THE COGNITIVE BRAIN II
“ Use it or Loose it”
By Federico
Since understanding how the human brain functions is still a subject for intensive research, there are people who believe that only 10% of the capacity of the human brain is normally used during the usual daily tasks. And, furthermore, that if we could learn how to use the remaining 90%, we could much improve our cognitive capacities and intelligence.
With this essay, after reviewing and summarizing a huge literature on this subject, we will try to confirm that indeed the 10% story is only a myth, and from that go on to describe present knowledge about Intelligence, how it is acquired, what is its substratum, and finally whether there are ways to improve it permanently in the normal adult and in old age.
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What is Intelligence and how do you quantify it.

According to an article published in the BMJ and entitled Differences in mental abilities 1 Intelligence is the sum of various cognitive tests. However, if a range of diverse mental tests assessing, for example, language, reasoning, memory, spatial ability, and psychomotor speed is administered to a broad sample of any population, all of the tests will have positive correlations with almost all of the others. This sum corresponds to the IQ which has a Gaussian type distribution curve within the normal population with 50% having an IQ of 100 (normal), while the others go from 60 (retarded) to 150 (genius).

What is the substratum for Intelligence, and how is it acquired.

What are the mechanisms responsible for the development of Intelligence? In other words, why a person gets to be normal (IQ 100), while another is a genius (IQ 150). Is it Nature or Nurture?
Several studies have indicated that Intelligence is mainly inherited 2, as reported in an article published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
."...since the integrity of the brain's wiring is influenced by genes, the genes we inherit play a far greater role in intelligence than was previously thought. .....Genes appear to influence intelligence by determining how well nerve axons are encased in myelin — the fatty sheath of "insulation" that coats our axons and allows for fast signaling bursts in our brains. The thicker the myelin, the faster the nerve impulses".
In any case, Intelligence is not a monogenic- but rather a multigenic-dependent process which identification will certainly be very useful also to establish new therapies for mental deficiencies.

However, there are other factors which intervene in the development of Intelligence such as: Nutrition, but also nurturing and a good environment play important roles in children's brain development.
Cognitive capacities increase, under normal conditions, from childhood until adulthood to decline somewhat but selectively in old age. A few things however are less well known.
An article published in the BMJ 3 and entitled Cognitive ability in childhood and cognitive decline in mid-life: longitudinal birth cohort study reports that:
”Measured IQ in childhood was significantly and negatively associated with decline in memory, speed, and concentration in mid-life.
Adult IQ was also significantly and negatively associated with decline, also independently of childhood IQ, education, social class, and health. ....and that mature ability may confer its own protection against cognitive decline.
How can one visualize Brain functions in healthy and in diseased people?

Doctors may use several types of brain scans to visualize the brain as it functions. These scans, called functional brain imaging, are not often used as diagnostic tools, but they are important in research. Functional brain scans include functional MRI (fMRI), single photon-emission computed tomography (SPECT), positron emission tomography (PET), and magnetoencephalography (MEG). fMRI uses radio waves and a strong magnetic field to measure the metabolic changes that take place in active parts of the brain. SPECT shows the distribution of blood in the brain, which generally increases with brain activity. PET scans can detect changes in glucose metabolism, oxygen metabolism, and blood flow, all of which can reveal abnormalities of brain function. MEG shows the electromagnetic fields produced by the brain's neuronal activity.
The Brain of Intelligent People 4
In 2004 psychologist Richard J. Haier 5 of the University of California, Irvine, and his colleagues reported evidence to support the notion that discrete brain regions mediate scholarly aptitude. Studying the brains of 47 adults, Haier’s team found an association between the amount of gray matter (tissue containing the cell bodies of neurons) and higher IQ in 10 discrete regions, including three in the frontal lobe and two in the parietal lobe just behind it. Other scientists have also seen more white matter, which is made up of nerve axons (or fibers), in these same regions among people with higher IQs. The results point to a widely distributed—but discrete—neural basis of intelligence.

In 2003 trial psychologist Jeremy Gray 6, then at Washington University in St. Louis, and his colleagues scanned the brains of 48 individuals using functional MRI, which detects neural activity by tracking the flow of oxygenated blood in brain tissue, while the subjects completed hard tasks that taxed working memory. The researchers saw higher levels of activity in prefrontal and parietal brain regions in the participants who had received high scores on an intelligence test, as compared with low scorers.

The Brain of Geniuses and “Idiots Savants”

Genius is actually very difficult to define. For one thing, it is quite a subjective label – for some, a genius is anyone with an Intelligence Quotient (IQ) higher than a certain value (i.e.,>150).
Intelligence itself can be difficult to define, therefore, it is not surprising that the relationship between genius and intelligence is not an easy one to describe.
Ironically, many geniuses actually score poorly on standardised intelligence tests or perform very poorly at school – despite the fact that they have very high intellectual ability.......Aside from high intellectual ability, all geniuses also exhibit great creative intelligence.
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD)7are associated with a remarkable combination of cognitive strengths and difficulties. The same individual may struggle to express or understand speech, while demonstrating amazingly good memory for routes, or fantastic understanding of mechanical systems. In some cases, special abilities are so pronounced that savant skills or ‘islands of genius’ may be considered to be present.

Most functional neuroimaging studies indicate a role for the superior parietal lobe, particularly the intraparietal sulcus (IPS), in the processing of numbers.The IPS also has been linked to calculation difficulties through structural neuroimaging studies. For example, dyscalculic adolescents with a history of very low birth weight and premature birth had grey matter reduction in the left parietal lobe (in the vicinity of the IPS) when compared with other adolescents with similar histories but no current presentation of mathematical difficulties".

Are there structural differences between a normal and a genius' brain?


Albert Einstein's brain 8 has attracted attention because of Einstein's reputation for being one of the foremost geniuses of the 20th century.
Scientific studies have suggested that regions involved in speech and language are smaller, while regions involved with numerical and spatial processing are larger. Other studies have suggested an increased number of Glial cells in Einstein's brain.
In 1999, analysis by a team at McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario, Canada led by Sandra Witelson, 9 revealed that his parietal operculum region in the inferior frontal gyrus in the frontal lobe of the brain was vacant. Also absent was part of a bordering region called the lateral sulcus (Sylvian fissure)..

In the 1980s, University of California, Berkeley professor Marian C. Diamond 10 compared the ratio of glial cells in Einstein's brain with that in the preserved brains of 11 men. Einstein's brain had more glial cells relative to neurons in all areas studied, but only in the left inferior parietal area was the difference statistically significant. This area is part of the association cortex, regions of the brain responsible for incorporating and synthesizing information from multiple other brain regions.

Neuroscientists have garnered support for the efficiency hypothesis using modern neuroimaging techniques to study the brains of brighter people. They found that they use less energy to solve certain problems than those of people with lower aptitudes do.
They speculate that greater energy efficiency in the brains of gifted individuals could arise from increased gray matter, which might provide more resources for data processing, lessening the strain on the brain.
Brain function during Sleep and in Old Age

Sleep 11 in humans is divided in two main phases: non-REM sleep, which occupies most of our early sleep night, and REM sleep, during which our dreams prevail.
In a study published recently in PNAS 12 the research team led by Dr Thanh Dang-Vu shows that brain activity during these sleep stages is actually profoundly influenced by spontaneous slow rhythms which organize neuronal functioning during non-REM sleep.
By using fMRI combined with EEG, researchers have evidenced that these slow oscillations are associated with brain activity increases during non-REM sleep therefore discarding the concept of brain ‘quiescence’ that prevailed for a long time in the characterization of non-REM sleep..

Furthermore, by showing the activation of areas involved in the processing of memory traces such as para-hippocampal areas, the study might point to the potential functions of sleep, in particular the increasingly well-defined role of sleep in memory consolidation.

What cognitive changes take place with age? 13
Most studies show that, in general, cognitive abilities are the greatest when people are in their 30s and 40s. Cognitive abilities stay about the same until the late 50s or early 60s, at which point they begin to decline, but to only a small degree.

