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Category: neuroscience – Page 80

The Neuroscience Behind Writing: Handwriting vs. Typing—Who Wins the Battle?

Writing is a complex phenomenon that requires diverse skills: perceiving the pen and paper, moving the writing instrument, and directing the movement through thought. Using a pen involves paying attention to motor aspects such as drawing letters legibly, controlling the pressure of the tip on the paper, following lines and spaces on the page, and coordinating thought, action, and vision. This multisensory integration underlies memory abilities. Moreover, handwriting involves a wide variety of supporting materials, including pens, pencils, or chalk on a blackboard, all of which offer different experiences and create new neural activations and skills.

Despite sharing similar central goals and processes, handwriting and typing differ significantly in terms of the tools used, spatiotemporal dimensions, motor programming, and fine motor development. Compared with handwriting, which requires more time and attention to learn, typing can be considered simpler and faster, as it enables the production of a more easily readable and homogeneous product in less time. However, focused attention and a longer processing time improve memory retention, and once automatic control of the graphic gesture is achieved, minimal cognitive effort is required. Moreover, the specific movements memorized when learning to write contribute to the visual recognition of graphic shapes and letters and secondarily also improve reading ability. Indeed, since the ability to recognize letters is widely recognized in the literature as the first phase of reading, improving it through writing may effectively influence how children read.

The comparison between handwriting and typing reveals important differences in their neural and cognitive impacts. Handwriting activates a broader network of brain regions involved in motor, sensory, and cognitive processing, contributing to deeper learning, enhanced memory retention, and more effective engagement with written material. Typing, while more efficient and automated, engages fewer neural circuits, resulting in more passive cognitive engagement. These findings suggest that despite the advantages of typing in terms of speed and convenience, handwriting remains an important tool for learning and memory retention, particularly in educational contexts.

Microglial gene mutation inked to increased Alzheimer’s risk

The team wanted to understand how immune cells of the brain, called microglia, contribute to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology. It’s known that subtle changes, or mutations, in genes expressed in microglia are associated with an increased risk for developing late-onset AD.

The study focused on one such mutation in the microglial gene TREM2, an essential switch that activates microglia to clean up toxic amyloid plaques (abnormal protein deposits) that build up between nerve cells in the brain. This mutation, called T96K, is a “gain-of-function” mutation in TREM2, meaning it increases TREM2 activation and allows the gene to remain super active.

They explored how this mutation impacts microglial function to increase risk for AD. The authors generated a mutant mouse model carrying the mutation, which was bred with a mouse model of AD to have brain changes consistent with AD. They found that in female AD mice exclusively, the mutation strongly reduced the capability of microglia to respond to toxic amyloid plaques, making these cells less protective against brain aging.

Scientists find ways to boost memory in aging brains

Memory loss may not simply be a symptom of getting older. New research from Virginia Tech shows that it’s tied to specific molecular changes in the brain and that adjusting those processes can improve memory.

In two complementary studies, Timothy Jarome, associate professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ School of Animal Sciences, and his graduate students used gene-editing tools to target those age-related changes to improve memory performance in older subjects. The work was conducted on rats, a standard model for studying how memory changes with age.

“Memory loss affects more than a third of people over 70, and it’s a major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease,” said Jarome, who also holds an appointment in the School of Neuroscience. “This work shows that memory decline is linked to specific molecular changes that can be targeted and studied. If we can understand what’s driving it at the , we can start to understand what goes wrong in dementia and eventually use that knowledge to guide new approaches to treatment.”

Longstanding Mystery Solved: Scientists Discover How Life’s Most Essential Molecule Enters Mitochondria

Yale researchers revealed how vitamin B5 fuels mitochondria, offering new insight into brain and metabolic disorders. The human body produces a molecule from vitamin B5 that plays a crucial role in nearly every metabolic process needed for life. When the production of this molecule is disrupted.

How to advance technology without cognitive overload

A new paper explores how managing cognitive load distribution is vital for navigating complex technologies and enabling their effective use.

In October 1935, the U.S. Army held a flying competition. On paper, Boeing’s entry, nicknamed the Flying Fortress, appeared to be the clear favorite. It was bigger, faster, and could fly farther than other bombers. Captained by an experienced test pilot, the Flying Fortress took off, rose 300 meters, stalled, and then came crashing down to Earth, killing the pilot and another crew member.

The problem was not mechanical. Nor was it poor training. Instead, as one newspaper put it, the bomber was “too much airplane for one man to fly.” With four engines and an array of complicated controls, the Flying Fortress required many intricate operations to be performed at once—more than even the most competent pilot could remember.

Lab-boosted olfactory receptor reveals new insights about how our sense of smell works

Humans have about 400 odorant receptors (ORs), but scientists have had trouble finding ligands that match up with most of these ORs in lab settings—leaving them with a murky understanding of how certain smells are recognized in our brains. Only 71 human receptor-ligand interactions have been identified in studies thus far, often with low sensitivity in assays. Scientists have struggled with poor in vitro expression of ORs in lab conditions, limiting identification of receptor–odorant pairs.

In 2004, the field of olfactory science appeared to gain some progress in the form of a Nobel-winning hypothesis called the “combinatorial model,” which suggested that multiple ORs contribute to the perception of a single odorant. However, a new study, published recently in Current Biology, paints a somewhat different picture.

For their study, a group of Swiss researchers tweaked the C-terminal domains of ORs, which resulted in dramatically boosted OR cell-surface expression and sensitivity in lab conditions. This allowed the group to test out which ORs respond to various scents, like ambergris, rose, vanilla, and corked wine. Using this method, they were able to “de-orphanize” several ORs, or find matching ligands for them, resulting in novel OR identification for odorants.

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