Scientific News

Neuroplasticity: does playing the drums change the brain?

Have you ever tried to tap a rhythm with your right hand while tapping a different rhythm with your left hand? Very few people are able to perform this complex task. In general, we have a so-called dominant hand for fine motor skills (writing, for example). A recent study sought to determine whether this preference can be modified. The scientists decided to look at the brains of drummers, who can play two distinct rhythms simultaneously.

As a preamble to the study, the authors indicate that for the past 5,000 years, over all continents, there has been a constant ratio of 90% right-handed to 10% left-handed people. Each hand is controlled by the contralateral motor cortex. The ...

A driver’s license for rats?

Can you imagine a rat driving a tiny car? This is the unusual experiment that neuroscientist K.G Lambert decided to run with colleagues at the University of Richmond. While it may seem outlandish, this research aimed to demonstrate that rats have much greater neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to adapt and learn new tasks) than previously thought.

While the behavioral tasks generally used to assess cognitive processes provide interesting information, they tend to be overly simple and do not reflect the animal’s real cognitive potential. This is why the scientists in the present study wanted to assess behaviors that allow for the observation of various responses. According ...

Is a well-wrapped present better appreciated?

Holiday gift-giving is just around the corner… A recent study has just shown that there’s an important, but often overlooked factor that may affect how a gift is received: the wrapping. The data from this study, published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, could soon be very useful because it shows the effects of a well or poorly wrapped gift on the perception of the gift itself.

According to Jessica M. Rixom, a co-author of this study and professor of marketing at the University of Nevada, Reno: “When we receive a gift from a friend, we use the wrapping as a cue about the gift inside and form expectations […] If it's wrapped neatly, we set high expectations, ...

Can babies understand numbers before they learn to count?

Mathematical intuition has already been demonstrated in very young infants. For example, just hours after birth, newborns have an early predisposition that allows them to associate an auditory number with a corresponding visual number (Izard et al. 2009). In this study, researchers tested babies’ understanding of digit names. Can babies associate “one,” “two,” and “three” with quantities even though they don’t know how to count?

Lisa Feigenson, a specialist in child number development, and Jenny Wang, both from Johns Hopkins University, observed 14 to 18-month old babies in a simple experiment. They showed the babies toys (small cars or dog figurines), which they ...

How quickly can our brain recognize a familiar song?

Are you particularly good in a blind test? Are you one of those people who can recognize a song from hearing just the first few notes? Researchers decided to precisely quantify this ability. Using electroencephalography and pupillometry, the scientists wanted to understand how quickly the brain could identify excerpts from a familiar and well-liked song from a selection of unknown excerpts, as well as identify the “neural signatures” of this recognition.

As a preamble to their research, the scientists from the Ear Institute (University College London) point out that research has shown that the concept of musical familiarity is based largely on traces of long-term memory ...

Can garlic save your memory?

Too bad for your breath! A recent study has highlighted the possible benefits of garlic on memory. Researchers from the University of Louisville carried out an experiment on the positive effects of this plant on intestinal flora as well as its impact on cognitive health, including memory. For the moment, the experiments have only been conducted on mice, but scientists are already suggesting that garlic could be effective in fighting memory aging in humans.

Neuroscience in conjunction with microbiology has shown that there is indeed permanent communication between our gut and our brain. There are 200 million neurons in our large intestine connected to our brain through the vagus ...

Is optimism one of the keys to longevity?

If you tend to see the glass half empty, this article may convince you to change your philosophy. Using data collected from over 70,000 people, a team of researchers, mostly from the Boston University School of Medicine, have highlighted the role that optimism may play in life expectancy.

Work on exceptional longevity has so far often focused on biomedical factors while the positive influence of psychosocial factors on healthy aging remains much less clear. This is what motivated Lewina O Lee and her colleagues to study the possible effects of optimism on longevity. They hypothesized that (very) optimistic people would live longer. To test this, they relied on data from two ...

Do brief but intense physical efforts improve brain function?

Most studies on the benefits of physical activity for the brain have focused on sustained and regular exercise. Recent research from Oregon Health and Science University in Portland took a look at shorter, more intense exercise to see if it could also have positive effects. What if even brief physical effort could improve our cognitive health?

Various scientific publications have reported the benefits of physical exercise on neuronal activity, including improved learning and memory, through short and long-term changes in synaptic plasticity. Indeed, the dentate gyrus is particularly important as an entry step for coding contextual and spatial information from several brain areas. ...

Do monkeys show greater cognitive flexibility than humans?

“We are a unique species and have various ways in which we are exceptionally different from every other creature on the planet […] But we're also sometimes really dumb.” What made Julia Watzek, the main author of the study described here, say this? Published in Scientific Reports, her research shows that, unlike apes, humans do not always consider alternative solutions to effectively solve problems. Let’s find out why.

In a predictable environment, we apply strategies (developed through past experiences) that save us from intense cognitive exertion and help us solve everyday problems. But we live in a changing environment, and alternative solutions are sometimes ...

Who wants to play hide and seek with rats?

“There are all these YouTube videos from pet owners that say their animals love to do this.” That’s how neuroscientist Michael Brecht of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience at the University of Humboldt in Berlin got the idea of teaching rats to play hide and seek. See how this both absurd and fascinating study managed to shed light on rats’ cognitive abilities.

To accomplish their goal of studying the behavior of these rodents while at play, the research team transformed their laboratory into a playground. In the first case, a member of the team placed a rat in a closed box and hid. The scientist then opened the box using a remote control… and ...

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