Different aspects of cognition are affected in various ways over time. One measure of cognitive ability is intelligence. A commonly-used system of categorizing intelligence is into "fluid" and "crystallized" intelligence.
Fluid intelligence (also called "native mental ability") is the information processing system. It refers to the ability to think and reason. It includes the speed with which information can be analyzed, and also includes attention and memory capacity.
Crystallized intelligence is accumulated information and vocabulary acquired from school and everyday life. It also encompasses the application of skills and knowledge to solving problems.
Many studies have shown that fluid intelligence is more likely to decline with age than crystallized intelligence. In fact, crystallized intelligence may continue to improve with age. Many people continue to gain expertise and skills in particular areas throughout life.
Mental processing and reaction time become slower with age. This slowing of information processing speed actually begins in young adulthood (the late 20s), although imperceptibly at first. By the time people are past 60 or older (depending on the individual), they will generally take longer to perform mental tasks than younger people..

What physical changes happen to the brain? 14
To date, only a few studies have attempted to make a direct correlation between the physiologic changes of the brain and the cognitive and other effects.
Throughout adulthood, there is a gradual reduction in the weight and volume of the brain. This decline is about 2% per decade. Contrary to previously held beliefs, the decline does not accelerate after the age of 50, but continues at about the same pace from early adulthood on. The accumulative effects of this are generally not noticed until older age.
It has long been thought that the reason for brain shrinkage is the loss of neurons. Some past studies estimated that adults lose as many as 100,000 neurons a day. However, improved testing techniques have revealed that the actual loss of neurons is far less significant than previously thought. While some brain cells are lost, the reduction in brain volume is more a function of the neurons themselves shrinking in size, making them less effective messengers.

While the brain does shrink in size, it does not do so uniformly. Certain structures are more prone to shrinkage. For example, the hippocampus and the frontal lobes, two structures involved in memory, often become smaller. This is partly due to a loss of neurons and partly due to the atrophy of some neurons..
The shrinkage of both the frontal lobe and the hippocampus are thought to be responsible for memory difficulties.
Many of the neurons involved in motor function utilize the neurotransmitter dopamine. And dopamine is one of the neurotransmitters that declines with age. Therefore, it's been suggested that the effects of aging on dopamine account for some of the decline in motor function. Specifically how this would happen has not been discovered.

Conclusions and Perspectives for the Future

After going through what, by necessity, is only but a skimpy review of a vast and rapidly progressing area of research, namely the Cognitive Brain, some conclusions are now in order. They will be followed by a brief evaluation of what could be future developments in this area, particularly concerning possible interventions to improve cognitive performance of normal as well as diseased brains.

Conclusions

There are several conclusions which can be drawn from this review of the Literature.
• It is not true we only utilize about 10% of our brain capacity.

I believe there is now enough evidence to bury once and for all the belief, held by some, we only utilize about 10% of our brain capacity while performing our usual tasks while leaving untapped the remaining 90%.
A corollary of this would be that, if we only knew how to put to work the idle part of the brain, we could increase dramatically our cognitive power. Indeed, Neuroscientists using imaging techniques such as fMRI, PET, and SPECT, have clearly shown the absence of any period of "quiescence" in brain activity, and that even during sleep, either REM or non-REM, there can be seen areas of activation such as the hippocampus, which suggests a role of sleep in memory consolidation.

• What is the Substratum for Intelligence and how do you acquire it.

Although the relative importance of each is still matter for debate, it is now well demonstrated that Nature and Nurture both play an important role.
Actually, studies done with identical twins suggest Intelligence is mainly inherited and congenital, although no specific gene -- or genes, since it is multigenic -- has yet been identified. Recently, Epigenetics, has been suggested to play a large role in the mechanisms responsible for the transmission of intelligence down the line.
On the other hand, many other factors may intervene, positively or negatively, in the shaping of a person's cognitive capacity.
The diet to which one is exposed in childhood is very important since any deficiency in quality and/or quantity may affect the IQ in adulthood and even in old age.
Data obtained mainly using imaging techniques have allowed neuroscientists to formulate the idea that high intelligence stems from faster information processing by the brain, and that underlying such speed is an unusually efficient neural circuitry.
In addition, it has been found that Einstein's brain had more glial cells relative to neurons in all areas which were evaluated, but particularly so in the left inferior parietal area which is part of the associative cortex, and is responsible for synthesizing information from multiple other brain regions.
Interestingly, neuroimaging studies of "Idiots Savants" have also revealed the presence of discrepancies between different areas of the brain. In particular, while the cortex was found to be thinner in the superior frontal gyrus, medial prefrontal cortex, and left middle temporal gyrus, a thicker cortex was present in bilateral portions of the superior parietal region.

These data suggest that genius-level performances in memory tasks and/or mathematics, which is accompanied by enlargement of some brain areas, is also associated, as if to compensate, with poor social and/or language skills together with a decrease in volume of the corresponding brain areas.

As people get older, there is a slowing of mental processing and reaction time, while effects on memory vary from person to person.
In addition, some brain areas such as the hippocampus and the frontal lobe -- two structures involved in memory -- may become smaller.
• Can the cognitive performance of a "normal" brain be increased?

Since intelligence is mainly inherited and congenital, people born to have an average (100) IQ won't certainly become geniuses in adulthood.
Nevertheless, knowledge acquired by studying the role and mechanisms of action of some neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine, dopamine, and serotonin both in health and disease, has tought Neuroscientist that their use -- and the use of substances called Nootropic (like caffeine, methamphetamines) that mimic the effects of neurotransmitters -- can enhance at least temporarily the cognitive performance of "normal" people.
It has been shown furthermore, that physical as well as mental exercises, can improve cognitive performances of young adults and older people.
The increasing numbers of people surviving to a healthy old age have made us aware that humans show individual differences in how their mental abilities fare with time. Finding the sources of such differential cognitive performances during ageing is now a research priority. Though studies are incomplete, several factors may be protective of mental ability level—namely, being free of chronic disease, living in a complex and intellectually stimulating environment, having a flexible personality in midlife, living with a partner of high ability, maintaining speed of information processing, being satisfied with life in middle age.

Perspectives for the future

Although still much remains unknown about the inner workings of the human brain, progress made within the last half century bodes well for future discoveries and therapies.
Actually, one of the most promising fields of medical research being medical genetics and epigenetics, it comes easily to mind the possibility that one day these techniques will be in common use not only to treat neurological diseases such as Alzheimer, Parkinson, Dementia, ADHD, and Autism, but also to enhance permanently the intelligence of normal people.

References

1) Differences in mental abilities
Ian J Deary
BMJ. 1998; 317: 1701–1703.

2) Study gives more proof that intelligence is largely inherited
Mark Wheeler
UCLA Newsroom December 20, 2010

3) Cognitive ability in childhood and cognitive decline in mid-life: longitudinal birth cohort
study
Marcus Richardset al al.
BMJ. 2004; 328: 552.

4) High Aptitude Minds
Christian Hoppe and Jelena Stojanovic
Scientific American Mind 2008 61-68

5) Brain variation and general intelligence
Haier RJ, et al..
NeuroImage. 2004; 23:425–433.

6) Neurobiology of intelligence:
science and ethics
Jeremy R. Gray and Paul M. Thompson
Nature Reviews - Neuroscience 2004, 5 ; 471-482

7) A case study of a multiply talented savant with an autism spectrum disorder:
neuropsychological functioning and brain morphometry
Gregory L. Wallace, Francesca Happé, and Jay N. Giedd
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2009; 364: 1425–1432.
8) Albert Einstein's brain. Wikipedia

9) The exceptional brain of Albert Einstein.
Sandra Witelson et al
Lancet, 1999, 353, 2149-2153.

10) On the Brain of a Scientist: Albert Einstein
Marian C. Diamond et al.
J. Experimen. Neurology, 1985; 88:198-204
11) Human Brain Still Awake, Even During Deep Sleep
University of Liège (2008, October 17)
12) Spontaneous neural activity during human slow wave sleep
1. Thien Thanh Dang-Vu et al.
2. PNAS, 2008; 105: 15160-15165
3.
13) What cognitive changes take place with age?
The American Federation for Aging Research

14) What physical changes happen to the brain?
The American Federation for Aging Research

Fearless Woman Lacks Key Part of Brain

To feel fear is not only normal, it's actually a life saving behavior which is part of an innate, ancestral reaction humans manifest when confronted with a threatening situation such as been attacked by a ferocious animal. The reaction is called "fight or flight" and it has been thought to be regulated by a deeply buried part of our non-cognitive or reptilian brain, although the exact location was unknown, at least until now.

