brained” thinker. Logical, detail-oriented and analytical? That’s left-brained behavior. Creative, thoughtful and subjective? Your brain’s right side functions stronger —or so long-held assumptions suggest.
But newly released research findings from University of Utah neuroscientists assert that there is no evidence within brain imaging that indicates some people are right-brained or left-brained.
For years in popular culture, the terms left-brained and right-brained have come to refer to personality types, with an assumption that some people use the right side of their brain more, while some use the left side more.
Following a two-year study, University of Utah researchers have debunked that myth through identifying specific networks in the left and right brain that process lateralized functions. Lateralization of brain function means that there are certain mental processes that are mainly specialized to one of the brain’s left or right hemispheres. During the course of the study, researchers analyzed resting brain scans of 1,011 people between the ages of seven and 29. In each person, they studied functional lateralization of the brain measured for thousands of brain regions —finding no relationship that individuals preferentially use their left -brain network or right- brain network more often.
“It’s absolutely true that some brain functions occur in one or the other side of the brain. Language tends to be on the left, attention more on the right. But people don’t tend to have a stronger left- or right-sided brain network. It seems to be determined more connection by connection, ” said Jeff Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., lead author of the study, which is formally titled “An Evaluation of the Left-Brain vs. Right-Brain Hypothesis with Resting State Functional Connectivity Magnetic Resonance Imaging.” It is published in the journal PLOS ONE this month.
Researchers obtained brain scans for the population they studied from a database called INDI, the International Neuroimaging Data-Sharing Initiative. The participants’ scans were taken during a functional connectivity MRI analysis, meaning a participant laid in a scanner for 5 to 10 minutes while their resting brain activity was analyzed.
By viewing brain activity, scientists can correlate brain activity in one region of the brain compared to another. In the study, researchers broke up the brain into 7,000 regions and examined which regions of the brain were more lateralized. They looked for connections — or all of the possible combinations of brain regions — and added up the number of connections for each brain region that was left- lateralized or right-lateralized. They discovered patterns in brain imaging for why a brain connection might be strongly left- or right-lateralized, said Jared Nielsen, a graduate student in neuroscience who carried out the study as part of his coursework.
“If you have a connection that is strongly left- lateralized, it relates to other strongly lateralized connection only if both sets of connections have a brain region in common,” said Nielsen.
Results of the study are groundbreaking, as they may change the way people think about the old right-brain versus left-brain theory, he said.
“Everyone should understand the personality types associated with the terminology ‘left-brained’ and ‘right-brained’ and how they relate to him or her personally; however, we just don’t see patterns where the whole left-brain network is more connected or the whole right-brain network is more connected in some people. It may be that personality types have nothing to do with one hemisphere being more active, stronger, or more connected,” said Nielsen.
Chocolate may help keep brain healthy, sharp in old age, study says
Older chocoholics may have a new excuse to indulge their cravings: The dark stuff not only soothes the soul, but might also sharpen the mind.
In a study published Wednesday in the journal Neurology, researchers reported that chocolate may help improve brain health and thinking skills in the elderly. The Boston-based team found that older people who initially performed poorly on a memory and reasoning test and also had reduced blood flow to their brains showed improvement after drinking two cups of cocoa every day for a month.
The researchers had set out to test whether chocolate could increase blood flow to the brain during problem solving, boosting performance, after finding in earlier studies that consuming chocolate high in the antioxidant flavanol was associated with better brain and blood vessel functioning. They recruited 60 elderly subjects for the new study. Since they suspected that flavanol would improve the subjects’ thinking skills and blood flow, they randomly assigned subjects to drink either flavanol-rich or flavanol-poor hot chocolate.
The participants drank two cups of hot chocolate every day for 30 days. Before and after the study period, they completed a memory and reasoning test, which assessed their ability to recognize patterns in a series of letters on a computer screen. Additionally, the researchers used ultrasound to indirectly measure the blood flow to subjects’ brains, as well as magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, to examine subjects’ white matter — the nerve fibers that connect different parts of the brain.
People who performed poorly on the initial cognitive test — about a third of the participants — also had reduced blood flow to their brains and widespread white matter damage. Those who scored high on the test had signficantly better blood flow and more intact white matter, indicating that blood flow, cognitive functioning and brain structure were linked.
At the end of the 30 days, the team found that drinking hot chocolate benefited only the subjects who had poor cognitive and neurovascular function to begin with. After the hot cocoa regimen, those individuals showed an 8% improvement in blood flow and a roughly 1 minute faster reaction time on the cognitive task. There was barely any improvement among those who had started out with normal blood flow and cognitive skills.
To the scientists’ surprise, there weren’t significant differences in the neurovascular or cognitive changes between the flavanol-rich and flavanol-poor groups — suggesting that something else in the chocolate was causing the improvements. The researchers plan to identify and test this component in future trials, said study leader Dr. Farzaneh A. Sorond, a neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
After identifying the substance, the researchers may even be able to produce it in pill form, said Dr. Costantino Iadecola, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, who was not involved in the study.
By showing that blood flow to the brain is associated with cognitive function, the study helps explain earlier findings that people with high blood pressure and other cardiovascular conditions were prone to developing dementia. This, in turn, suggests that the cognitive functioning test and other measures used in the trial may one day serve as cheap, noninvasive methods to screen people for risk of dementia.
Scientists have focused more on treating than on preventing age-related cognitive decline, Sorond said.
“By the time people develop these problems, it’s too late to initiate the drugs we have,” she said. “If we could diagnose them earlier, before they have clinical symptoms, using physiological markers … maybe we could prevent the disease or lessen its impact.”
The study has its limitations. The ultrasound technique the researchers used offered only an estimate of blood flow to the brain – a precise measurement would require a more invasive method. “This was an easy way to get this information, but not the most accurate way,” Iadecola said.
He added that the study was small, and that it was unclear how long the chocolate’s effects would last.
“Will these changes persist after a month of cocoa or go back to where they were before? Would you take the cocoa forever?” Iadecola said. “We don’t know.”
Although the study results may tempt some to add chocolate to their diet, Sorond noted that the participants’ food intake was strictly regulated to offset the excess fat and sugar in hot chocolate. For people seeking to keep their brains healthy, she recommends an intervention already known to improve cognitive function: exercise.
Religious Factors and Hippocampal Atrophy in Late Life
Despite a growing interest in the ways spiritual beliefs and practices are reflected in brain activity, there have been relatively few studies using neuroimaging data to assess potential relationships between religious factors and structural neuroanatomy. This study examined prospective relationships between religious factors and hippocampal volume change using high-resolution MRI data of a sample of 268 older adults. Religious factors assessed included life-changing religious experiences, spiritual practices, and religious group membership. Hippocampal volumes were analyzed using the GRID program, which is based on a manual point-counting method and allows for semi-automated determination of region of interest volumes. Significantly greater hippocampal atrophy was observed for participants reporting a life-changing religious experience. Significantly greater hippocampal atrophy was also observed from baseline to final assessment among born-again Protestants, Catholics, and those with no religious affiliation, compared with Protestants not identifying as born-again. These associations were not explained by psychosocial or demographic factors, or baseline cerebral volume. Hippocampal volume has been linked to clinical outcomes, such as depression, dementia, and Alzheimer’s Disease. The findings of this study indicate that hippocampal atrophy in late life may be uniquely influenced by certain types of religious factors.