by Mónica López-González, Ph.D., and Charles J. Limb, M.D.
Researchers are now using brain imaging to study the neural underpinnings of spontaneous artistic creativity, from jazz riffs to freestyle rap. So far, they have found that brain areas deactivated during improvisation are also at rest during dreaming and meditation, while activated areas include those controlling language and sensorimotor skills. Even with relatively few completed studies, researchers have concluded that musical creativity clearly cannot be tied to just one brain area or process.
Editorial Note
New Institute of Medicine Report on the Revised Alzheimer’s Guidelines
by Floyd Bloom, M.D., Scientific Editor, Reports on Progress in Brain Research
Science is always on the move, and hopefully forward. To keep our readers aware of the latest pertinent information on progress in brain diseases, we plan from time to time to call attention to materials that appear after our Progress articles have been published. To that end, we note a new report (released Feb. 16) from the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Last fall, David Holtzman’s Report on Progress explained diagnostic guidelines for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) research that had been issued a few months earlier. The IOM’s new report focuses on refinements to those guidelines that researchers agree are needed. The report includes a valuable analogy for the work still facing Alzheimer’s researchers: a detailed discussion of how research found cholesterol a major culprit in heart disease and determined the treatment approach to it. The point also is made that the AD guidelines were issued specifically to guide research, but that they will “inevitably be used in clinical practice.”
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News
by Jim Schnabel
Researchers have re-embraced an old theory that Alzheimer’s resembles transmissible ‘prion’ diseases. Here’s a quick timeline of how their thinking has changed over the past few decades.
BrainWork
by Christine Ottery
Researchers find microparticles can carry treatments across the blood-brain barrier and target only tumor cells.
A Primer
by Kayt Sukel
Many of us think of hormones as the gender-specific molecules we learned about in middle school health class—chemical messengers that govern our reproductive development and behaviors. But sex steroids like testosterone and estrogen affect the entire brain both during development and throughout adult life, shaping, activating, and fueling sexually dimorphic brain circuits involved in stress and memory as well as several psychiatric disorders.Past quarterly primers cover brain receptors, neuroanatomy, the synapse and biomarkers.
News
by Andrew Kahn
Danling Chen, a 16-year-old 11th-grade student at Staten Island Technical High school, won first place at the 2012 New York City Regional Brain Bee. Now she'll head to Baltimore for the national competition, held during Brain Awareness Week.
See also
Column
by Guy McKhann, M.D.
With growing evidence regarding a placebo response, it is important to minimize the effects as much as possible.
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News
Brain development studies offer clues to understanding psychiatric disorders
by Kayt Sukel
Pressures on the brain as early as fetal development can alter development much later, researchers studying neural connections have found.
News
by Jim Schnabel
Prion-like protein aggregates aren’t always bad—they may be the key to stabilizing our long-term memories, for example. But how firm is the dividing line between “good prions” and bad ones?
Perspectives from the Former Psychiatry Consultant to the Army Surgeon General
by COL (Ret) Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, M.D., M.P.H.
The suicide rate of active-duty soldiers doubled between 2003 and 2010. In response, the Department of Defense and the United States Army improved their data collection methods to better understand the causes of military suicides. As retired colonel Dr. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie writes, unit history and the accumulation of stressors—from relationship problems to chronic pain—are significant suicide risk factors among soldiers. But, she argues, Army officials must use this knowledge to design more-effective strategies for suicide reduction, including limiting access to weapons, especially post-deployment, and better connecting soldiers with their communities.
Podcast
Training executive function is a big part of why we send kids to school. But what works best?
The New York Academy of Sciences invited neuroscientists and educators to meet in Aspen to hash out what we know and how schools might change to help every child succeed. (audio link)
News
by Moheb Costandi
Using off-the-shelf electronics and a little ingenuity, teachers and scientists are helping kids do basic brain science—and even high-tech optogenetics.
Primer
by Carolyn Asbury, Ph.D.
Imaging is becoming an increasingly important tool in both research and clinical care. This comprehensive report describes types of imaging and what the images can tell us about the brain. It is online in sections and also available complete as 45-page PDF.
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