Indeed, Justin Feinstein, a graduate student in clinical psychology at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, is the lead author of a research paper summarized in ScienceNow which describes a woman (SM) which was tested to see whether she could experience fear.
SM has a rare genetic condition called Urbach-Wiethe disease. As a result of her illness, she has "two perfectly symmetrical black holes" where her amygdalas should be.

They took her to a pet store filled with snakes and spiders, showed her clips from horror films (including The Silence of the Lambs and The Shining), and brought her to the annual haunted house at the Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky, a notoriously scary place. In each situation, SM failed to act fearful. Instead, she seemed excited and curious.
On the other hand, she reports experiencing other emotions—surprise, happiness, disgust—and understands that scary movies might induce fear in others.

The results suggest that the amygdala is a critical brain region for triggering a state of fear when an individual encounters threatening stimuli.

Humans are born with an “instinct for puzzles that betrays a larger search for the meaning of life.

This is the theory of Marcel Danesi,
a professor of semiotics and anthropology at the University of Toronto, who has written a book entitled " The Puzzle Instinct.The Meaning of Puzzles in Human Life."

"The most obvious explanation for the popularity of puzzles is that they provide a form of constructive entertainment. But in The Puzzle Instinct Marcel Danesi contends that the fascination with puzzles throughout the ages suggests something much more profound. Puzzles serve a deeply embedded need in people to make sense of things. Emerging at the same time in human history as myth, magic, and the occult arts, the puzzle instinct, he claims, led to discoveries in mathematics and science, as well as revolutions in philosophical thought.
Puzzles fill an existential void by providing “small-scale experiences of the large-scale questions that Life poses. The puzzle instinct is, arguably, as intrinsic to human nature as is humor, language, art, music, and all the other creative faculties that distinguish humanity from all other species.”

If these are answers to the question "why humans are so much interested in puzzles" another question arises which is "How, do we solve puzzles including crosswords, and Rubik cube type of brain teasers".
Apparently we arrive at the solution by a combination of intuition and analysis, but the final "Eureka" arrives only after our Cognitive Brain has been activated not by concentration but by a sort of opening to the outside world where good humor plays a crucial role.

In the continuing, world-wide search for a way to improve memory in people affected by Alzheimer, a group of researchers from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, led by Professor Mauro Costa-Mattioli, has found that making an inactive gene can immeasurably enhance the memory capability.

It is - the scientists explain -- a brain protein that causes the block to the formation of memories. EIF2alfa therefore, became the target to be neutralized. Scientists have found that if they could switch off, the mice used for their research showed exceptional memory functions. A series of research by reaffirming it assumptions: eIF2alfa lighting up the protein activates a molecule that blocks the formation of lasting memories. Once, in fact, the switch was reactivated those special faculties were fading.

The discovery has significant implications especially in the medical field: "The inevitable next step - the authors explain - is to find small molecules capable of reproducing the effect of improving memory by acting on this target. If we could achieve a similar pill memory, you could treat diseases such as Alzheimer's. "

Very exciting new discoveries have been made in the last few years in what is justly considered "The last frontier," IOW, in the deciphering the fonctionality of the Cognitive Brain.
Some areas of research are particularly interesting, IMO, and I intend to concentrate my review efforts to those areas, namely:

• The Musical Brain
• The Mathematical Brain
• The Sexual Brain, and
• The Brain of Memory Lane

The Musical Brain

According to Neroscientists, the origin of Music goes back into the prehistory of humankind; probably it predates the origin of language and of such vital activities like farming. This indicates that learning how to make musical sounds must have conveyed some evolutionary advantage through time.
This explains why scientists have struggled with some very fundamental questions about its origins and purpose. How does the brain process music? Are there special neural circuits dedicated to creating or interpreting it? If so, are they, like language, unique to human beings, or do other animals possess true musical ability?

Apparently, the love of music, is not only a universal feature of the human species, found in every society known to anthropology, but is also deeply embedded in multiple structures of the human brain, and is far more ancient than previously suspected.
Indeed, recent discoveries have been made in France and Slovenia of musical instruments dating back to 53,000 years ago -- more than twice the age of the famed Lascaux cave paintings or the palm-size ''Venus'' figurines. The instruments are flutes carved of animal bone, and are so sophisticated in their design as to suggest that humans had already been fashioning musical instruments for hundreds of thousands of years.
New reports also emphasize that humans hold no copyright on sonic brilliance, and that a number of nonhuman animals produce what can rightly be called music. Recent in-depth analyses of the songs sung by birds and humpback whales show that, even when their vocal apparatus would allow them to do otherwise, the animals converge on the same acoustic and aesthetic choices and abide by the same laws of song composition as those preferred by human musicians, and human ears, everywhere.

Neuroscientists have just begun getting a handle on how the brain perceives and appreciates music, and the results are as yet confusing and somewhat contradictory. On the one hand, Dr. Isabelle Peretz of the University of Montreal and her colleagues have studied patients with lesions in the auditory cortex that impair only their ability to recognize music, while leaving unscathed their power to understand speech, environmental sounds and other acoustic information.

On the other hand, Dr. Mark Jude Tramo, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School, argues that neuroimaging studies of people performing or listening to music have failed to find a ''music center'' in the brain devoted strictly to music cognition.

it is becoming apparent that unexpected and unsophisticated areas of the brain are sometimes involved in interpreting, writing, feeling or performing music. As some research has showed, even the visual cortex sometimes gets into the act. Hervè Platel, Jean-Claude Baron and their colleagues at the University of Caen used positron emission tomography (PET) to monitor the effects of changes in pitch. What they found was that Brodmann's areas 18 and 19 in the visual cortex lit up. These areas are better known as the "mind's eye" because they are, in essence, our imagination's canvas.

Singing birds often pitch their songs to the same scale as Western music which may explain at least in part why people find them so attractive. Birds, also, make music much like people. "When birds compose songs they often use the same rhythmic variations, pitch relationships, permutations and combinations of notes as human composers,"

Linguist Steven Pinker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has proposed that music is merely "auditory cheesecake," or "an evolutionary accident piggy-backing on language," as Daniel J. Levitin at McGill University explained in a recent issue of the journal Cerebrum. But many scientists including Levitin don't agree. "Some researchers are finding that listening to familiar music activates neural structures deep in the ancient primitive regions of the brain, the cerebellar vermis,"
Another suggestion Levitin makes is that music functions as communication, perhaps mimicking the rhythm and contour of our species' primitive calls. So, too, he proposes that perhaps music conveys an advantage through stimulating our primitive timing mechanisms.
And to end this review on a sweet note, I'll quote again the results obtaned recently by at the Montreal Neurological Institute by Dr. Robert Zatorre and published in
Nature Neuroscience, which showed that listening to music releases the same brain chemicals as food, drugs, sex, and in particular the neurotransmitter dopamine.

The Mathematical Brain

It does make sense that a review of present knowledge about how and where the human brain processes Mathematics follows the essay on the Musical Brain since Music is indeed structured upon mathematical grounds.

Although still a lot remains to be determined about the mathematical Brain, Neuroscientists such asBrian Butterworth and Jason G. Goldman have been able to establish with certainty quite a few facts.

First, that we are born with circuits in the brain that are specialized for number – in particular, for cardinal number – the
number of objects in a set, the concept that underlies ordinary arithmetic.

Second, if the genes can be programmed to build these specialized brain circuits, then now and again there will be a
genetic anomaly and the brain does not grow the right circuits. Pe opl e who suf f e r thi s c ondi t i on a r e s ome t ime s c a l l ed dyscalculics. The main presenting symptom is that they have great difficulty understanding numbers. Being born with dyscalculia is a bit like being born colour-blind (also caused by a genetic anomaly) – except here it is a kind of number-blindness.
The necessary neural system has just failed to develop properly. There is no cure, but there may be ways of working around the problem.

