Nicotine Primes the Brain For Cocaine

Nicotine Primes The Brain For Cocaine, Says Study link
Shari Roan
November 2nd 2011

A study on mice found a deep correlation with nicotine and later cocaine addiction. There were two groups of mice, one group was exposed to nicotine while the other (the control group) was not. The former group showed many more signs of addiction than the control group. Another study done shows that 81% of youth that started to do cocaine do so in months where they weer actively smoking cigarettes. The researchers intend on going on to human trials next and if the same correlations are made then would potentially make less smokers mean less cocaine addicts.

The Taste of Cheese

The Taste of Cheese link
David McRaney
October 19th 2009

A lovely and slightly humorous website I discovered recently called You Are Not So Smart: A Celebration of Self Delusion is pretty entertaining and informative. It takes different things we take for granted and tells you why your belief about it is wrong (hence, why you are not so smart).

The article I am posting talks about the taste of cheese. Apparently liking cheese is a cultural thing. There was a study done where they took the smell of brie (a personal favorite cheese of mine) and had people smell it. One bottle was labeled cheddar cheese and another was labeled body odor and apparently people who smelled the former said it smelled delicious and those that smelled the second bottle were revolted. They then did the same study using an MRI machine, researchers saw the brain areas associated with food light up for one group and the areas for revulsion light up for the other. Oh the power of suggestion!

Brain Parasite Directly Alters Brain Chemistry

Brain Parasite Directly Alters Brain Chemistry - T gondii Affects Dopamine link
November 4th, 2011

An infection by the brain parasite Toxoplasma gondii, found in 10-20 % of the UK’s population, directly affects the production of dopamine, a key chemical messenger in the brain. University of Leeds' findings are the first to demonstrate that a parasite found in the brain of mammals can affect dopamine levels. While the work has been carried out with rodents, lead investigator Dr Glenn McConkey believes that the findings could ultimately shed new light on treating human neurological disorders that are dopamine-related such as schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and Parkinson’s disease.

How Stress Affects the Brain

Of Rats and Men: How Stress Affects the Brain link
Bill Jenkins
November 1, 2011

Studies have shown that stress seems to affect rat and human brains in the same ways. Under stress, nerve cells of the prefrontal cortex shrink, resulting in slower performance on attention-shifting tasks. But, an interesting twist, there apparently seems to be the opposite reaction with the neurons in the frontal cortex which are believed to affect our response-reversal tasks (where we are able to change our answers to questions depending on context). The studies also showed that once the stress is gone our brains bounce back to normal relatively fast.

Knowledge For The Taking!

Ah, I love the internet.

For a radio series that talks about everything neuroscience go check out Gray Matters: link

For video interviews of different neuroscientists (including Hubel and Wiesel!): link

For a ton of autobiographies by neuroscientists: link




I will no doubt be posting from these sites, so forgive me if I post something you read already; I just have to share the wealth as I come across it. Enjoy!

Staying Sharp

How AWESOME! There are "Staying Sharp" conferences put on by the Dana Foundation which have neuroscientists talking about their research and afterward have Q&A sessions with the audience. The next two will be in New York. If you happen to live close to New York I highly recommend checking one out, and then telling me all about it.

The next Staying Sharp conferences are on November 12th and November 19th from 10 am to about 1 pm. It is a FREE event! Here is the site for more information and to reserve your seat: link

A New Nuance to Neurons

A New Nuance to Neurons link
Zhaolin Hua, Sergio Leal-Ortiz, Sarah Foss, Clarissa Waites, Craig Garner, Susan Voglmaier, Robert Edwards
August 23rd, 2011

Vesicles, the tiny neurotransmitters released from one terminal to the next neuron to send along the electrical message, has always believed to be of either two pools. In one, the recycling pool, the vesicles are sent to the next neuron to send along the message and then repackaged to be used again. In the other, the resting pool, it appears they just sit there to the side and do nothing. About 80% of all vesicles appear to be in the resting pools. Scientists could never determine or understand the reason between the two pools or what the resting pools function was for. And not only that but they couldnt tell the difference between the different kinds of vesicles other than by their location because visually they appeared the exact same. It was believed that where they happened to end up determined what pool they were in as opposed to being preassigned what their function will be and thus executes it.

In their paper, Edwards and his colleagues show that vesicles in the two different pools contain different proteins and that these differences determine how they behave. Using a technique for labeling proteins with glowing molecules derived from jellyfish, they were able to show that a protein called VAMP7 is present at high levels in the resting pool rather than the recycling pool, which contains more of other synaptic vesicle proteins.

This shows that the body makes and maintains different pools of vesicles containing different proteins for different purposes: release or some other function. According to Edwards, the observation has far-reaching implications for our understanding of how neurotransmitters are packaged, transported and released from neurons.

According to Edwards, resting vesicles are involved in a separate not-well-understood process in which neurons spontaneously release vesicles, which may help them adjust the types of connections they make with each other as well as the strength of those connections. This process may play a role in neurological diseases, many of which are characterized by changes in the type and strength of synapses.

Ready to Learn?

Ready to Learn? Brain Scans Can Tell You link
Anne Trafton
August 19th, 2011

A team at MIT studied the parahippocampal cortex (PHC) and found that when it is active you are less likely to remember what it is you are studying or doing at the time. The PHC is generally considered to have to do with memory recall and is itself wrapped around the hippocampus, the part of the brain that has to do with memory formation.

Traditionally, scientists have believed that memory is based on the inherent memorability of specific events, with strongly emotional events likeliest to be remembered. More recently, cognitive neuroscientists have found that the brain’s ability to consolidate, store and retrieve information is also important. “The significance of this study is that it suggests that beyond the inherent memorability of things, and how well the memory systems are working, there’s a huge role to be played by how well prepared you are to process what’s coming in,” Turk-Browne says.

Theoretically this method could be used to determine when a student is best prepared to learn new material, or to monitor workers who need to stay alert, but they still have a ways to go to make that possible or available to the general public.