Researchers have discovered that Broca's area in the brain--best known as the region that evolved to manage speech production--is a major "executive" center in the brain for organizing hierarchies of behaviors. Such planning ability, from...

Wiring the developing brain is like creating a topiary garden. Shrubs don't automatically assume the shape of ornamental elephants, and neither do immature nerve cells immediately recognize the "right" target cell. Abundant foliage, either...

People are constantly pulled between profiting from the things they know will reap rewards and exploring options but it is exploration that uses high-level regions of the brain, according to a study by UCL (University College London) s...

San Francisco - A Bay Area study on the effects of Brain Fitness Training , which has drawn participation from hundreds of adults aged 65 and older, is seeking additional participants. The study sponsor, Posit Science Corporation, translat...

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered that a brain region previously known for its role in learning and memory also serves as the location of sleep regulation in fruit flies. Through further exami...

During embryonic development, nerve cells hesitantly extend tentacle-like protrusions called axons that sniff their way through a labyrinth of attractive and repulsive chemical cues that guide them to their target. While several recent stu...

Malcher-Lopes et al. provide electrophysiological and biochemical evidence for a signaling pathway that begins with glucocorticoid stimulation of endocannabinoid synthesis via a Gas-cAMP-PKA pathway, and which is countered by leptin via ph...

Behaviorally inhibited (shy) people have heightened behavioral and neural responses to threatening stimuli. This week, Guyer et al. tested the responses of a cohort of shy and non-shy adolescents (10 - 15 years of age) to a rewarding stimu...

Are you the type of person that takes great risks for minimal rewards, or do you want big rewards for even minimal risk? No, this is not a survey of investment strategies, rather Knoch et al. this week offer some interesting insights into...

The hunt goes on for more accessible sources of neural stem cells. In this week's Journal, McKenzie et al. go to the skin as a source of neural crest precursors. When the authors treated rodent and human skin-derived precursors (SKPs) with...