Third, that language acquisition is not necessary for the development of mathematical skills.
Actually, several examples are known of people with aphasia of various causes who can do almost flawless mathematics.
Furthermore, infants, even in the first weeks of life – long before they are able to understand speech or speak
themselves - have simple numerical abilities. They notice, for example, when the number of objects in a display changes. What’s more infants can add and subtract.
Actually it is not surprising that language and number should dissociate in this way since they use very different parts of the brain: The language uses Brocas and Wernicke’s areas, while Mathematics uses the inferior parietal lobe and the Intraparietal sulcus (IPS).
Interestingly enough, one study conducted by Molko and colleagues with individuals with Turner Syndrome -- a genetic condition associated with the X-chromosome, which is associated with abnormal development of numerical representation -- showed In the right IPS, a decrease in depth as well as a trend toward reduced length in Turners patients when compared with control subjects.

One last question begs for an answer: Was tha brain of a mathematical genius such as Einstein differ in any way from that of controls? This question was already approached in the OP of this Thread.
To summarize, it can be said Einstein's Brain was not larger than that of controls, however, the IPS was found to be absent. This
might have allowed Einstein’s brain to form more connections between neurons in this region.
" We don’t know if every brilliant physicist and mathematician will have this same anatomy.” said Sandra Witelson, neuroscientist at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, who conducted the study.

The Brain and Sexual Orientation

Is homosexuality a mental disease? No, the world medical and psychological communities removed it from their list of mental disorders (Diagnostics and Statistics Manual Three, DSM III) back in 1975. It's now considered a perfectly healthy form of humans sexuality.
The DSM IV lists the following criteria for abnormality:

1) Distance from social norms
2) Danger to self or others
3) Dsyfunction
4) Distress to the person

Since homosexuality is not included in the DSM IV (which is more comprehensive in terms of psychology than the DSM III) means that it is not considered a disease anymore by the medical and psychological community.
Nowadays, homosexuality is considered a variant in the spectrum of normal sexual behavior not because new discoveries or experiments have shown that it is so, but because mental attitudes have changed, and whatever happens sexually between two(or more) mutually consentient adults in their privacy is now considered physiological, morally (if still not religiously) acceptable and legal.

However, if homosexuals are now considered normal from the psychiatric/psychological point of view, some interesting hormonal and/or genetic peculiarities as well as brain differences from heterosexuals have been reported which suggests homosexuality may result from some structural differences.

Indeed, several retrospective studies have found correlations between stressful maternal life events which occurred during pregnancy and the incidence of adult male homosexuality. Dorner and his colleagues found that out of 800 homosexual males, highly significantly more homosexuals were born during the stressful war (World War II) and early post-war period than in the years before or after this stressful period. This finding suggested that stressful maternal life events, if occurring during pregnancy may represent, in fact, an etiogenetic risk factor for the development of sexual variations in the male offspring.
Another study compared the answers of 100 heterosexual men with 100 bi- and homosexual men of the same age to questions relating to maternal stress during their prenatal life. The highest significant correlation was found in homosexual men, followed by bi-sexual men and maternal stress.

New York University researcher Lynn S. Hall, who studies homosexual inclinations in identical twins, has investigated whether homosexuality owes its origin to the intrauterine environment. She feels that if one of the identical twins was stressed during the first 3 months after conception, during the period when the brain is rapidly developing, particularly those structures which influence sexual behavior (like the hypothalamus) can be affected. The exact nature of the stress may be an unoptimal position in the womb, inadequate blood flow or any other sub-optimal factors, not in the mother's control.

In 1991, Boston University psychiatrist Richard Pillard and Northwestern University psychologist J. Michael Bailey announced the results of their study of male twins. They found that, in identical twins, if one twin was gay, the other had about a 50 percent chance of also being gay. For fraternal twins, the rate was about 20 percent. Because identical twins share their entire genetic makeup while fraternal twins share about half, genes were believed to explain the difference.

Some labs are also testing an intriguing theory involving imprinted genes. Normally, we have two copies of every gene, one from each parent, and both copies work. They're identical, so it doesn't matter which copy comes from which parent. But with imprinted genes, that does matter. Although both copies are physically there, one copy - either from the mom or the dad - is blocked from working. A recent Duke University study suggests humans have hundreds of imprinted genes, including one on the X chromosome that previous research has tied to sexual orientation.

But all of the gene studies so far have been based on small samples and lacked the funding to do things right. In addition, there is a towering question that has to do with evolution. If a prime motivation of all species is to pass genes on to future generations, and gay men are estimated to produce 80 percent fewer offspring than straight men, why would a gay gene not have been wiped out by the forces of natural selection? This evolutionary disadvantage is what led former Amherst College biologist Paul Ewald to argue that homosexuality might be caused by a virus - a pathogen most likely working in utero. That argument caused a stir when he and a colleague proposed it six years ago, but with no research done to test it, it remains just another theory. Other scientists have offered fascinating but unpersuasive explanations, most of them focusing on some kind of compensatory benefit, in the same way that the gene responsible for sickle cell anemia also protects against malaria. A study last year by researchers in Italy showed that female relatives of gay men tended to be more fertile, though, as critics point out, not nearly fertile enough to make up for the gay man's lack of offspring.


At a time when our focus is on the critical period of sexualisation of the brain and when we understand how artificial is the separation of the different components of the ‘Primal adaptive system’ (nervous system, endocrine system and immune system), we can easily offer interpretations of relevant recently- published data. According to a Canadian study done by R Blanchard and AF Bogaert of the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. involving 302 homosexual men and an equal number of heterosexual men, the presence of older brothers was linked to an increased probability of homosexuality in the later-born males, while having older sisters neither enhance nor counteract this effect. The most plausible interpretation takes into account that male fetuses are more antigenic to the mother than female fetuses and thus more likely to provoke maternal immune reactions. This reaction strengthens after each pregnancy with a male fetus. The connection between the mother’s immune reaction and the child’s future sexual orientation is perhaps some effect of the maternal antibodies on sexual differentiation of the brain. It is noteworthy that male-specific Y-linked H-Y antigen, which is considered the basis for the greater antigenicity of male fetuses, appears to be well-represented on the surfaces of brain cells.

There are many reasons to wonder if the anatomical structure of the hypothalamus is the same among heterosexual and homosexual men. The hypothalamus is an archaic brain structure that develops early in life and is involved in the regulation of the typically male sexual behaviour.

Simon LeVay, a neuroscientist at the Salk Institute in San Diego, set out to answer this intriguing question by examining the hypothalamus of 41 subjects – 19 homosexual men who had died of complications of AIDS, 16 heterosexual men, and six heterosexual women. A characteristic feature of the brains of gay men is the small size of one hypothalamic nucleus, INAH 3, which LeVay found to be the same size as in women and only half the size found in heterosexual men. INAH 3, he concludes, is dismorphic not with gender, but with sexual orientation. It is noticeable that six of the heterosexual men had died of AIDS but nevertheless had a large INAH 3. Statistical analysis indicated that the probability of the result’s being attributed to chance was about one in 1000.

More recently, a study, published in PNAS, compared the size of the brain's halves in 90 adults.
Scientists have noticed for some time that homosexual people of both sexes have differences in certain cognitive abilities, suggesting there may be subtle differences in their brain structure.
This is the first time, however, that scientists have used brain scanners to try to look for the source of those differences.
A group of 90 healthy gay and heterosexual adults, men and women, were scanned by the Karolinska Institute scientists to measure the volume of both sides, or hemispheres, of their brain.
When these results were collected, it was found that lesbians and heterosexual men shared a particular "asymmetry" in their hemisphere size, while heterosexual women and gay men had no difference between the size of the different halves of their brain.
In other words, structurally, at least, the brains of gay men were more like heterosexual women, and gay women more like heterosexual men.
A further experiment found that in one particular area of the brain, the amygdala, there were other significant differences.
In heterosexual men and gay women, there were more nerve "connections" in the right side of the amygdala, compared with the left.
The reverse, with more neural connections in the left amygdala, was the case in homosexual men and heterosexual women.

In conclusion, all these data, although sustaining the established "normalcy" of homosexual practices, reveal the presence, mainly in homosexual males, of discrete hormonal, immunological, genetic, and/or anatomical discrepancies which suggest the function of some specific brain areas, involved in the regulation of sexual behavior, may be somewhat at variance from that of heterosexual individuals.

