BrainBlog

Brain regions with mirror properties: A meta-analysis of 125 human fMRI studies Neuroscience Biobehavioral Rev . 2011 Jul 18. [Epub ahead of print] Molenberghs P, Cunnington R, Mattingley JB. Abstract Mirror neurons in macaque area F5 fire when an animal performs an action, such as a mouth or limb movement, and also when the animal passively observes an identical or similar action performed by another individual. Brain-imaging studies in humans conducted over the last 20 years have repeatedly attempted to reveal analogous brain regions with mirror properties in humans, with broad and often speculative claims about their functional significance across a range of cognitive domains, from language to social cognition. Despite such concerted efforts, the likely neural substrates of these mirror regions have remained controversial, and indeed the very existence of a distinct subcategory of human neurons with mirroring properties has been questioned. Here we used activation likelihood estimat...

From the BPS Research Digest blog: BPS Research Digest: Is this the first ever direct evidence for human mirror neurons? The blog entry includes a link to the paper's abstract.

Looking for reading material for a longish train trip I am about to take, I decided to hit to bookshelves of my Square's Barnes & Noble to see what popular neuroscience titles might be a good diversion (as well as potential supplementary 'lighter' references, should I re-teach an introductory course to neuroscience sometime over the next year). I chose three. The first is by Elkhonon Goldberg, a revision of an earlier work, which is titled "The New Executive Brain: Frontal Lobes in a Complex World" and is available in paperback by Oxford University Press. I first met the author when I was a graduate student, so I am looking forward to reading up on what he's been up to. The second is about glial cells and is entitled, "The Root of Thought: Unlocking Glia" by Andrew Koob. Five years ago, if someone said there would be a popular offering about glia, I would have thought 'Yeah, right...' Though I do enjoy adding discussion about glia to my...

A press release from the NIH : Scientists Zero in on the Cellular Machinery that Enables Neurons to Fire If you ever had a set of Micronauts — toy robots with removable body parts — you probably had fun swapping their heads, imagining how it would affect their behavior. Scientists supported by the National Institutes of Health have been performing similar experiments on ion channels — pores in our nerve cells — to sort out the channels' key functional parts. In the November 15 issue of Nature , one group of researchers shows that a part of ion channels called the paddle is uniquely transplantable between different channels. Writing in the same issue, another group exploited this property to probe the three-dimensional structure of ion channels on an atomic scale. "The effects of many toxins and therapeutic drugs, as well as some diseases, can be wholly explained by changes in ion channel function," says Story Landis, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of Neurologic...

Al Gore brings in a fair smattering of neuroscience in his excellent new book, especially in a chapter about the politics of fear. [photograph by anthony risser, copyright 2007.]