News
How Dreams Are Shown Through Brain Activity
For the longest amount of time, sleep and dreams were a complete mystery. At best, only educated guesses could be made as to how and why we dream from scientists such as Sigmund Freud, who claimed that sleep was a “safety valve” for unconscious desires. Essentially, no concrete theory for the process of sleep could […]
One Step Closer: New Alzheimer’s Gene Discovered
Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is the most prevalent form of dementia, and sixth leading cause of death in the US, affecting 60-80% of individuals 65 and older. The hallmark symptom of Alzheimer’s Disease is serious memory loss attributed to widespread cell death and loss of cortical mass. Treatments are currently used to stop and slow the […]
What Really Happens When You Tickle Babies
Everyone loves to make babies laugh, whether it’s by making funny faces, strange sounds, or tickling their toes. The funny thing is, while we know that younger infants start out with very limited visual capabilities, most of us have assumed that their sense of touch is developed enough to be linked with the visual system. […]
Is Music Affecting Our Memory?
Music has been scientifically proven as beneficial, having effects such as reducing stress, enhancing blood vessel function, improving sleep quality, and improving cognitive performance. However, one thing that music does not improve is one’s ability to focus. In a recent study conducted at Georgia Institute of Technology, researchers found that listening to music decreased the […]
Nanotechnology: Creating the perfect human?
How would you feel if you had the choice of having billions of tiny robots injected into your body? A pretty unpleasant thought, am I right? What if I told you that these tiny robots could repair any mutation you may have in your DNA? Sound far-fetched? Well, scientists have been making huge breakthroughs in […]
The Mystery of the Human Connectome
Did anyone read that article in BU today last week called “Untangling the Connectome?” In case you didn’t, here’s a brief synopsis. Dr. Kasthuri and his lab members are working on identifying the connections between the neurons in the human brain. This has been done before for C. elegans, which have only 302 neurons (compared to […]
An Understanding of Language-Processing with Audiobooks
When I read a book such as the one about the romantic life of Peeta and Katniss, I delve into the lives of the characters so much that I worry about myself because I relate myself to the characters’ fantastical lives. All readers face this and that is incredible. Neuroscientists like Roel Willems and Annabel Nijhof […]
Is iPhone Separation Anxiety Real?
Have you ever searched for a ringing phone, feeling your anxiety increase with each ring? Or experienced a mini heart attack when you thought you lost your phone only to discover it was in a different pocket? Most older generations would criticize you for being so obsessed with technology, but recent studies have shown that […]
Optogenetics: Using Light to Turn Memories On and Off
Scientists have known about rhodopsins that are responsible for sensing light for a while. What if there was a way to insert those rhodopsins inside neurons? That’s exactly what scientists were experimenting with in the early 2000s and it’s this idea that lead to the birth of optogenetics. By taking the DNA of channel rhodopsins […]
New Huntington’s disease clinical trial to enter Phase 1 in 2015
Huntington’s disease (HD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that slowly diminishes one’s ability to walk, talk, and reason until eventually control is completely lost. HD is an autosomal dominant genetic disorder, so everyone who carries the gene is guaranteed to develop the disease and will have a 50% chance of passing it on. Currently, there is […]