PS I believe it is important to draw attention to a controversy which refuses to go away, namely the claim, made essentially by homophobes and particularly by clergymen, that homosexuality is somewhat related to pedophilia.
This absurd and malicious claim is probably made in order to try and cover up the scandal of pedophile priests which has engulfed the catholic church recently.
Actually, nothing could be farther from the truth since only a tiny minority of homosexuals of either gender actively seek sexual encounters with minors.

The Brain and "Memory Lane"

One person's memory contributes significantly to his “intelligence”. That is, your memory affects your ability to quickly and easily retrieve and apply stored information in situations when you need to solve a problem.
Actually, at least three types of memory have been identified: Working Memory, Declarative Memory, and Procedural Memory.

Working memory is the ability to actively hold information in the mind needed to do complex tasks such as reasoning, comprehension and learning. Working memory tasks are those that require the goal-oriented active monitoring or manipulation of information or behaviors in the face of interfering processes and distractions. The cognitive processes involved include the executive and attention control of short-term memory which provide for the interim integration, processing, disposal, and retrieval of information. Working memory is a theoretical concept central both to cognitive psychology and neuroscience. (Wiki)

Declarative or long-term memory, is composed of all the facts, figures, and names you have ever learned. All of your experiences and conscious memory fall into this category. Although no one knows exactly where this enormous database is stored, it is clear that the hippocampus -- which belongs to the Limbic System -- is necessary to file away new memories as they occur.

Procedural memory, is probably the most durable form of memory. These are actions, habits, or skills that are learned simply by repetition. Examples include playing tennis, playing an instrument, solving a puzzle, etc. The hippocampus is not involved in procedural memory, but it is likely that the cerebellum plays a role in some instances.

The hippocampus, therefore, is critical in laying down declarative memory, but is not necessary for working memory, procedural memory, or memory storage. Damage to the hippocampus will only affect the formation of new declarative memories.
The mechanisms of the hippocampus are not entirely understood. The formation of memories probably involves long term potentiation, or LTP. This is a molecular process which strengthens groups of synapses that are repeatedly used.

A new mechanism behind the formation and maintenance of long-term memories has recently been identified by researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the research has been published in the March 4th issue of the journal Cell.
The researchers have found that lactate, a type of energy fuel in the brain, plays a critical role in the formation of long -term memories at least in rats.
If similar results will be found in humans, it can have important implications for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.

As we have seen previously, the cerebellum may have a role, in some instances, in the formation of Procedural memory.
Interestingly, a study with Scottish older adults reported in the April 2011 issue of Elsevier's Cortex and summarized by Medical News Today, suggests that grey matter volume in the cerebellum predicts cognitive ability, and that keeping those cerebellar networks active may slow down old age-related cognitive decline.

In the same vein are data recently published in Human brain mapping, and obtained by neuroscientists working at Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy.

Considering the fact that education has been extensively considered an influential factor in the modulation of interindividual differences in cognitive performance and cerebral structure, and that education has been linked to the concept of reserve, which refers to an unspecified aspect of brain structure or function that enables people with more education to cope better with brain pathology or age-related changes, the researchers at the Santa Lucia Foundation submitted
150 healthy subjects to a comprehensive sociodemographic, clinical and cognitive assessment, and a high-resolution structural MRI and diffusion tensor imaging scan protocol.
Data of micro- (mean diffusivity, MD) and macro- (volume) structural changes of six bilateral deep gray matter structures (thalamus, caudate nucleus, putamen, hippocampus, amygdala, and globus pallidus) were analyzed with reference to years of formal education. Results show that decreased MD in both left and right hippocampi was the only structural parameter that, along with decreasing age, significantly correlated with higher education.

The present findings suggest that the hippocampal formation might be one site where education-mediated microstructural changes occur, possibly compensating for cognitive decline, and may be the so far best documented demonstration that proactive interventions of various nature may indeed counteract the damages inflicted on human's cognitive capacity by advancing age.

Neurolaw - The Brain on the Stand

I believe discussions about the causes of aggressive behavior in humans are emblematic of the old and somewhat discredited controversy on the respective roles of Nature vs. Nurture.

Actually -- as previously shown for musical and mathematical talent -- it's probably a combination of both in various percentages.
In any case, whatever contribution Nature and Nurture may make to the induction of people's aggressive behavior, two conclusions may be anticipated:

• Drastic therapeutic interventions, such as pre-frontal brain lobectomy, are not done anymore
• They have been replaced by Behavior Modification and/or Pharmacological Therapies.

The birth of Neurolaw , as reviewed by Jeffrey Rosen in the NYT Magazine,can be traced to the early 1990' when the lawyer of Herbert Weinstein -- a 65-year-old ad executive who was charged with strangling his wife, and then, in an effort to make the murder look like a suicide, throwing her body out the window -- suggested that his client should not be held responsible for his actions because he had a brain defect — namely, a cyst nestled in his arachnoid membrane.

The implications of the claim were considerable. To suggest that criminals could be excused because their brains made them do it seems to imply that anyone whose brain isn’t functioning properly could be absolved of responsibility.

In final analysis, the prosecution team, fearing that simply exhibiting images of Weinstein’s brain in court would sway the jury, agreed to let Weinstein plead guilty in exchange for a reduced charge of manslaughter.

Since then, Weinstein's lawyer found himself in so much demand to testify as a expert witness that he started a consulting business called Forensic Neuroscience. Hired by defense teams and prosecutors alike, he has testified over the past 15 years in several hundred criminal and civil cases. In those cases, neuroscientific evidence has been admitted to show everything from head trauma to the tendency of violent video games to make children behave aggressively.

As the use of functional M.R.I. results becomes increasingly common in courtrooms, judges and juries may be asked to draw new and sometimes troubling lines between “normal” and “abnormal” brains.
Ruben Gur, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, was called as a national expert in positron-emission tomography, or PET scans, to help in the trial of a convicted serial killer in Florida named Bobby Joe Long. Long had been sentenced to death after he committed at least nine murders in Tampa. Gur, after examining Long’s PET scans, testified that a motorcycle accident had severely damaged his amygdala thus unleashing his innate violence.

These examples of the increasing importance of neurosciences in the legal system raise some heavy considerations.
Should courts be in the business of deciding when to mitigate someone’s criminal responsibility because his brain functions improperly, whether because of age, in-born defects or trauma? As we learn more about criminals’ brains, will we have to redefine our most basic ideas of justice?

Actually, neuroscientists are trying to find the factors in the brain associated with violence. PET scans of convicted murderers were first studied in the late 1980s by Adrian Raine, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California.
He found that their prefrontal cortexes, areas associated with inhibition, had reduced glucose metabolism and suggested that this might be responsible for their violent behavior. In a later study, Raine found that subjects who received a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, which correlates with violent behavior, had 11 percent less gray matter in their prefrontal cortexes than control groups of healthy subjects and substance abusers.

Having reviewed the important role played by some brain structures in the etiology of violence, I will spend a few paragraphs on the role of Genetics and of hormones and neurotransmitters.

Some studies done with identical twins either raised together or adopted in separate families, although fraught with the usual limitations, tend to suggest that a multigenic component may be involved in the development of an aggressive behavior. However, this was associated with environmental factors.
The very brain circuitry identified as playing a crucial role in emotion regulation, is dramatically shaped by early social influences. Biological factors alone do not determine whether a person will be aggressive. Environmental factors such as upbringing and social interactions surely also contribute to one’s propensity for aggressive or violent behavior.

Studies investigating the relevance of the X chromosome in aggressive behavior, found a link between having the chromosome XXY and mental impairment. So it is possible that instead of being more aggressive due to having an XXY chromosome,some children could have developed psychosis from an XXY mental impairment and from this the aggressivity.

Finally, it is well known the male hormone testosterone as well as some neurotransmitters such as serotonin probably are the final pathway through which emotions are controlled.

