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A functional MRI study of 17 people who have been blind since birth found that areas of the brain usually devoted to visual information become active when a blind person is solving math problems. The study was published in the journal PNAS.
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Geoff Story/Courtesy of Washington University in St. Louis
Try to look inside the brain and you’re not going to get very far. But photoacoustic imaging may be a solution for the shortcomings of conventional imaging. It uses lasers to make the brain sing.
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Ever wonder how your dog knows what you’re feeling? Researchers in Budapest recently discovered a neural circuit in dogs’ brains that respond to the emotions in voices — both dog voices and human voices. The circuit seems to work similarly to a voice-detection circuit found in the human brain. This research was no small feat, as the dog subjects were required to lie completely still for 10 minutes at a time in an fRMI scanner. Thankfully, the dogs were motivated by treats and praise. Read more at NPR’s coverage: How Dogs Read Our Moods:Emotion Detector Found in Fido’s Brain
The light show at the Mickey Hart Band concert is part science, part art. Mickey Hart, best known as the percussionist for the Grateful Dead, wears an EEG cap while he plays which powers the light show for concert. Read more at NPR’s coverage: This is Musician Mickey Hart’s Brain on Music
In an effort to figure out how language helps babies learn, researchers studied infant learning in response to lemur screeches. Amazingly, 3 month old human infants learned in response to lemur shrieks. Although, this effect was gone by 6 months, at which point only human speech helped the babies learn. Read more at NPR’s coverage: Enough with Baby Talk; Infants Learn from Lemur Screeches, too
As part of ongoing research to determine the causes of migraines, researchers using MRI discovered that the brains of those of us who suffer from migraines have white matter abnormalities that appear similar to mini-strokes. There is also a slightly increased risk for stroke for those who experience migraines with aura (flashing lights before a migraine), making it very important to practice stroke prevention. Read more at NPR’s coverage: Migraine Brain Changes