Studies and Analyses

Early humans migrating from Africa carried small genetic differences like so much flotsam in an ocean current. Today’s studies give only a snapshot of where that genetic baggage came to rest without revealing the tides that brought it there. Now researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have devised a model for pinpointing where mutations first appeared, providing a new way to trace the migratory path of our earliest ancestors.

The study was led by Luca Cavalli-Sforza,

Findings Could Aid Treatment Planning and Prevention Strategies

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health studying dengue hemorrhagic fever epidemics in Thailand have determined that the disease radiates outward in a traveling wave from Bangkok, the nation’s largest city, to infect every province in the country. According to the researchers’ analysis, the spatial-temporal wave travels at a speed of 148 kilometers per month and takes about eight months to sprea

The reward mechanism involved in addiction appears to regulate lifelong social or pair bonds between monogamous mating animals, according to a Center for Behavioral Neuroscience (CBN) study of prairie voles published in the January 19 edition of the Journal of Comparative Neurology. The finding could have implications for understanding the basis of romantic love and disorders of the ability to form social attachments, such as autism and schizophrenia.

In their research, funded by the Natio

Findings suggest that enzyme may be manipulated phamalogically to control brain receptor

The discovery of a molecular “addiction switch” in the mammalian brain has the potential to control the addiction process in drug addicts, say U of T researchers.

A study published Jan. 18 in the online edition of Nature Neuroscience finds that a region of the brain called the VTA contains receptors that, when exposed to a certain enzyme, can control the switch from an addicted to non-a

Study shows that perception is tied to movement

Our fingers run over surfaces; our eyes are in constant motion. This is all a part of “active sensing,” key principles of which have now been uncovered by a Weizmann Institute study.

“We intuitively understand that active sensing should provide the brain with information very different from that which is acquired by mere passive sensing, (e.g. feeling without finger movement),” says Prof. Ehud Ahissar of the Neurobiology Depart

Psychology’s Ron Rensink Discovers Visual Sensing Without Seeing

Most of us have felt it before — that sinking feeling that something is about to happen, that something is not quite right. It’s the stuff of scary movies, X-Files episodes and psychic visits.

But according to a new study by Ron Rensink, an associate professor in both psychology and computer science at UBC, the “sixth sense” is a distinct mode of visual perception and may be something all of us can le