All Things Brain

Collection by Jane
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WIRED
This Is Your Brain Under Anesthesia2 min read · May 11th · For the first time, researchers were able to observe, in extra-fine detail, how neurons behave as consciousness shuts down.
brain
NPR
An Alzheimer's Drug May Boost Cognition In People With Fragile X Syndrome2 min read · Apr 30th · An experimental medicine seems to ease symptoms of Fragile X syndrome, a genetic disorder that is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disabilities and autism.
brain
Nautilus Magazine
The Trouble with Brain Scans~19 min read · Apr 1st · One autumn afternoon in the bowels of UC Berkeley’s Li Ka Shing Center, I was looking at my brain. I had just spent 10 minutes inside…
brain
neuroscience
Quanta Magazine
The Brain ‘Rotates’ Memories to Save Them From New Sensations5 min read · Apr 15th · Some populations of neurons simultaneously process sensations and memories. New work shows how the brain rotates those representations to prevent interference.
brain
memories
psychology
Most highlighted
Libby is interested in the implications of their results for artificial intelligence research, particularly in the design of architectures useful for AI networks that have to multitask.
BuzzFeed News
Why Am I Sp Bad At Typign?~15 min read · Apr 17th · To solve my typos, I had to become a typo.
digital life
writing
typing
Most highlighted
In this article, of course, you see nothing but perfect prose, thanks to the magic of spellcheck and copy editors. But when I’m typing quickly in a fast-moving chat, it’s chaos.
Although not an official diagnosis, doctors and researchers refer to this phenomenon as “dystypia” — a disruption of the ability to type on a keyboard. A similarly modern phenomenon is “dystextia,” where someone has trouble typing on a phone.
Maybe the new frontier of typing isn’t typing at all. Not everyone has fingers, not everyone has the ability to move their fingers easily. Accessibility for people with decreased mobility or sensation or prosthetics is already underway.
The Atlantic
The Way Out of Brain Fog8 min read · Apr 9th · One of COVID-19’s most persistent and mysterious problems finally has some treatments.
coronavirus
brain
Most highlighted
the Columbia University neuroscientist J. John Mann plans to scan patients’ brains in search of a particular protein that is activated during an inflammatory response. In patients with depression and suicidal ideation, Mann has watched levels of that protein surge;
Though her physical symptoms—diarrhea, dry cough, chills—were considered mild by doctors, her fatigue was crushing, and her mind was trapped in a fog. Once an avid reader, she couldn’t get through a page. “My eyes darted everywhere. I had no focus,” she told me. Before COVID-19, she’d held two part-time jobs, but she soon had to give up both of them.
Aeon+Psyche
What happens to our cognition in the darkest depths of winter?7 min read · Mar 23rd · Contrary to popular beliefs about winter sluggishness and depression, human cognition is not affected by the seasons
psychology
mental health
brain
Most highlighted
We tested 100 participants twice on a range of tests: some took them first in summer and then winter, and some in the opposite order. Among the tasks, there was a test of pure speed (‘press this button as quickly as possible as soon as you see a circle in the middle of the screen’); a test of immediate memory for digits; a test of memory for words presented 10 minutes previously; the classic ‘Stroop test’ (that measures mental control); an alertness task; a face-recognition task; a time-estimation task; and a verbal fluency task
WIRED
A Boy, His Brain, and a Decades-Long Medical Controversy3 min read · Mar 25th · No one could deny that Timothy was sick. But when doctors can’t agree on the cause of an illness, what happens to the patients trapped in limbo?
brain
health care
The Guardian
Mystery brain disorder baffles Canadian medicine3 min read · Mar 30th · Spasms, memory loss and hallucinations among symptoms of patients, mostly in Acadian peninsula of New Brunswick province
brain
The New York Times
Brisk Walking Is Good for the Aging Brain4 min read · Mar 31st · Older people with mild cognitive impairment showed improvements in brain blood flow and memory after a yearlong aerobic exercise program.
brain
Most highlighted
The aerobic exercise group also showed much less stiffness in their carotid arteries and, in consequence, greater blood flow to and throughout their brains.
Perhaps most important, they also performed better now than the stretch-and-tone group on some of the tests of executive function, which are thinking skills involved in planning and decision-making. These tend to be among the abilities that decline earliest in dementia.
Mashable
Why ADHD and mindfulness make for unexpected but perfect bedfellows10 min read · Mar 22nd
mindfulness
Most highlighted
Mindfulness helps you monitor and refocus your attention away from distractions through non-judgmental acceptance of your moment-to-moment experience
The Guardian
Scientists discover why humans have such big brains2 min read · Mar 24th · Molecular switch makes human organ three times larger than great apes’, study finds
science
brain
Most highlighted
The healthy human brain typically reaches about 1,500cm3 in adulthood, roughly three times the size of the 500cm3 gorilla brain or the 400cm3 chimp brain
Nautilus Magazine
That Is Not How Your Brain Works9 min read · Mar 4th · The 21st century is a time of great scientific discovery. Cars are driving themselves. Vaccines against deadly new viruses are created…
brain
Most highlighted
We scientists do our best with the tools we have, until new tools extend our senses and let us probe more deeply, broadly, or precisely.
Myth number one is that specific parts of the human brain have specific psychological jobs.
Most neurons have multiple jobs, not a single psychological purpose.
WIRED
If You Transplant a Human Head, Does Its Consciousness Follow?3 min read · Mar 3rd · In her new book, Brandy Schillace recalls the unbelievable legacy of a Cold War era neurosurgeon’s mission to preserve the soul.
brain
The New York Times
How Exercise Enhances Aging Brains4 min read · Mar 3rd · Sedentary, older adults who took aerobic dance classes twice a week showed improvements in brain areas critical for memory and thinking.
health
brain
Most highlighted
Exercise can change how crucial portions of our brain communicate as we age, improving aspects of thinking and remembering, according to a fascinating new study of aging brains and aerobic workouts
The Guardian
'The clouds cleared': what terminal lucidity teaches us about life, death and dementia8 min read · Feb 23rd · Just before Alex Godfrey’s grandmother died from dementia, she snapped back to lucidity and regaled him with stories of her youth. Could moments like this teach us more about the workings of the…
All Things Brain

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