Brain imaging shows playing Tetris leads to a thicker cortex and may also increase brain efficiency, according to research published in the open access journal BMC Research Notes. A research team based in New Mexico is one of the first to investigate the effects of practice in the brain using two image techniques.

Research to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB), the foremost society for research into all aspects of eating and drinking behavior, shows that exposing rats to a context associated with eating chocolate activates a part of the brain’s reward system known as the orexin system.

Scientists at Duke University and the University of North Carolina have devised a chemical technique that promises to allow neuroscientists to discover the function of any population of neurons in an animal brain, and provide clues to treating and preventing brain disease.

When it comes to the hippocampus, a brain structure vital to certain types of memory, size matters. Numerous studies have shown that bigger is usually better. Now researchers have found that elderly adults who are more physically fit tend to have bigger hippocampi and better spatial memory than those who are less fit.

Results of a recent study conducted by researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and colleagues show that cognitive functioning abilities drop as average blood sugar levels rise in people with type 2 diabetes.

A tug-of-war between the two sides of the brain causes it to become asymmetrical, according to research published today in the journal Neuron. Asymmetry in the brain is thought to be important to enable the two hemispheres to specialise and operate more efficiently.

During this year's baseball playoffs, Chicago White Sox outfielder Ken Griffey Jr., 38, threw a picture-perfect strike from center field to home plate to stop an opposing player from scoring. The White Sox ultimately won the game by a single run and clinched the division title.

UCLA scientists have found that for computer-savvy middle-aged and older adults, searching the Internet triggers key centers in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning. The findings demonstrate that Web search activity may help stimulate and possibly improve brain function.

Brain imaging shows that the brains of teens that use marijuana are working harder than the brains of their peers who abstain from the drug.

Supporting what many of us who are not musically talented have often felt, new research reveals that trained musicians really do think differently than the rest of us.

Love a rap artist’s music, and you may develop fond feelings for the products placed in that artist’s rap video. That is essentially the conclusion that a team of investigators came to in an intriguing research article published in this month’s issue of Psychology & Marketing (P&M).

Humans have developed complex thought processes that can help to regulate their emotions, but these processes are also linked with evolutionarily older mechanisms that are common across species, according to a study by neuroscientists at New York and Rutgers universities. The research appears in the Sept. 11 issue of the journal Neuron.