Big Brains and Big Intelligence
Size is not what counts in the hunt for the most intelligent. Whales have brains weighing 9 kg (with
over 200 billion nerve cells), and human brains vary between 1.25 kg and 1.45 kg (with an estimated 85 billion nerve cells). A honeybee's brain weighs only 1 milligram and contains fewer than a million nerve cells.
Insects may have tiny brains, but they can perform some seriously impressive feats of mental gymnastics.
According to a growing number of studies, some insects can count, categorize objects, even recognize human faces -- all with brains the size of pinheads.
WATCH VIDEO: Take a closer look at the lives of mosquitoes, maggots and other creepy crawlies.
Despite many attempts to link the volume of an animal's brain with the depth of its intelligence, scientists now propose that it's the complexity of connections between brain cells that matters most. Studying those connections -- a more manageable task in a little brain than in a big one -- could help researchers understand how bigger brains, including those of humans, work.
Scientists at Queen Mary, University of London, state that contrary to popular belief, we can't say that brain size predicts the capacity for intelligent behavior.
Research repeatedly shows how insects are capable of some intelligent behaviors scientists previously thought were unique to larger animals.
Research suggests that bigger animals may need bigger brains simply because there is more to control - for example they need to move bigger muscles and therefore need more and bigger nerves to move them.
The entire article is presented in the journal Current Biology. Read more here.
Education and brain experts discuss their experiences, challenges, and potential next steps to allow for the crossover from classroom to lab and lab to classroom. The concerns and hopes of those working in the field are presented in a summary of the roundtable discussions that served as the centerpiece of the summit.
.jpg)
The general pattern of brain atrophy resulting from Alzheimer's disease has long been known through autopsy studies, but exploiting this knowledge toward accurate diagnosis and monitoring of the disease has only recently been made possible by improvements in computational algorithms that automate identification of brain structures with MRI. The new methods described in the study provide rapid identification of brain sub-regions combined with measures of change in these regions across time. The methods require at least two brain scans to be performed on the same MRI scanner over a period of several months. The new research shows that changes in the brain's memory regions, in particular a region of the temporal lobe called the entorhinal cortex, offer sensitive measures of the early stages of the disease. 
Here is a real life story of a man, injured in a car accident, who was misdiagnosed in a persistent vegetative state for 23 years. Doctors relied in part on a frequently over rated diagnostic technique called the .jpg)
.jpg)
Here is a good one for all us musicians...