Several studies of the concentration of blood testosterone of convicted male criminals who committed violent crimes compared to males without a criminal record or who committed non-aggressive crimes revealed in most cases that men who were judged aggressive/dominant had higher blood concentrations of testosterone than controls. However, a correlation between testosterone levels and aggression does not prove a causal role for testosterone.
Nevertheless, the use of anti-androgen substances or even of chemical castration, has been suggested as appropriate for the treatment of violent sexual predators and particularly of pedophiles.(Wiki)

Another chemical messenger with implications for aggression is the neurotransmitter serotonin. In various experiments, serotonin action was shown to be negatively correlated with aggression. This correlation with aggression helps to explain the aggression-reducing effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as fluoxetine , aka prozac. (Wiki)

The Brain under General Anaesthesia

Many of us have experienced General Anaestesia in order to be operated for one reason or another, but very few have wondered what are the mechanisms of this artificial, controlled sleep, as well as what happens to their Brain under anaesthesia.

Some answers to these questions were provided by Dr. Emery Neal Brown who has recently been interviewed by Claudia Dreyfus for the New York Times.

Dr. Emery Neal Brown, 54, is a professor of anesthesiology at Harvard Medical School, a professor of computational neuroscience at M.I.T. and a practicing physician, seeing patients at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Upon questioning, he admits anaesthetized patients are in a coma-like state, although drug-induced and generally reversible. Actually, some of Dr.Brown research is done in order to make general anaestesia the safest possible.

Since 2004, Dr.Brown is also working with volunteers who, under anaesthesia, are submitted to functional MRI and EEG, thus providing D.Brown with a "real time"visualization of the changes in the activity of various parts of their Brain while they progressively loose conscience. And it's by analyzing some of the results that Dr.Brown can conclude not all of the Brain's activity is shut down during anaesthesia since some Brain parts show levels of normal activity, which allows him to conclude this activiy
is what blocks the transmission of information and contributes to the coma-like state.

Although not an issue in the published interview, I believe the reported similarities between a patient heavily sedated under general anaesthesia and a patient in a coma raise troubling questions about the legitimacy of present rules to establish brain death before proceeding to an explant.

In an article entitled "Anaesthesia for organ donation in the brainstem dead — why bother?" by
P. J. Young, B. F. Matt, and published in the journal Anaesthesia, some disturbing questions are raised.

"Whereas brainstem death is an acceptable definition of death in the UK, the position in the USA has been defined by a President's Commission and requires the ‘irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brainstem’. In the UK, the presence of cortical activity and/or perfusion is regarded as acceptable in the knowledge that the reticular formation will not be functional if the brainstem reflexes are absent and so the capacity for consciousness is irreversibly lost.

In the other hand, seventeen whole brain dead patients as defined by Italian law (relying on the absence of brainstem reflexes, apnoea and a flat EEG) underwent single proton emission tomography (SPECT), a measure of tissue perfusion. A third of these patients had residual perfusion of the basal ganglia, thalamus and/or brainstem."

Since it is imperative that public confidence be maintained in the transplant programme, studies as the present one may provide one day more precise and definitive parameters for brain death.

Death of the Cognitive Brain and Organ Transplantation

In the last few years progress made in organ transplantation, particularly in reducing the percentage of rejections, as well as the angry and ideological debates about legalizing one or more of the various forms of euthanasia, have had by necessity a considerable impact on the definition and guidelines for verifying "Brain Death".

Never an easy decision to make, organ donations at the time of death have recently been loosing ground both in North-America and in Europe due to some confusion about the definition of death as well as because of some doubtful reports of awakenings after many years of vegetative coma.

As mentioned in the previous post, whereas brainstem death is an acceptable definition of death in the UK, the position in the USA has been defined by a President's Commission and requires the ‘irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brainstem’(Anaesthesia).

Organ transplant laws (Wikipedia)

"Both developing and developed countries have forged various policies to try to increase the safety and availability of organ transplants to their citizens. Brazil, France, Italy, Poland and Spain have ruled all adults potential donors with the “opting out” policy, unless they attain cards specifying not to be. However, whilst potential recipients in developing countries may mirror their more developed counterparts in desperation, potential donors in developing countries do not.
....Despite great efforts, illegal organ trafficking continues to thrive and can be attributed to corruption in healthcare systems, which has been traced as high up as the doctors themselves in China, Ukraine, and India, and the blind eye economically strained governments and health care programs must sometimes turn to organ trafficking."

Ethical concerns (Wikipedia)

"Even within developed countries there is concern that enthusiasm for increasing the supply of organs may trample on respect for the right to life. The question is made even more complicated by the fact that the "irreversibility" criterion for legal death cannot be adequately defined and can easily change with changing technology."

Legal death (Wikipedia)

"Legal death is a legal pronouncement by a qualified person that further medical care is not appropriate and that a patient should be considered dead under the law. The specific criteria used to pronounce legal death are variable and often depend on certain circumstances in order to pronounce a person legally dead. Controversy is often encountered due to the conflicts between moral and ethical values.....Overall, there are many issues to consider taking into account in the debate of ethical values clashing with modern science. Where some say let the patient die due to the inability to cure or help them, others plead to keep them living either in desperate hopes of improvement, or in order to preserve their organs for future donation."

Brain death (Wikipedia)

"One of the scenarios in which legal death is usually pronounced is when a person is considered brain dead. Brain death is considered an irreversible coma. A patient is diagnosed as brain dead when there is no detectable brain activity. In the United States, brain death is legal in every state with exceptions for New York and New Jersey, which require that a person’s lungs and heart must also have stopped before it can be declared they are really dead. Brain death is not the same as a vegetative state, but the two are often confused. A vegetative state is when a person can seem to be awake, have their eyes open, yet they are not aware of anything and their brains are not functioning.
.....It is important to distinguish between brain death and states that may mimic brain death (e.g., barbiturate overdose, alcohol intoxication, sedative overdose, hypothermia, hypoglycemia, coma or chronic vegetative states). Some comatose patients can recover, and some patients with severe irreversible neurological dysfunction will nonetheless retain some lower brain functions such as spontaneous respiration, despite the losses of both cortex and brain stem functionality.....
Note that brain electrical activity can stop completely, or drop to such a low level as to be undetectable with most equipment. An EEG will therefore be flat, though this is sometimes also observed during deep anaesthesia.

.....The widely-adopted Uniform Determination of Death Act in the United States attempts to standardize criteria. The patient should have a normal temperature and be free of drugs that can suppress brain activity if the diagnosis is to be made on EEG criteria.
Alternatively, a radionuclide cerebral blood flow scan that shows complete absence of intracranial blood flow can be used to confirm the diagnosis without performing EEGs.....
...Brain death may result in legal death, but still with the heart beating, and with mechanical ventilation all other vital organs may be kept completely alive and functional, providing optimal opportunities for organ transplantation.
Most organ donation for organ transplantation is done in the setting of brain death.."

Persistent vegetative state (Wikipedia)

A persistent vegetative state is a condition of patients with severe brain damage who were in a coma, but progressed to a state of partial arousal rather than true awareness or Brain Death.
After four weeks in a vegetative state (VS), the patient is classified as in a persistent vegetative state. This diagnosis is classified as a permanent vegetative state (PVS) after approximately 1 year of being in a Persistent Vegetative State.

Rather than qualifying for organ donations, therefore, patients who entered a PVS state become quite often -- and unfortunately -- pawns of a heart-wrenching and open ended battle between "pro-lifers" and "pro-euthanasia" combatants.

Death of the Cognitive Brain and Euthanasia

This is one of the most controversial and heart wrenching issues in modern medicine, where several conflicting interests are intertwined such as Science, Religion, Economics, Love, Revenge, Jurisprudence, and simple but destructive pigheadedness.

Several cases are on record which illustrate how complex and long drawn can be or become a situation where a family member, or a Doctor, or a representative of the Judiciary must decide whether a human being, who's suffered severe brain injury
and who's kept alive by machines, is definitely and irreversibly "Brain Dead"and thus, for all purposes, a corpse submitted to forced and futile therapy which should be interrupted, or, on the contrary, whether there is still a chance no matter how small the Cognitive Brain is not entirely dead, and thus the patient sooner or later could make a partial or even a complete recovery. A situation which, therefore, necessitates he/she be kept hooked on the machines for an indefinite period of time.

