𝐍𝐓/ Changing the connection between the hemispheres affects speech perception
Neuroscience biweekly vol. 26, 8th February — 19th February
TL;DR
- When we listen to speech sounds, our brain needs to combine information from both hemispheres. How does the brain integrate acoustic information from remote areas? In a neuroimaging study, a team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics, the Donders Institute and the University of Zurich applied electrical stimulation to participants’ brains during a listening task. The stimulation affected the connection between the two hemispheres, which in turn changed participants’ listening behaviour.
- A new brain-and-behavior study clarifies how the ‘anomalous-is-bad’ stereotype manifests, and implicates a brain region called the amygdala as one of the likely mediators of this stereotype.
- Researchers analyzed data from the UK Biobank of 500,000 people aged 58 years on average, and found that people with higher than normal blood sugar levels were 42% more likely to experience cognitive decline over an average of four years, and were 54% more likely to develop vascular dementia over an average of eight years (although absolute rates of both cognitive decline and dementia were low).
- The 10-member team made discoveries about a specific area of the brain tied to recollection and the desire to seek and consume food. It could lead to a way to inhibit the desire to overeat.
- Researchers have shown that they can facilitate walking, relieve dizziness and improve quality of life in patients with BVH by surgically implanting a stimulator that electrically bypasses malfunctioning areas of the inner ear and partially restores the sensation of balance.
- Astrocytes — star-shaped cells in the brain that are actively involved in brain function — may play an important role in stuttering, a study led by an expert on stuttering has found. The study also suggests that treatment with the medication risperidone leads to increased activity of the striatum in persons who stutter.
- Your brain is constantly evaluating which aspects of your experiences to either remember for later, ignore, or forget. Researchers have developed a new approach for studying these aspects of memory, by creating a computer program that turns sequences of events from a video into unique geometric shapes, which can be compared to the shapes of how people recounted the events. The study provides insight into how experiences are committed to memory and recounted to others.
- Researchers studying an enzyme in fruit fly larvae have found that it plays an important role in waking up brain stem cells from their dormant ‘quiescent’ state, enabling them to proliferate and generate new neurons. Published in the journal EMBO Reports, the study by Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, could help clarify how some neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and microcephaly occur.
- Dreams take us to what feels like a different reality. They also happen while we’re fast asleep. So, you might not expect that a person in the midst of a vivid dream would be able to perceive questions and provide answers to them. But a new study shows that, in fact, they can.
- Scientists have yet to answer the age-old question of whether or how sound shapes the minds of fetuses in the womb, and expectant mothers often wonder about the benefits of such activities as playing music during pregnancy. Now, in experiments in newborn mice, scientists at Johns Hopkins report that sounds appear to change “wiring” patterns in areas of the brain that process sound earlier than scientists assumed and even before the ear canal opens.
- Researchers have made new discoveries on the benefits of choir singing which may include positive effects on cognitive functioning similar to playing an instrument.
…And more!
#NT #Neuroscience
https://medium.com/paradigm-fund/nt-changing-the-connection-between-the-hemispheres-affects-speech-perception-467a4ded8a36