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Practising mindfulness meditation for 10 minutes a day improves concentration and the ability to keep information active in one’s mind, a function known as “working memory”. The brain achieves this by becoming more efficient, literally requiring fewer brain resources to do these tasks. Many big claims have been made about the effects of meditation, but too often the scientific evidence […]
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People with acquired prosopagnosia recognize few faces, a condition known also as “face blindness.” These are people who have suffered brain damage that interferes with their ability to recognize faces, even the faces of people they have met many times. The condition is rare. Only a few thousand people across North America have it. With support from the National Science […]
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A device under development at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University could help bring back lost brain function by measuring how the brain responds to therapies that stimulate it with electric current. The approach could open new avenues for treating brain disorders and selectively switching brain activities on and off, says Anthony Norcia, a professor […]
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Researchers working on a study to improve kidney function measurements have found a way to provide more accurate readings. Using an injectable biomarker, physicians were able to read the actual working capacity of the kidney in a clinical setting in half the time it used to take. Currently, physicians rely on estimated kidney function (or estimated glomerular filtration rate) to […]
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(HealthDay)—Dexmedetomidine prevents excessive γ-aminobutyric acid type A receptor function after anesthesia, according to a study published online June 7 in Anesthesiology. Dian-Shi Wang, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Toronto, and colleagues studied injectable and inhaled anesthetic drugs (etomidate and sevoflurane) using cultured murine hippocampal neurons, cultured murine and human cortical astrocytes, and ex vivo murine hippocampal slices. Using electrophysiologic […]
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For over a century, we have known that high altitude reduces the amount of blood the heart pumps around the body with each beat. New research published in The Journal of Physiology has unearthed why this is the case and the findings will be important for people who live, travel and exercise at high altitudes. Over the years, several theories […]
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Cranking up your headphones or scrambling for a front-row spot at rock shows could be damaging more than your hearing. New research from The Ohio State University has found that young people with subtle hearing loss—the kind they aren’t even aware of—are putting demands on their brains that typically wouldn’t be seen until later in life. “Hearing loss, even minor […]
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Researchers at the University of Southampton have developed a new computational way of analysing X-ray images of lungs, which could herald a breakthrough in the diagnosis and assessment of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and other lung diseases. A multi-disciplinary team of mathematicians, clinicians, and image specialists from three University of Southampton faculties has devised a method for numerically describing […]
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