The musical brain: Novel study of jazz players shows common brain circuitry processes both music, language

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~4/lKIUxq-Funs

The brains of jazz musicians engrossed in spontaneous, improvisational musical conversation showed robust activation of brain areas traditionally associated with spoken language and syntax, which are used to interpret the structure of phrases and sentences. But this musical conversation shut down brain areas linked to semantics — those that process the meaning of spoken language, according to results of a study by Johns Hopkins researchers.The study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to track the brain activity of jazz musicians in the act of “trading fours,” a process in which musicians participate in spontaneous back and forth instrumental exchanges, usually four bars in duration. The musicians introduce new melodies in response to each other’s musical ideas, elaborating and modifying them over the course of a performance.The results of the study suggest that the brain regions that process syntax aren’t limited to spoken language, according to Charles Limb, M.D., an associate professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Rather, he says, the brain uses the syntactic areas to process communication in general, whether through language or through music.Limb, who is himself a musician and holds a faculty appointment at the Peabody Conservatory, says the work sheds important new light on the complex relationship between music and language.”Until now, studies of how the brain processes auditory communication between two individuals have been done only in the context of spoken language,” says Limb, the senior author of a report on the work that appears online Feb. 19 in the journal PLOS ONE. “But looking at jazz lets us investigate the neurological basis of interactive, musical communication as it occurs outside of spoken language.”We’ve shown in this study that there is a fundamental difference between how meaning is processed by the brain for music and language. Specifically, it’s syntactic and not semantic processing that is key to this type of musical communication. Meanwhile, conventional notions of semantics may not apply to musical processing by the brain.”To study the response of the brain to improvisational musical conversation between musicians, the Johns Hopkins researchers recruited 11 men aged 25 to 56 who were highly proficient in jazz piano performance. During each 10-minute session of trading fours, one musician lay on his back inside the MRI machine with a plastic piano keyboard resting on his lap while his legs were elevated with a cushion. A pair of mirrors was placed so the musician could look directly up while in the MRI machine and see the placement of his fingers on the keyboard. …


Read More: The musical brain: Novel study of jazz players shows common brain circuitry processes both music, language

#Bars, #Brain, #Cancer, #Department, #Johns, #Johnshopkins, #King, #Mri, #Musician, #Pregnancy, #Science, #University

New blood cells fight brain inflammation

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~4/ydPbfchPERo

Hyperactivity of our immune system can cause a state of chronic inflammation. If chronic, the inflammation will affect our body and result in disease. In the devastating disease multiple sclerosis, hyperactivity of immune cells called T-cells induce chronic inflammation and degeneration of the brain. Researchers at BRIC, the University of Copenhagen, have identified a new type of regulatory blood cells that can combat such hyperactive T-cells in blood from patients with multiple sclerosis. By stimulating the regulatory blood cells, the researchers significantly decreased the level of brain inflammation and disease in a biological model. The results are published in the journal Nature Medicine.Molecule activate anti-inflammatory blood cellsThe new blood cells belong to the group of our white blood cells called lymphocytes. The cells express a molecule called FoxA1 that the researchers found is responsible for the cells’ development and suppressive functions.”We knew that some unidentified blood cells were able to inhibit multiple sclerosis-like disease in mice and through gene analysis we found out, that these cells are a subset of our lymphocytes expressing the gene FoxA1. Importantly, when inserting FoxA1 into normal lymphocytes with gene therapy, we could change them to actively regulate inflammation and inhibit multiple sclerosis, explains associated professor Yawei Liu leading the experimental studies.Activating own blood cells for treatment of diseaseFoxA1 expressing lymphocytes were not known until now, and this is the first documentation of their importance in controlling multiple sclerosis. The number of people living with this devastating disease around the world has increased by 10 percent in the past five years to 2.3 million. It affects women twice more than men and no curing treatment exists. …


Read More: New blood cells fight brain inflammation

#Alzheimer, #Blood, #Brain, #Health, #Inflammation, #Major, #Medicine, #People, #Pregnancy, #Researchers, #White

