brains

For some time now, researchers have known that people who are addicted to alcohol, cocaine, and other drugs tend to have a lower-than-average number of D2 receptors in their brains. That makes sense when you think about it.

However, very few studies demonstrate the effects of estrogenic pollutants on brain function.

Evolutionary psychologists argue that the brain is a physical system with built-in neural circuits designed to generate environmentally appropriate behavior.

Geneticist Bruce Lahn of the University of Chicago calls HAR1F "a strong candidate gene" for examining how changes in DNA sequence have contributed to the emergence of the distinctly human brain.

In the best-seller, Sit & Get Won't Grow Dendrites: 20 Professional Learning Strategies that Engage the Adult Brain, I describe the worst presentation that I ever attended.

Next, eight of the volunteers went through brain training.

The other group had a procedure done so that dopamine was blocked from reaching the NAc region of their brains. If the dopamine-blocked rats showed roaming activities, scientists would know it couldn't be caused by dopamine in the NAc.

Background In 2000, when this experiment was conducted, scientists knew that animals given high doses of methamphetamine wound up with fewer dopamine nerve transporters, or terminals, in their brains. Dopamine is a brain chemical important for pleasure, motivation, and motor activity.

This view holds that the mind is fundamentally a computer program implemented in the brain's hardware--one which could be replicated in a different physical substrate.

"If you're a lifetime fitness buff, you will have more grey and white brain matter in the right places when you're older than someone who's been a couch potato their whole life," says psychologist Arthur Kramer of the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Ninety percent of what scientists know about the brain has been discovered in the past decade, and the technology continues to change.

These recent experiments build on 1997 Japanese research showing that the rhythmic actions of ritual--from the repetitive chanting of Buddhism to Sufi dancing to such simple actions as bowing, genuflecting, and making the sign of the cross--trigger certain brain mechanisms that produce feelings ranging from spiritual tranquillity, transcendence, an experience of God, to ecstatic union and beatific vision.

He wrote that although healthy brains had made up 20% of all donations to the bank during its first five years, they have now dropped to an "alarming" level of 3%.

The brains of those with and without autism displayed comparable amygdala volume and brain-cell size, Schumann and Amaral report in the July 19 Journal of Neuroscience.

* Wrap up the lesson by discussing the following questions: Could spreading the news about how dramatically methamphetamine affects brain structure, memory skills, and motor skills help cut down the number of new users?