A new study throws some light on how musical aptitude can offset one very specific aspect of the aging process. In research comparing older patients with musical training to those without, older people who’d spent time regularly practicing or teaching music consistently displayed much faster neural reaction times to certain kinds of sounds. The idea [...]
Posts Tagged ‘autism’
Musical Learning
January 30th, 2012 
The Connectome 
Posted in Brain News 
Tags: aging, autism, learning, music, neurophysiology, schizophrenia 
1 Comment »Autism & Reputation
November 9th, 2011 The Connectome People with autism process the concept of their social reputation in a fundamentally different way from non-autistic people, a new study finds. Suppose I give you $100, and tell you you can donate some or all of it to the no-kill animal shelter across the street – or you can just pocket the whole wad and walk away. My guess [...]
Autistic Development
October 26th, 2011 The Connectome Certain regions of the brains of autistic children develop much more slowly than in non-autistic brains, a new study reports. As most of our brains mature throughout our adolescent years, our white matter – the tissue that connects separate brain regions and allows them to communicate with one another – undergoes vast amounts of growth, as [...]
Autistic Genetics
October 6th, 2011 The Connectome Some forms of autism seem to be linked with variations in certain genes, a new study says. The deletion of a certain cluster of 27 genes on the mammalian chromosome 16 – specifically a region known as 16p11.2 - causes autism-like features to develop in mouse brains. These mice exhibited hyperactivity, repetitive behaviors, and difficulty adjusting to [...]
Posted in Brain News Tags: autism, biology, genetics, hormones, neuroanatomy, neurophysiology No Comments »Autism From the Inside
June 27th, 2011 The Connectome Have you ever wondered how reality feels to a mathematical savant? One person in particular would like to help you with that. Daniel Tammet is an unusual guy for several reasons: he’s a “high-functioning” autistic savant who can recite pi to more than 22,000 digits, he’s got a talent for translating his subjective experiences into words, and [...]
