Every so often, Hadley Lucca will spend hours in front of her bedroom mirror, struggling to put on earrings or pull her long, golden locks back into ponytails. For Hadley, 11, activities that other girls her age take for granted can sometimes seem insurmountable. As an infant, she survived a stroke that resulted in hemiplegia,...
Tag: <span>brain stimulation</span>
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Scientists ‘Inject’ Information Into Monkeys’ Brains
Scientists ‘Inject’ Information Into Monkeys’ Brains When you drive toward an intersection, the sight of the light turning red will (or should) make you step on the brake. This action happens thanks to a chain of events inside your head. Your eyes relay signals to the visual centers in the back of your brain. After...
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Electrical Stimulation in Brain Bypasses Senses, Instructs Movement
The brain’s complex network of neurons enables us to interpret and effortlessly navigate and interact with the world around us. But when these links are damaged due to injury or stroke, critical tasks like perception and movement can be disrupted. New research is helping scientists figure out how to harness the brain’s plasticity to rewire...
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Now you like it, now you don’t: Brain stimulation can change how much we enjoy and value music
Enjoyment of music is considered a subjective experience; what one person finds gratifying, another may find irritating. Music theorists have long emphasized that although musical taste is relative, our enjoyment of music, be it classical or heavy metal, arises, among other aspects, from structural features of music, such as chord or rhythm patterns that...
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Brain stimulation can boost creativity – but could it also help you hear inspirational voices?
Inspiration can come when we least expect it. Steve Jobs, the late co-founder of Apple, once said “creativity is just connecting things”. There’s truth in that but there is another source of creativity, too – the ideas that simply pop into our minds. In ancient times, these were seen as gifts from the muses or...
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Brain Stimulation Without Wires
Electrical brain stimulation has been an effective technique for managing a variety of neurological conditions, yet it’s severely limited because of the need to run wires to the treatment sites. In order to be able to deliver neurostimulation just about anywhere within the brain, researchers at MIT have developed a minimally invasive technique that relies...
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Non-invasive Deep Brain Stimulation via Interfering High Frequency Signals
Researchers at MIT have developed a new technique to stimulate deep brain regions without the need for invasive implants. Currently, clinicians perform deep brain stimulation by placing electrodes into the brain to stimulate specific areas. As the therapy is so invasive, only patients with serious conditions like Parkinson’s disease undergo treatment. The MIT scientists have developed...
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Brain stimulation pinpoints precise memory boost
Researchers have used direct brain stimulation to improve a very specific form of memory Building on previous studies showing that electromagnetic stimulation of the brain can improve the memory, researchers at Northwestern University have demonstrated that the process can be specifically targeted to improve precise memories, such as specific shapes and colors of objects. Non-invasive,...