Further complicating the issue are religious beliefs and/or national laws which forbid any form of "Euthanasia" including the interruption of artificial feeding and hydrating, and refuse to accept a "Living Will" -- or the equivalent -- made by the patient in anticipation of precisely such a situation.

Obviously, in this context, two things are of paramount importance for reaching the right decision: 1) The certainty of the brain's death, and 2) The legality of Euthanasia in that particular place.

1) The brain stem, traditionally called the lower brain, is usually more resistant to damage from oxygen deprivation, or anoxia. Less serious brain injury may cause irreversible damage to the cerebrum, or higher brain, but may spare the brain stem.
When the cerebrum is irreversibly damaged yet the brain stem still functions, the patient goes into a persistent vegetative state (PVS), also called persistent noncognitive state. PVS patients, lacking in the higher-brain functions, are awake but unaware. They swallow, grimace when in pain, yawn, open their eyes, and may even breathe without a respirator, however, their Cognitive Brain is irreversibly damaged and they qualify for Euthanasia.
(Mayo Clinic Proc.)

2)Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland, the U.S. state of Oregon, the Autonomous Community of Andalusia (Spain) and Thailand have legalized active euthanasia which means all machines pumping blood, operating the lungs, feeding and hydrating the total brain dead or PVS patient as well as all other therapy may be stopped and the patient allowed to die.

Unfortunately, in some cases conflicts may arise within the patient's family which can further delay the euthanasia's procedure.
Particular, worldwide resonance accompanied the fate of two American and one Italian PVS patients.

"The case of Karen Ann Quinlan called attention to the ramifications of the persistent vegetative state. In 1975 Quinlan suffered a cardiopulmonary arrest after ingesting a combination of alcohol and drugs. In 1976 Joseph Quinlan was granted court permission to discontinue artificial respiration for his comatose daughter. Even after life support was removed, Karen remained in a persistent vegetative state until she died of multiple infections in 1985.

A more recent case that has refocused national attention on the persistent vegetative state is that of Terri Schiavo, who entered a PVS in 1990, when her brain was deprived of oxygen during a heart attack brought on by an eating disorder. Her husband argued that she would never recover and that his wife would not want to be kept alive by artificial means. He petitioned a Florida court to remove her feeding tube. In October 2003 a Florida judge ruled that the tube should be removed. But Schiavo's parents believed that their daughter would recover and requested that Florida Governor Jeb Bush intervene. The Florida legislature subsequently gave Governor Bush the authority to override the courts, and the feeding tube was reinserted six days after its removal.

In May 2004 the law that allowed Governor Bush to intervene in the case was ruled unconstitutional by a Florida appeals court. The case was then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in January 2005 refused to hear the appeal and reinstate the Florida law. In March 2005 doctors removed Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. She died thirteen days later. An autopsy showed extensive damage throughout the cerebrum. Damage was so severe that the autopsy report noted that Schiavo must have been blind".

"Italy: Father can end daughter’s life support. Date: 11/13/2008

Italy’s highest court ruled Thursday in favor of a man’s request to disconnect his daughter’s feeding tube and allow her to die after 16 years in a vegetative state.
Courts, politicians and the Vatican have weighed in on the fate of Eluana Englaro, who fell into a vegetative state following a car accident in 1992, when she was 20.
The Court of Cassation said it had rejected an appeal by prosecutors against a lower court ruling in July in favor of Beppino Englaro. The father had said his daughter visited a friend in a coma shortly before her accident and expressed the will to refuse treatment in the same situation.

Italy does not allow euthanasia using methods such as fatal doses of drugs. Patients have a right to refuse treatment, but no law allows them to have a living will in case they become unconscious.
Beppino Englaro had fought a decade-long court battle to disconnect his daughter’s feeding tube.
The decision “confirms that we live under the rule of law,” he was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency.

Catholic and anti-euthanasia groups had protested the ruling by the lower court in Milan in front of the city’s Duomo."

The "Right to Die" concept, particularly for Brain Dead and PVS patients, is still far from being generally accepted, which forces patients, and their family, to a crepuscular life of waiting for the end of a non-life.

'Bilingual' Neurons May Reveal the Secrets of Brain Disease

A team of researchers from the Université de Montréal and McGill University have discovered a type of "cellular bilingualism" -- a phenomenon that allows a single neuron to use two different methods of communication to exchange information.

"Our work could facilitate the identification of mechanisms that disrupt the function of dopaminergic, serotonergic and cholinergic neurons in diseases such as schizophrenia, Parkinson's and depression," wrote Dr. Louis-Eric Trudeau of the Université de Montréal's Department of Pharmacology and Dr. Salah El Mestikawy, a researcher at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute and professor at McGill's Department of Psychiatry."

"According to Dr. Trudeau, "the neurons in the nervous system -- both in the brain and in the peripheral nervous system -- are typically classified by the main transmitter they use." For example, dopaminergic neurons use dopamine as a transmitter to communicate important information for many different phenomena such as motivation and learning. The malfunction of these neurons is involved in serious brain diseases such as schizophrenia and Parkinson's. "Our recent research, carried out in part with Dr. Laurent Descarries at the University of Montreal, shows that dopaminergic neurons use glutamate as a second transmitter. That means they are able to transmit two types of messages in the brain, on two time scales: a fast one for glutamate and a slower one for dopamine.

Other research conducted by Dr. Salah El Mestikawy's team at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute observed the same kind of bilingualism in brain neurons that use serotonin, a group of cells that communicate important information for controlling mood, aggression, impulsivity and food intake, and also those that use acetylcholine, an important messenger for motor skills and memory that is unbalanced by Parkinson's disease, antipsychotic drugs and in drug addiction

What, IMHO, is extremely interesting as well as promising for future therapy of Pakinson's, but surprisingly not mentioned in the previous paper, is the following article:

Glutamate receptors as therapeutic targets for Parkinson’s disease, by Kari A. Johnson et al, which was published last year in CNS Neurol Disord Drug Targets.
And the Authors conclude by writing: "Glutamate receptors therefore represent exciting targets for the development of novel pharmacological therapies for PD."

Remarkable progress is presently being made on the working of the Cognitive Brain.
Two recently published papers illustrate such progress.

Protein hormone boosts memory .

This article published in Nature, relates work done by Cristina Alberini, a neuroscientist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, on the memory enhancing property of IGF-II, a hormone that promotes growth and repair in certain cells.

When researchers injected the protein directly into the hippocampus — the region of the brain associated with episodic memory — during a particular window after learning, it seemed to both enhance memory and enable it to persist for longer....There are many gaps in our knowledge about IGF-II, but previous research has suggested that IGF-II receptors are concentrated in the hippocampus....What is exciting about these findings is that they could lead to interventions for memory-related disorders such as Alzheimer's disease or other types of dementia, facilitated by the fact that IGF-II can cross the blood–brain barrier, a physiological effect limiting the number of chemicals which can enter the brain.

Understanding the Brain's "Brake Pedal" in Neural Plasticity

Recent work from Professor Takao Hensch’s Harvard lab shows that a close molecular cousin of a snake’s toxin, called Lynx serves as a kind of brake in the brain. Rather than silencing neurons outright, molecules like Lynx1 help hold them in check, suppressing their tendency to grow and otherwise change with experience. In the absence of these brakes, our brains’ circuits are sprawling and adaptable, but also somewhat unstable.

When we are young, we live through a biological “critical period” -- a time when there is little braking, and the brain is extraordinarily adaptable. Certain kinds of learning seem to just happen without much special attention or practice.
..... the older brain is more constrained...... scientists believe that some of the changes are brought about by the gradual accumulation of molecules, like Lynx1, that limit the brain’s adaptability.

.....With their investigation of Lynx1, the Hensch group has found what may be one of the major factors responsible for closing the door on plasticity after the critical period. In addition, they demonstrate a strategy for lifting the brake to enhance adult plasticity and repair wiring errors in the brain. This could have major implications for the treatment of developmental disorders and brain injuries, and may eventually provide ways to augment cognition in later life.

One of the most sought after medical advances is the possibility to bring the Brain to regenerate after a major, disruptive event which has deleterious consequences on its Cognitive capacities.

