Neurobiology
Category archives for Neurobiology
Weizmann Science News: Autism, Rain Clouds and a Universal Cancer Therapy
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on July 24, 2011 Today’s science news from the Weizmann Institute covers research in neurobiology, environmental science and cancer immunology. • In the first, scientists identified a likely biological marker for autism that shows up even in very young children. Diagnoses of autism are generally not possible so early, as the signs typically appear gradually throughout the first 3-4…
Casting Memory in Doubt
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on July 1, 2011 Do you ever doubt your own memory? New research at the Institute suggests that some of the things we think we remember could be wrong. It seems that our brains are surprisingly willing to exchange a true memory for a false one, just on the basis of friends’ claims. The scientists not only demonstrated just…
Is PTSD a Survival Mechanism in Overdrive?
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on May 11, 2011 Disturbing experiences don’t actually heighten our perceptions. In fact, according to new Weizmann research, in adverse conditions we’re more likely to experience slightly different sights or sounds as being the same. The scientists think that this lumping together of similar sensory stimuli may be behind post-traumatic stress syndrome. The experiments showed that volunteers learning to…
Memory Booster, Aha Moments and Biological Quantum Phenomena
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on March 31, 2011 Today’s Weizmann Institute news stories include two new papers from the prolific lab of Prof. Yadin Dudai. The first is on a protein that boosts memory in rats. Dudai and his group have been investigating this protein for several years. Previously, they had managed to show that blocking the protein, even for a very short…
Hope for Stroke, Anti-anxiety Genes, and a Unique Environmental Record
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on February 8, 2011 Three news items were posted on our site today. The first is on two papers by a group in Spain. Normally we don’t publicize papers that are not written by Institute scientists, but these are a special case. They appear to have clinched the claims of a Weizmann scientist that one can treat stroke and…
Women’s Tears a Turn-Off
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on January 10, 2011 Did Israeli singer-songwriter Arik Einstein know something that scientists didn’t when he released the song “When You Cry You’re Not So Pretty” back in 1969? Prof. Noam Sobel and his team of the Weizmann Institute of Science have now shown that merely sniffing a woman’s tears – even when the crying woman is not present…
Sniff Once for “Yes”: New Neurobiology Papers
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on July 27, 2010 Even severely paralyzed people on respirators can do it: They can sniff. That is, they can at least partially control the movement of air through their nostrils. And if they can sniff, they can use this action to write on a computer screen or steer a wheelchair. That’s the principle behind a new device developed…
A Test of Courage
Posted by Weizmann Science Writer on July 19, 2010 Anne Dillard said “You can’t test courage cautiously,” but Institute scientists have found a way to test it fairly safely, at least. One might think of courage as an abstract idea, but it turns out that acts of bravery reveal a unique activity pattern in the brain. An experiment at the Institute to identify the…