New pathway for fear discovered deep within brain

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~4/MY3TnIs683A

Fear is primal. In the wild, it serves as a protective mechanism, allowing animals to avoid predators or other perceived threats. For humans, fear is much more complex. A normal amount keeps us safe from danger. But in extreme cases, like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), too much fear can prevent people from living healthy, productive lives. Researchers are actively working to understand how the brain translates fear into action. Today, scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) announce the discovery of a new neural circuit in the brain that directly links the site of fear memory with an area of the brainstem that controls behavior.How does the brain convert an emotion into a behavioral response? For years, researchers have known that fear memories are learned and stored in a small structure in the brain known as the amygdala. Any disturbing event activates neurons in the lateral and then central portions of the amygdala. The signals are then communicated internally, passing from one group of neurons to the next. …


Read More: New pathway for fear discovered deep within brain

#Action, #Animals, #Brain, #Central, #Discovery, #Health-Insurance, #King, #Laboratory, #Professor, #Science, #Spring, #Study

How our brain networks: White matter "scaffold" of human brain revealed

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~4/m2w4_BNJTas

For the first time, neuroscientists have systematically identified the white matter “scaffold” of the human brain, the critical communications network that supports brain function.Their work, published Feb. 11 in the open-source journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, has major implications for understanding brain injury and disease. By detailing the connections that have the greatest influence over all other connections, the researchers offer not only a landmark first map of core white matter pathways, but also show which connections may be most vulnerable to damage.”We coined the term white matter ‘scaffold’ because this network defines the information architecture which supports brain function,” said senior author John Darrell Van Horn of the USC Institute for Neuroimaging and Informatics and the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at USC.”While all connections in the brain have their importance, there are particular links which are the major players,” Van Horn said.Using MRI data from a large sample of 110 individuals, lead author Andrei Irimia, also of the USC Institute for Neuroimaging and Informatics, and Van Horn systematically simulated the effects of damaging each white matter pathway.They found that the most important areas of white and gray matter don’t always overlap. Gray matter is the outermost portion of the brain containing the neurons where information is processed and stored. Past research has identified the areas of gray matter that are disproportionately affected by injury.But the current study shows that the most vulnerable white matter pathways — the core “scaffolding” — are not necessarily just the connections among the most vulnerable areas of gray matter, helping explain why seemingly small brain injuries may have such devastating effects.”Sometimes people experience a head injury which seems severe but from which they are able to recover. On the other hand, some people have a seemingly small injury which has very serious clinical effects,” says Van Horn, associate professor of neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. “This research helps us to better address clinical challenges such as traumatic brain injury and to determine what makes certain white matter pathways particularly vulnerable and important.”The researchers compare their brain imaging analysis to models used for understanding social networks. To get a sense of how the brain works, Irimia and Van Horn did not focus only on the most prominent gray matter nodes — which are akin to the individuals within a social network. Nor did they merely look at how connected those nodes are.Rather, they also examined the strength of these white matter connections, i.e. which connections seemed to be particularly sensitive or to cause the greatest repercussions across the network when removed. …


Read More: How our brain networks: White matter "scaffold" of human brain revealed

#Agriculture, #Brain, #Cosmetics, #Informatics, #Laboratory, #Professor, #Southern, #Sports

