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Brain shows humans break down events into smaller units

05-01-2007 · EurekAlert!

Humans breakdown activities into smaller, more digestible chunks, a phenomenon that psychologists describe as "event structure perception." Event structure perception was originally believed to be confined to our visual system, but new research published in the May issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, reports that a similar process occurs when reading about everyday events as well.

Keywords: brain, shows, humans, break, down, events, smaller, units, show, human, event, unit

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Study reveals how the brain generates the human tendency for optimism
10-24-2007 · EurekAlert!
A neural network that may generate the human tendency to be optimistic has been identified by researchers at New York University. As humans, we expect to live longer and be more successful than average, and we underestimate our likelihood of getting a divorce or having cancer. The results, reported in the most recent issue of Nature, link the optimism bias to the same brain regions that show irregularities in depression.
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Advance in understanding of blood pressure gene could lead to new treatments
02-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
Research by scientists at UCL (University College London) has clearly demonstrated for the first time the structure and function of a gene crucial to the regulation of blood pressure. The discovery could be important in the search for new treatments for illnesses such as heart disease, the UK's biggest killer. In a paper published online today in Nature Medicine, the team, led by Professor Patrick Vallance and Dr James Leiper, UCL Department of Medicine, reveal the role of the human gene dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH), showing that loss of DDAH activity disrupts nitric oxide (NO) production. NO is critical in the regulation of blood pressure, nervous system functions and the immune system. The role of DDAH is to break down modified amino acids (Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and monomethyl arginine (L-NMMA)) that are produced by the body and have been shown to inhibit NO synthase. These molecules accumulate in various disease states including diabetes, renal failure and pulmonary and systemic hypertension, and their concentration in plasma (the fluid component of blood) is strongly predicative of cardiovascular disease and death. In a healthy human body, the majority of ADMA is eliminated through active metabolism by DDAH. Scientists have hypothesised that if DDAH function is impaired, NO production is reduced, and that this could be an important feature of increased cardiovascular risk. To examine this pathway in more detail, the researchers deleted the DDAH gene in mice. These mice went on to develop hypertension, or high blood pressure. They also designed specific inhibitors (small molecules) which bind to the active site of human DDAH. These small molecule inhibitors also induced hypertension in mice, confirming the importance of DDAH in the regulation of blood pressure. Dr Leiper, UCL Medicine, said: “These genetic and chemical approaches to disrupt DDAH showed remarkably consistent results, and provide compelling evidence that loss of DDAH function increases the concentration of ADMA and thereby disrupts vascular NO signalling. “There has been considerable scientific interest in this pathway and the role of ADMA as a novel risk factor, but so far there's been little evidence to support the idea that it's a cause of disease, rather than just a marker. Genes and their pathways are crucial to our understanding of cardiovascular disease and a better understanding of DDAH-1 could lead to important new treatments. “It could help us to establish if genetic variation predisposes certain people to these diseases, or whether environmental factors exert some of their effects through modulation of DDAH activity. “Our research also shows that this pathway could be harnessed therapeutically to limit production of NO in certain situations where too much nitric oxide is a bad thing; for example, hypotension and septic shock. These are some of the biggest problems in intensive care medicine and there is a huge unmet need for drug treatments.” The study, which was carried out at UCL's Rayne Institute, was funded by grants from the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "The unexpected finding in the 1980s that a simple gas, nitric oxide (NO), is made by cells in the blood vessel wall and is a powerful control of blood vessel relaxation led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 1998 to its discoverers. "More recently, there has been increasing evidence that impairment of NO production is likely to be an important factor in the development of heart and circulatory disease, but the mechanisms responsible are not fully understood. "This study suggests for the first time that the loss of the activity of the enzyme DDAH-1 leads to reduced NO production and may cause heart and circulatory disease. These findings are likely to be important in the search for new ways to optimise the health of our blood vessels." ### Notes for Editors 1. For more information, please contact Ruth Metcalfe in the UCL Media Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9739, mobile: +44 (0)7990 675 947, out of hours: +44 (0)7917 271 364, e-mail: r.metcalfe@ucl.ac.uk2. 'Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis' is published in the February issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Advance online publication is embargoed to 18.00 GMT (13.00 US Eastern) Sunday 4 February 2007. