The Science of Concentration

In the nearer future, neuroscientists might help you focus by observing your brain activity and providing biofeedback as you practice strengthening your concentration. Researchers have already observed higher levels of synchrony in the brains of people who regularly meditate.

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Augmented Reality

EARBUDS can pipe audio directly from a portable player to the ear. But did you ever imagine that eyeglasses or contact lenses could deliver digital images directly from a smartphone to the retina?
Several companies are already developing prototypes...

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Neuroenhancing

A young man I’ll call Alex recently graduated from Harvard. As a history major, Alex wrote about a dozen papers a semester. He also ran a student organization, for which he often worked more than forty hours a week; when he wasn’t on the job, he had classes. Weeknights were devoted to all the schoolwork that he couldn’t finish during the day, and weekend nights were spent drinking with friends and going to dance parties. “Trite as it sounds,” he told me, it seemed important to “maybe appreciate my own youth.” Since, in essence, this life was impossible, Alex began taking Adderall to make it possible...

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Using GPS to track down asthma triggers

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin in Madison recently launched a study using Global Positioning System (GPS) devices to monitor where and when patients use their inhalers, a technology they hope will uncover unrecognized triggers of asthma symptoms.

Scientists have long known that environmental factors such as pollen, cigarette smoke, and air pollutants aggravate symptoms of asthma, such as wheezing, coughing, and shortness of breath. But the leader of the study David Van Sickle, an epidemiologist at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health says it's likely there are unknown environmental culprits. Figuring out exactly when and where asthma attacks occur can help pinpoint these aggravators, he adds.

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Brain Researchers Open Door to Editing Memory

SUNY Downstate Medical Center neuroscientists have discovered that a single dose of an experimental drug delivered to areas of the brain critical for holding specific types of memory (like emotional associations or spatial knowledge) blocks the activity of a substance that the brain apparently needs to retain much of its learned information. If enhanced, the substance could help ward off dementias and other memory problems, but raises huge ethical issues.

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Brain Images Reveal the Secret to Higher IQ

New research suggests that the layer of insulation coating neural wiring in the brain plays a critical role in determining intelligence. In addition, the quality of this insulation appears to be largely genetically determined, providing further support for the idea that IQ is partly inherited.

The findings, which result from a detailed study of twins' brains, hint at how ever-improving brain-imaging technology could shed light on some of our most basic characteristics.

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Brain wave patterns can predict blunders, new study finds

From spilling a cup of coffee to failing to notice a stop sign, everyone makes an occasional error due to lack of attention. Now a team led by a researcher at the University of California, Davis, in collaboration with the Donders Institute in the Netherlands, has found a distinct electric signature in the brain which predicts that such an error is about to be made.

The discovery could prove useful in a variety of applications, from developing monitoring devices that alert air traffic control operators that their attention is flagging, to devising new strategies to help children cope with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The work was posted online on March 23 by the journal Human Brain Mapping as part of a special issue highlighting innovations in electromagnetic brain imaging that will be published in May.

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Brain scan reveals memories of where you've been

Scans of the part of the brain responsible for memory have for the first time been used to detect a person's location in a virtual environment. Using functional MRI (fMRI), researchers decoded the approximate location of several people as they navigated through virtual rooms.

This finding suggests that more detailed mind-reading, such detecting as memories of a summer holiday, might eventually be possible, says Eleanor Maguire, a neuroscientist at University College London.Her team trained its scanner on the hippocampus, a region of the brain critical to the formation and storage of memories. It is known that in animals, specialised place cells in the hippocampus fire regularly as they move from place to place.

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Probing the brain wirelessly

Infrared-absorbing lead selenide particles form the basis of a method for the study of neuronal activation in samples of brain tissues without the need for hard-wired electrodes. The technique instead utilises light-triggered nanostructured semiconductor photoelectrodes to probe activity.

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Wireless activation of brain with nanoparticless emiting near infrared light

Traditionally, stimulating nerves or brain tissue involves cumbersome wiring and a sharp metal electrode. But a team of researchers at Case Western Reserve University is going "wireless."And it's a unique collaboration between chemists and neuroscientists that led to the discovery of a remarkable new way to use light to activate brain circuits with nanoparticles.


By using semiconductor nanoparticles as tiny solar cells, the scientists can excite neurons in single cells or groups of cells with infrared light. This eliminates the need for the complex wiring by embedding the light-activated nanoparticles directly into the tissue. This method allows for a more controlled reaction and closely replicates the sophisticated focal patterns created by natural stimuli.

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