How chronic stress predisposes brain to mental disorders

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~4/XeMS3Kq0yHY

University of California, Berkeley, researchers have shown that chronic stress generates long-term changes in the brain that may explain why people suffering chronic stress are prone to mental problems such as anxiety and mood disorders later in life.Their findings could lead to new therapies to reduce the risk of developing mental illness after stressful events.Doctors know that people with stress-related illnesses, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), have abnormalities in the brain, including differences in the amount of gray matter versus white matter. Gray matter consists mostly of cells — neurons, which store and process information, and support cells called glia — while white matter is composed of axons, which create a network of fibers that interconnect neurons. White matter gets its name from the white, fatty myelin sheath that surrounds the axons and speeds the flow of electrical signals from cell to cell.How chronic stress creates these long-lasting changes in brain structure is a mystery that researchers are only now beginning to unravel.In a series of experiments, Daniela Kaufer, UC Berkeley associate professor of integrative biology, and her colleagues, including graduate students Sundari Chetty and Aaron Freidman, discovered that chronic stress generates more myelin-producing cells and fewer neurons than normal. This results in an excess of myelin — and thus, white matter — in some areas of the brain, which disrupts the delicate balance and timing of communication within the brain.”We studied only one part of the brain, the hippocampus, but our findings could provide insight into how white matter is changing in conditions such as schizophrenia, autism, depression, suicide, ADHD and PTSD,” she said.The hippocampus regulates memory and emotions, and plays a role in various emotional disorders.Kaufer and her colleagues published their findings in the Feb. 11 issue of the journal Molecular Psychiatry.Does stress affect brain connectivity?Kaufer’s findings suggest a mechanism that may explain some changes in brain connectivity in people with PTSD, for example. One can imagine, she said, that PTSD patients could develop a stronger connectivity between the hippocampus and the amygdala — the seat of the brain’s fight or flight response — and lower than normal connectivity between the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, which moderates our responses.”You can imagine that if your amygdala and hippocampus are better connected, that could mean that your fear responses are much quicker, which is something you see in stress survivors,” she said. “On the other hand, if your connections are not so good to the prefrontal cortex, your ability to shut down responses is impaired. So, when you are in a stressful situation, the inhibitory pathways from the prefrontal cortex telling you not to get stressed don’t work as well as the amygdala shouting to the hippocampus, ‘This is terrible!’ You have a much bigger response than you should.”She is involved in a study to test this hypothesis in PTSD patients, and continues to study brain changes in rodents subjected to chronic stress or to adverse environments in early life.Stress tweaks stem cellsKaufer’s lab, which conducts research on the molecular and cellular effects of acute and chronic stress, focused in this study on neural stem cells in the hippocampus of the brains of adult rats. These stem cells were previously thought to mature only into neurons or a type of glial cell called an astrocyte. The researchers found, however, that chronic stress also made stem cells in the hippocampus mature into another type of glial cell called an oligodendrocyte, which produces the myelin that sheaths nerve cells.The finding, which they demonstrated in rats and cultured rat brain cells, suggests a key role for oligodendrocytes in long-term and perhaps permanent changes in the brain that could set the stage for later mental problems. …


Read More: How chronic stress predisposes brain to mental disorders

#Adult, #Agriculture, #Brain, #California, #Communication, #Department, #Depression, #King, #Psychiatry

Scientists identify gene linking brain structure to intelligence

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~4/aCePEiaO5Z4

For the first time, scientists at King’s College London have identified a gene linking the thickness of the grey matter in the brain to intelligence. The study is published today in Molecular Psychiatry and may help scientists understand biological mechanisms behind some forms of intellectual impairment.The researchers looked at the cerebral cortex, the outermost layer of the human brain. It is known as ‘grey matter’ and plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language and consciousness. Previous studies have shown that the thickness of the cerebral cortex, or ‘cortical thickness’, closely correlates with intellectual ability, however no genes had yet been identified.An international team of scientists, led by King’s, analysed DNA samples and MRI scans from 1,583 healthy 14 year old teenagers, part of the IMAGEN cohort. The teenagers also underwent a series of tests to determine their verbal and non-verbal intelligence.Dr Sylvane Desrivires, from King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry and lead author of the study, said: “We wanted to find out how structural differences in the brain relate to differences in intellectual ability. The genetic variation we identified is linked to synaptic plasticity — how neurons communicate. This may help us understand what happens at a neuronal level in certain forms of intellectual impairments, where the ability of the neurons to communicate effectively is somehow compromised.”She adds: “It’s important to point out that intelligence is influenced by many genetic and environmental factors. The gene we identified only explains a tiny proportion of the differences in intellectual ability, so it’s by no means a ‘gene for intelligence’.”The researchers looked at over 54,000 genetic variants possibly involved in brain development. They found that, on average, teenagers carrying a particular gene variant had a thinner cortex in the left cerebral hemisphere, particularly in the frontal and temporal lobes, and performed less well on tests for intellectual ability. The genetic variation affects the expression of the NPTN gene, which encodes a protein acting at neuronal synapses and therefore affects how brain cells communicate.To confirm their findings, the researchers studied the NPTN gene in mouse and human brain cells. …


Read More: Scientists identify gene linking brain structure to intelligence

#Alternative-Medicine, #Brain, #College, #Desrivires, #Genetic, #Hemisphere, #Molecular, #Pregnancy, #Result, #Temporal