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.3. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. About UCL Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence. UCL is the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2006 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Mahatma Gandhi (Laws 1889, Indian political and spiritual leader); Jonathan Dimbleby (Philosophy 1969, writer and television presenter); Junichiro Koizumi (Economics 1969, Prime Minister of Japan); Lord Woolf (Laws 1954, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales); Alexander Graham Bell (Phonetics 1860s, inventor of the telephone), and members of the band Coldplay.
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Smoking produces changes in human brain like those in animals using illicit drugs
02-20-2007 · EurekAlert!
New research shows for the first time that smoking produces long-lasting biochemical changes in the human brain similar to those changes previously seen in the brains of animals that used cocaine, heroin, and other illicit drugs.
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3-D fruit fly images to benefit brain research
09-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
In a paper published on September 5 in the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE, a team led by Mary O'Connell of the MRC Human Genetics Unit describe how they have already used an imaging technique called optical projection tomography (OPT) to image individual cavities within the brain of an aging fly and see the brain deteriorate. The OPT images could help to speed up genetic research into Alzheimer's and other human diseases affecting brain cells.
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Spread of endogenous retrovirus K is similar in the DNA of humans and rhesus monkeys
10-09-2007 · EurekAlert!
Research by Romano and colleagues, studying the population dynamics of complete copies of primate endogenous retrovirus family K in the genomes of humans, chimpanzee and rhesus monkey, revealed a surprising pattern. The paper, published on Oct. 10 in PLoS ONE, shows that human ERV-K had a similar demographic signature to that of the rhesus monkey, both differing greatly from that of the chimpanzee.
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Neuron cell stickiness may hold key to evolution of the human brain
11-02-2006 · EurekAlert!
The stickiness of human neurons may have been a key factor in why the human brain evolved beyond the brains of our primate relatives. In a study comparing the genomes of humans, chimpanzees and other vertebrates, researchers at the US Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and Joint Genome Institute (JGI) found a strikingly high degree of genetic differences in DNA sequences that appear to regulate genes involved in nerve cell adhesion molecules.
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New neuroimaging study identifies 'brain signature' for cigarette cravings
12-18-2007 · EurekAlert!
A new brain imaging study by researchers in the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania shows that cigarette cravings in smokers who are deprived of nicotine are linked with increased activation in specific regions of the brain. Using a novel method of measuring brain blood flow developed at Penn, this study is the first to show how abstinence from nicotine produces brain activation patterns that relate to urges to smoke.
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Mane event: Recombination in lion feline immunodeficiency virus
02-04-2008 · EurekAlert!
Parts of feline immunodeficiency virus isolated from wild lions have undergone substantial genetic recombination, says research published in the online open access journal BMC Genomics. The sequencing of the two full FIV genomes of different lion subtypes shows the importance of whole-genome analysis in understanding complex genetic events. These findings will be relevant to big cat conservation and developing more effective animal models for HIV.
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Fossil shows human growth at least 160,000 years ago
03-13-2007 · EurekAlert!
An international team of scientists have found that the oldest member (160,000 years old) of the genus Homo shows a modern human life history profile. These findings, based on experiments at ESRF, are in contrast to previous studies suggesting that early fossil humans possessed short growth periods, which were more similar to chimpanzees than to living humans.
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Humans fostering forest-destroying disease
08-15-2007 · EurekAlert!
Paradoxically, the spread of Sudden Oak Death -- a potentially catastrophic tree killing disease that first invaded California in the 1990s -- is being encouraged by human landscape management practices that have increased the size and density of west coast oak forests, according to a forthcoming study. Research shows that other human activities may be involved as well.
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