Tag: brain

Humans and birds share the same singing genes

It’s not just great minds that think alike. Dozens of the genes involved in the vocal learning that underpins human speech are also active in some songbirds. And knowing this suggests that birds could become a standard model for investigating the genetics of speech production – and speech disorders. Image: Adrian S Jones

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3D silk doughnut opens window on brain injury

Researchers have several lifelike 3D models of the brain at their fingertips, but they mimic the brain’s dense and tangled structureMovie Camera so well that it is difficult to work out how individual cells are performing. David Kaplan at Tufts University in Massachusetts, who develops biomaterials made of silk proteins, wondered if his silk structures could provide a scaffold to build an easier-to-study neural network. Image: Tufts University

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First in-depth mammal brain map to reveal neural blips

It’s not quite as simple as X marks the spot, but uncovering the roots of neural disorders should be much easier now that we have a complete brain map. The Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas is the first detailed map of any mammal’s neural network. It’s an essential stepping stone and should provide insights into conditions such as schizophrenia. Image: Allen Institute for Brain Science

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Musical mind-reading can name that tune

It’s musical mind-reading. In the area of the brain that processes sound – the auditory cortex – different neurons become active in response to different sound frequencies. So it should be possible to work out which musical note someone is listening to just by looking at this activity. Image: all that improbable blue

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