Confronted with new things, the brain effortlessly moves from an initial “What’s that?” to “Oh, that old thing” after a few casual encounters. New research published online in the journal Neuron sheds light on the malleability of this recognition process, and shows how neuroscientists have teased apart the potentially different roles the two distinct cell types may play. Researchers had yet to figure out the steps required to move from novelty to familiarity, a process they refer to as “plasticity.” “We know little about that because of the level at which this plasticity is taking place,” says senior author David Sheinberg, professor of neuroscience and a member of the Institute for Brain Science at Brown University. “The inner workings made up of individual neurons make it very hard to actually track what’s going on at that level.”View full size

Confronted with new things, the brain effortlessly moves from an initial “What’s that?” to “Oh, that old thing” after a few casual encounters.

New research published online in the journal Neuron sheds light on the malleability of this recognition process, and shows how neuroscientists have teased apart the potentially different roles the two distinct cell types may play.

Researchers had yet to figure out the steps required to move from novelty to familiarity, a process they refer to as “plasticity.”

“We know little about that because of the level at which this plasticity is taking place,” says senior author David Sheinberg, professor of neuroscience and a member of the Institute for Brain Science at Brown University. “The inner workings made up of individual neurons make it very hard to actually track what’s going on at that level.”

It’s when you encounter something that’s unexpectedly good or bad that you need to change your behavior either to keep doing the thing that’s good or avoid the thing that’s bad. There’s been a lot of debate over how these signals are represented (in the brain). Neurosurgeons have learned that neurons in two important structures, the lateral prefrontal cortex and its neighboring subcortical structures, such as the caudate nucleus, handle both good and bad surprises. Wael Asaad, assistant professor of neurosurgery at Brown University, and the lead author of the study published in the Journal of Neuroscience and Emad Eskandar of Massachusetts General Hospital, believe these structures may hold the key to accelerate re-learning in patients who’ve suffered brain damage. Rebuilding neural infrastructure would only be the first step. “How do you restore the information that’s been lost, the things that you learned?” Asaad asks. “And if you could boost the reward signals at the right time, could you help them learn that particular movement more quickly?”View full size

It’s when you encounter something that’s unexpectedly good or bad that you need to change your behavior either to keep doing the thing that’s good or avoid the thing that’s bad. There’s been a lot of debate over how these signals are represented (in the brain).

Neurosurgeons have learned that neurons in two important structures, the lateral prefrontal cortex and its neighboring subcortical structures, such as the caudate nucleus, handle both good and bad surprises.

Wael Asaad, assistant professor of neurosurgery at Brown University, and the lead author of the study published in the Journal of Neuroscience and Emad Eskandar of Massachusetts General Hospital, believe these structures may hold the key to accelerate re-learning in patients who’ve suffered brain damage. Rebuilding neural infrastructure would only be the first step.

“How do you restore the information that’s been lost, the things that you learned?” Asaad asks. “And if you could boost the reward signals at the right time, could you help them learn that particular movement more quickly?”

(Source: jneurosci.org)

Researchers at Brown found that it requires conscious reasoning to decide that active and passive behaviors that are equally harmful are equally wrong.Obvious wrong is usually understood automatic, but when a person allows harm that they could easily prevent, that actually requires more carefully controlled deliberative thinking [to view as wrong], or HIGHER intelligence.Is this what parenting is all about, raising kids of higher intelligence? Really interesting study. Fiery Cushman and his co-authors, who were at Harvard University at the time, tracked the blood flow in the volunteers’ brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging scans.View full size

Researchers at Brown found that it requires conscious reasoning to decide that active and passive behaviors that are equally harmful are equally wrong.

Obvious wrong is usually understood automatic, but when a person allows harm that they could easily prevent, that actually requires more carefully controlled deliberative thinking [to view as wrong], or HIGHER intelligence.

Is this what parenting is all about, raising kids of higher intelligence? Really interesting study. Fiery Cushman and his co-authors, who were at Harvard University at the time, tracked the blood flow in the volunteers’ brains with functional magnetic resonance imaging scans.

It turns out that in a learning task, people are guided more by advice at the start. Their genes determine how long it takes before they let the lessons of experience prevail. Details are published in the Journal of Neuroscience. A new study finds that two brain regions have different takes on how incoming information should influence thinking. The prefrontal cortex (PFC), the executive area of the brain and the striatum, buried deeper in the brain, is where people process experience to learn what to do Michael Frank, assistant professor of cognitive, linguistic, and psychological sciences at Brown UniversityView full size

It turns out that in a learning task, people are guided more by advice at the start. Their genes determine how long it takes before they let the lessons of experience prevail.

Details are published in the Journal of Neuroscience. A new study finds that two brain regions have different takes on how incoming information should influence thinking.

The prefrontal cortex (PFC), the executive area of the brain and the striatum, buried deeper in the brain, is where people process experience to learn what to do

Michael Frank, assistant professor of cognitive, linguistic, and psychological sciences at Brown University