Posts Tagged ‘learning’
Promise and Concerns of Reading and Controlling Minds with New Technology
The ability to detect electrical activity in the brain through the scalp, and to control it, will soon transform medicine and change society in profound ways. Patterns of electrical activity in the brain can reveal a person’s cognition—normal and abnormal. New methods to stimulate specific brain circuits can treat neurological and mental illnesses and control…
Read MoreTennis Star Maria Sharapova’s Performance-enhancing Drug Explained
Tennis star Maria Sharapova has admitted to using the performance-enhancing drug meldonium, which boosts brain and body power and endurance. Here’s how it works. Meldonium was developed for the Soviet military and given to Soviet soldiers in the Afghanistan invasion. The drug increases endurance for physically and cognitively demanding tasks when the body is…
Read MoreThe Brain’s White Matter–Learning beyond Synapses
Recently scientists have been exploring part of the brain that has been relatively unexplored in learning–white matter, comprising half of the human brain. Here new research is detecting cellular changes during learning that are entirely different from the synaptic changes between neurons in gray matter. A new study shows that learning a new motor skill…
Read MoreExtraordinary Ability of Blind People to Hear Ultrafast Speech
New research presented at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego shows that blind people can understand speech at ultrafast rates, well beyond what a sighted person can comprehend. Using brain imaging, the researchers discovered how they were able to do this. The parts of the brain that process hearing get re-wired to the…
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