rats

Bound by attention: Bringing rats and humans together

admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:00:00 -0600

(Association for Psychological Science) When picking through a basket of fruit, it doesn't seem very difficult to recognize a green pear from a green apple. This is easy, thanks to "feature binding" -- a process by which our brain combines all of the specific features of an object and gives us a complete and unified picture of it.

Improving Brain Function In Rats Following A Stroke

admin — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 01:00:19 -0500

Researchers have now shown that rats transplanted with cells isolated from human nasal polyps have improved brain function following a stroke compared with rats not transplanted with these cells.

Combining Exercise With Hormone Could Prevent Weight Gain

admin — Wed, 28 May 2008 11:45:29 -0500

Pairing leptin with just a minor amount of exercise seems to revive the hormone's ability to fight fat, researchers discovered. The combination of leptin and a modest dose of wheel running prevented obese rats on a belt-busting, high-fat diet from gaining weight, even though neither tactic worked alone.

Major Step Forward In Understanding How Memory Works

admin — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:00:00 -0500

By blocking certain mechanisms that control the way that nerve cells in the brain communicate, scientists have been able to prevent visual recognition memory in rats. This demonstrates they have identified cellular and molecular mechanisms in the brain that may provide a key to understanding processes of recognition memory.

Gene Therapy For Addiction: Flooding Brain With 'Pleasure Chemic...

admin — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:00:00 -0500

Increasing the brain level of receptors for dopamine, a pleasure-related chemical, can reduce use of cocaine by 75 percent in rats trained to self-administer it. Earlier research had similar findings for alcohol intake. Treatments that increase levels of these chemicals -- dopamine D2 receptors -- may prove useful in treating addiction.

Rats Can Discriminate Odors In Milliseconds

admin — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Imaging the olfactory bulb of awake rats reveals that odor discrimination occurs about 100 milliseconds after sensory input reaches the brain, sharply limiting the role that spike rate and temporal integration can play in coding odor identity.

Rats On Islands Disrupt Ecosystems From Land To Sea, Researchers...

admin — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:00:00 -0600

Seabird colonies on islands are highly vulnerable to introduced rats, which find the ground-nesting birds to be easy prey. But the ecological impacts of rats on islands extend far beyond seabird nesting colonies, according to a new study.