(Press-News.org) Until the last few decades, the frontal lobes of the brain were shrouded in mystery and erroneously thought of as nonessential for normal function—hence the frequent use of lobotomies in the early 20th century to treat psychiatric disorders. Now a review publishing August 28 in the Cell Press journal Neuron highlights groundbreaking studies of patients with brain damage that reveal how distinct areas of the frontal lobes are critical for a person's ability to learn, multitask, control their emotions, socialize, and make real-life decisions. The findings have helped experts rehabilitate patients experiencing damage to this region of the brain.
Although fairly common, damage to the prefrontal lobes (also called the prefrontal cortex) is often overlooked and undiagnosed because patients do not manifest obvious deficits. For example, patients with prefrontal brain damage do not lose any of their senses and often have preserved motor and language abilities, but they may manifest social abnormalities or difficulties with high-level planning in everyday life situations.
"In this review, we aimed to highlight a blend of new studies using cutting edge research techniques to investigate brain damage, but also to relate these new studies to original studies, some of which were published more than a century ago," said lead author Dr. Sara Szczepanski, of the University of California, Berkeley. "There is currently a large push to better understand the functions of the prefrontal cortex, and we believe that our review will make an important contribution to this understanding."
In addition to revealing the functions of different areas within the prefrontal cortex, studies have also demonstrated the flexibility of the region, which has helped experts optimize cognitive therapy techniques to enable patients with brain damage to learn new skills and compensate for their impairments.
The review indicates that by studying patients with damage to the prefrontal cortex, investigators can gain insights into this still-mysterious region of the brain that is critical for complex human skills and behavior.
INFORMATION:
Neuron, Szczepanski et al.: "Insights into Human Behavior from Lesions to the Prefrontal Cortex."
How studying damage to the prefrontal lobe has helped unlock the brain's mysteries
2014-08-28
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Circulating tumor cell clusters more likely to cause metastasis than single cells
2014-08-28
Circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters – clumps of from 2 to 50 tumor cells that break off a primary tumor and are carried through the bloodstream – appear to be much more likely to cause metastasis than are single CTCs, according to a study from investigators at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center. Their report in the August 28 issue of Cell also suggests that a cell adhesion protein binding CTC clusters together is a potential therapeutic target.
"While CTCs are considered to be precursors of metastasis, the significance of CTC clusters, which are ...
NYU researchers ID process producing neuronal diversity in fruit flies' visual system
2014-08-28
New York University biologists have identified a mechanism that helps explain how the diversity of neurons that make up the visual system is generated.
"Our research uncovers a process that dictates both timing and cell survival in order to engender the heterogeneity of neurons used for vision," explains NYU Biology Professor Claude Desplan, the study's senior author.
The study's other co-authors were: Claire Bertet, Xin Li, Ted Erclik, Matthieu Cavey, and Brent Wells—all postdoctoral fellows at NYU.
Their work, which appears in the latest issue of the journal Cell, ...
Zombie bacteria are nothing to be afraid of
2014-08-28
VIDEO:
Heidi Arjes of Washington University in St. Louis explains how the failsafes in the bacterial cell cycle work. A bacterium that fails to pass either failsafe enters a zombified state...
Click here for more information.
A cell is not a soap bubble that can simply pinch in two to reproduce. The ability to faithfully copy genetic material and distribute it equally to daughter cells is fundamental to all forms of life. Even seemingly simple single-celled organisms must have ...
Research shows how premalignant cells can sense oncogenesis and halt growth
2014-08-28
Cold Spring Harbor, NY -- What happens inside cells when they detect the activation of a cancer-inducing gene? Sometimes, cells are able to signal internally to stop the cell cycle. Such cells are able to enter, at least for a time, a protective non-growth state.
Since the 1980s, scientists have known that mutations in a human gene called RAS are capable of setting cells on a path to cancer. Today, a team at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) publishes experiments showing how cells can respond to an activated RAS gene by entering a quiescent state, called senescence.
CSHL ...
Computer games give a boost to English
2014-08-28
If you want to make a mark in the world of computer games you had better have a good English vocabulary. It has now also been scientifically proven that someone who is good at computer games has a larger English vocabulary. This is revealed by a study at the University of Gothenburg and Karlstad University, Sweden.
The study confirms what many parents and teachers already suspected: young people who play a lot of interactive English computer games gain an advantage in terms of their English vocabulary compared with those who do not play or only play a little.
The study ...
NASA's TRMM satellite adds up Cristobal's heavy rainfall in the Caribbean
2014-08-28
The Caribbean Islands of Turks and Caicos were drenched from Tropical Storm Cristobal before the storm moved north and intensified into a hurricane. NASA's TRMM satellite added up the rainfall and revealed the soaking those islands received.
The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite is like a flying rain gauge in space. It can estimate rainfall throughout storms on Earth from its orbit around the planet. TRMM is managed by both NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency known as JAXA and has been in orbit since 1997 covering the tropics.
At NASA's ...
Study finds marine protected areas inadequate for protecting fish and ocean ecology
2014-08-28
A new study reports that an expansion of marine protected areas is needed to protect fish species that perform key ecological functions. According to investigators from the Wildlife Conservation Society and other organizations, previous efforts at protecting fish have focused on saving the largest numbers of species, often at the expense of those species that provide key and difficult-to-replace ecological functions.
Many vital ecological functions of ocean ecology are performed by fish species that also are food for millions of people. This study uncovers a significant ...
NASA's TRMM analyzes Hurricane Cristobal
2014-08-28
VIDEO:
TRMM satellite passed over Cristobal on Aug. 27 at 8:16 a.m. EDT. Cristobal didn't appear round and symmetric in either clouds or rainfall which suggests that the hurricane is being...
Click here for more information.
NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM Satellite provided a look under the hood of Hurricane Cristobal as it continues moving north and paralleling the U.S. East Coast. NASA's HS3 hurricane mission also investigated the storm. Cristobal is now ...
A new, tunable device for spintronics
2014-08-28
Spin-charge converters are important devices in spintronics, an electronic which is not only based on the charge of electrons but also on their spin and the spin-related magnetism. Spin-charge converters enable the transformation of electric into magnetic signals and vice versa. Recently, the research group of Professor Jairo Sinova from the Institute of Physics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in collaboration with researchers from the UK, Prague, and Japan, has for the first time realised a new, efficient spin-charge converter based on the common semiconductor material ...
New analysis of old HIV vaccines finds potentially protective immune response
2014-08-28
DURHAM, N.C. – Applying the benefit of hindsight, researchers at Duke Medicine have reanalyzed the findings of two historic pediatric HIV vaccine trials with encouraging results. The vaccines had in fact triggered an antibody response -- now known to be associated with protection in adults -- that was previously unrecognized in the infants studied in the 1990s.
Reporting online Aug. 28, 2014, in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, the Duke researchers relied on fresh insights that have been gleaned from a recent adult HIV vaccine trial in which the vaccine reduced the ...