Human Health

Perception Inception: Exploring How the Brain Makes Up the World with New Faculty Rishidev Chaudhuri

The world is made of matter, but between those particles are empty spaces, which paradoxically account for the majority of our perceived, concrete universe.

“This table feels hard,” said Assistant Professor Rishidev Chaudhuri, who sat in his office at the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience. “That’s something that emerges at the collective population level.”

How individual particles come together to spontaneously create new structures is a question pondered by many physicists. The concept underlying that question—collective behavior—also intrigues neuroscientists.

Maternal infection may accelerate expression of autism genes

Maternal infection may accelerate expression of autism genes

This article originally appeared on the Spectrum site.

Exposure to infection in utero may speed up the expression of many genes linked to autism — and hasten changes in brain anatomy.

The results are in mice but hint at how infections during pregnancy may contribute to autism.

Discovering Curiosity: Brain Puzzles with UC Davis Center for Neuroscience Director Kimberley McAllister

Puzzles always fascinated UC Davis Center for Neuroscience Director Kimberley McAllister. They’re initially what attracted her to science.

Raised in rural northern Virginia, McAllister enjoyed exploring the woods with her sister and dogs. She developed an avid interest in botany and ornithology, intrigued by the complexities of the natural world. She wanted to figure out answers to nature’s mysteries.  Eventually, McAllister’s ambition drew her to one of the most complex puzzles in the universe: the human brain.

CNS Affiliate Wilsaan Joiner: Exploring sensory inputs and motor actions

Wilsaan Joiner, PhD, recently joined the UC Davis neuroscience community as an assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior and School of Medicine’s Department of Neurology. Joiner is particularly interested in how sensory inputs guide our motor actions and vice versa; for example, how ballet dancers possess a precise sense of where their bodies are in space and how they make very fine body movements.

How Experience Changes Basics of Memory Formation

We know instinctively that our experiences shape the way we learn. If we are highly familiar with a particular task, like cooking for example, learning a new recipe is much easier than it was when we were a novice. New research from the University of California, Davis, shows that experience also changes the way our neurons become plastic and form new memories.  

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Discovering Curiosity: Age-Related Hearing Loss

As our bodies age, we all face some decline in our senses, and among the senses most susceptible to deterioration is hearing.

Hearing loss is a substantial problem for society. It’s the third most common physical condition after arthritis and heart disease and about 30 percent of adults between ages 65 and 74 and nearly half of people over 75 experience some difficulty hearing.  It’s a social problem, one that can lead to isolation and depression.

Jennifer Whistler: On the Search for Safer Opioids

The opioid epidemic has been called the “deadliest drug crisis in American history” by the New York Times. Overdoses claim the lives of more than 90 Americans each day, and about two million people battle substance abuse disorders stemming from prescription opioids, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Advocating a Computational Shift in Neuroscience Training

How can universities best prepare students for a career in neuroscience? Ask Professor Mark Goldman, Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior and the Center for Neuroscience, and he’ll tell you it’s time to rethink the traditional biology curriculum. To unravel complex systems like the brain, students need advanced training in quantitative and computational techniques.

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Researchers Temporarily Turn off Brain Area to Better Understand Function

Capitalizing on experimental genetic techniques, researchers at the California National Primate Research Center, or CNPRC, at the University of California, Davis, have demonstrated that temporarily turning off an area of the brain changes patterns of activity across much of the remaining brain.

The research suggests that alterations in the functional connectivity of the brain in humans may be used to determine the sites of pathology in complex disorders such as schizophrenia and autism.

Exercise is really, really good for your brain

Physical exercise is good for your brain. And I mean really good for it. The brain burns a ton of energy during exercise, much more, even, than if you were thinking really hard about something really complicated. New research has discovered just what the brain does with all that extra energy.