In a paper published on line this week by PNAS, Dr.Geoffrey Murphy, associate professor of molecular and integrative physiology at the University of Michigan Medical School, in collaboration with U-M’s Neurodevelopment and Regeneration Laboratory run by Jack Parent, M.D., recently described how the plasticity of the brain allowed mice to restore critical functions related to learning and memory after the scientists suppressed the animals’ ability to make certain new brain cells.

"...The findings bring scientists one step closer to isolating the mechanisms by which the brain compensates for disruptions and reroutes neural functioning — which could ultimately lead to treatments for cognitive impairments in humans caused by disease and aging.

After halting the ongoing growth of key brain cells in adult mice, the researchers found the brain circuitry compensated for the disruption by enabling existing neurons to be more active. The existing neurons also had longer life spans than when new cells were continuously being made."

The Brain in Pain

It has been known for a long time that the Brain is the repository and final pathway of all types of pain and, furthermore, that it is capable in some way to interfere with pain awareness.

Two papers have recently been published which address the possible mechanisms involved in this form of "Brain over Matter", and, more specifically, of the capacity of Meditation to reduce pain.

In the first paper, it is reported that Zen meditation has many health benefits, including that of inducing a reduced sensitivity to pain. According to a new research performed at the Université de Montréal, meditators do feel pain but they simply don't dwell on it as much. These findings, published in the December 2010 issue of Pain, may have implications for chronic pain sufferers, such as those with arthritis, back pain or cancer.

"The aim of the current study was to determine how they are achieving this," says senior author Pierre Rainville, researcher at the Université de Montréal and the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal. "Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrated that although the meditators were aware of the pain, this sensation wasn't processed in the part of their brains responsible for appraisal, reasoning or memory formation. We think that they feel the sensations, but cut the process short, refraining from interpretation or labelling of the stimuli as painful."

"The most experienced Zen practitioners showed lower pain responses and decreased activity in the brain areas responsible for cognition, emotion and memory (the prefrontal cortex, amygdala and hippocampus). In addition, there was a decrease in the communication between a part of the brain that senses the pain and the prefrontal cortex."

In a more recent paper, Fadel Zeidan, PhD, who is a postdoctoral fellow at Wake Forest University School of Medicine describes the study where participants were taught a meditation technique known as focused attention, which involves paying close attention to breathing patterns while acknowledging and letting go of thoughts that distract you.

"While functional MRIs were being performed, a device was placed on each participant's right calf that delivered 120 F degrees of heat, a temperature that most people find painful. The heat was kept on the skin for 12 seconds and then taken off the skin for the same amount of time over a total of 5 minutes.
Prior to learning the meditation technique, brain imaging showed significant activity in a key area of the brain when the participants were subjected to intense heat, but this activity was reduced when they were meditating.

The type of meditation that was used in the study is known as Shamatha. Like other forms of mindfulness meditation, it entails learning how to observe what's going on in one's mind and body without judging, and while maintaining focus on one's breathing or a chanted mantra."

The Brain and Obesity

Effects Of Obesity On The Brain: First Evidence Of Sex-Related Differences In The Brain's White Matter Structure

The research team at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, together with the Department of Endocrinology, University Clinic Leipzig, Integrated Research and Treatment Center Adiposity Diseases Leipzig and the University College London have shown a gender-dependent relationship between being overweight and brain structure in the brain's white matter. (PLoS ONE, April 11, 2011.)

And I quote:

"The researchers investigated the white matter brain structure of lean to obese men and women using diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Using this technique, the movement of water molecules (diffusion) can be measured. As this motion is hindered by brain structures like nerve fibers, changes in the white matter brain structures can be investigated.

“Certain changes in the movement of the water molecules in brain tissue can indicate a reduced axonal or myelin density” says Karsten Mueller, the corresponding author of the study. Such changes were observed in the corpus callosum, a brain structure with 250 million nerve fibers connecting the left and the right hemisphere of the brain.

The differences in diffusion, which are likewise observed in premature aging of the brain tissue, were more dominant in female participants and covered a greater area of the corpus callosum. This is the first study to show systematic sex-related differences in the relationship between weight and the brain. This could possibly be because connections between the brain hemispheres generally show differences between men and women.

The Brain and Stress

Neuroscientists Discover New 'Chemical Pathway' In The Brain For Stress.

It is well known that stress may affect our cognitive capacity, even some time resulting in stress-associated psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety or posttraumatic stress disorder.
However, several things still remained to be determined such as why not every stressed person develops a pathology, and by which mechanism and pathway stress modifies normal brain functioning.

As reported in summary form by medicalnews (and I quote):

"A team of neuroscientists at the University of Leicester, UK, in collaboration with researchers from Poland and Japan, has announced a breakthrough in the understanding of the 'brain chemistry' that triggers our response to highly stressful and traumatic events.

The discovery of a critical and previously unknown pathway in the brain that is linked to our response to stress is announced today in the journal Nature.

Dr Robert Pawlak, from the University of Leicester who led the UK team, said: "Stress-related disorders affect a large percentage of the population and generate an enormous personal, social and economic impact.

"We asked: What is the molecular basis of anxiety in response to noxious stimuli? How are stress-related environmental signals translated into proper behavioural responses? To investigate these problems we used a combination of genetic, molecular, electrophysiological and behavioural approaches. This resulted in the discovery of a critical, previously unknown pathway mediating anxiety in response to stress."

The study found that the emotional centre of the brain - the amygdala - reacts to stress by increasing production of a protein called neuropsin. This triggers a series of chemical events which in turn cause the amygdala to increase its activity. As a consequence, a gene is turned on that determines the stress response at a cellular level.

Neuropsin was previously discovered by Professor Sadao Shiosaka, a co-author of the paper. This research, for which the bioinformatics modelling was done by Professor Ryszard Przewlocki and his team, has for the first time characterized its mechanism of action in controlling anxiety in the amygdala.

Dr Pawlak added: "We are tremendously excited about these findings. We know that all members of the neuropsin pathway are present in the human brain. They may play a similar role in humans and further research will be necessary to examine the potential of intervention therapies for controlling stress-induced behaviours."

The Musical Brain

Federico wrote:
According to Neroscientists, the origin of Music goes back into the prehistory of humankind; probably it predates the origin of language and of such vital activities like farming. This indicates that learning how to make musical sounds must have conveyed some evolutionary advantage through time.
This explains why scientists have struggled with some very fundamental questions about its origins and purpose. How does the brain process music? Are there special neural circuits dedicated to creating or interpreting it?

"The importance of music in understanding how the brain works is clearly shown by the number of studies presently going on which try and evaluate its role in human development, communication and cognition, and even as a potential therapeutic tool."

These words were written by Pam Belluck in an article published by the New York Times where she relates the interview she has recently had with Daniel J. Levitin, director of the laboratory for music perception, cognition and expertise at McGill University in Montreal, who wrote the best seller “This Is Your Brain on Music” (Dutton, 2006)

Dr. Levitin has been trying since 2002 to discover how is it that our brain understands music not only as emotional diversion, but also as a form of motion and activity.

As an example, Ms Belluck "cites the work of Edward W. Large, a music scientist at Florida Atlantic University, who scanned the brains of people with and without experience playing music as they listened to two versions of a Chopin étude: one recorded by a pianist, the other stripped down to a literal version of what Chopin wrote, without human-induced variations in timing and dynamics.
During the original performance, brain areas linked to emotion activated much more than with the uninflected version, showing bursts of activity with each deviation in timing or volume.

So did the mirror neuron system, a set of brain regions previously shown to become engaged when a person watches someone doing an activity the observer knows how to do — dancers watching videos of dance, for example. But in Dr. Large’s study, mirror neuron regions flashed even in nonmusicians.
Regions involved in motor activity, everything from knitting to sprinting, also lighted up with changes in timing and volume.

"....Separately, the Levitin team found that children with autism essentially rated each nocturne rendition equally emotional, finding the original no more emotionally expressive than the mechanical version. But in other research, the team found that children with autism could label music as happy, sad or scary, suggesting, Dr. Levitin said, that “their recognition of musical emotions may be intact without necessarily having those emotions evoked, and without them necessarily experiencing those emotions themselves.”