Neuroscience Archives » ForeverFitScience

Find Your Rhythm Through Hula Hooping

Gabrielle Revlock Edited by: Julia C. Basso, PhD Rhythm is the brain’s bread and butter. In fact, neurons fire together in rhythmic patterns called oscillations. These brain rhythms keep time, allowing us to track time and space, understand where we are in the world, and learn and remember information about our experiences. When we begin

4 Areas Of The Brain That Benefit From Exercise

Catherine O’Brien Aerobic exercise has been proven to improve cardiovascular health and diminish the risk of heart disease and stroke. In the last decade, the role of aerobic exercise within cognitive and affective domains has become more prominent. Exercise has been shown to reduce mood disturbance, improve psychological well-being, and improve positive valence associated with

Sense & Movement – A Surprisingly Unique Phenomenon

Julia C. Basso, PhD Reporting from the 2017 Annual Society for Neuroscience Meeting The ability to adapt your movement to signals or cues in the environment is known as sensorimotor adaptation, the focus of one of the many minisymposiums at the conference. Dr. Rachael Seidler and her colleagues at the University of Florida study this

Learning, Memory, & Decision Making

Julia C. Basso, PhD Reporting from the 2017 Annual Society for Neuroscience Meeting Making good decisions requires memory. Take for example, the hangover (maybe that some of us are experiencing today after the reunion with some of our favorite science colleagues). We remember that the previous heavy night of drinking brought on this unpleasant state.

Dancing Can Reverse Aging In The Brain

Julia C. Basso, PhD A healthy and functional brain requires healthy, intact cells that fire effectively. Action Potentials Neurons generate action potentials, which are the brain’s primary source of currency. Action potentials are electrical signals that travel down the neuron. When the action potential reaches the end of the neuron (the axon terminal), the electrical

What Toxins Are Lurking In Your Brain?

Julia C. Basso, PhD As a scientist who studies the effects of exercise on the brain, I am always thinking about what exercise-induced factors (from muscles, bones, organs, brain tissue, etc.) cause the beneficial effects on brain function, like improvements in mood and cognition. Recently I started thinking about it another way. What if we

Dancing Helps Heal Individuals With Parkinson’s Disease

Julia C. Basso, PhD Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that is characterized by problems of movement. Though the disease normally manifests after the age of 60, in rare circumstances, the disease may develop earlier (known as early-onset PD). PD results from loss of dopamine cells in a region of the brain called the

A Conversation Between Dance And Neuroscience

Julia C. Basso, PhD Dance and neuroscience may seem like two distinct fields, but Jody Oberfelder, director, choreographer, and filmmaker, knows that they intersect in intricate ways. Her recent work, The Brain Piece, just had its world premiere at New York Live Arts from June 28th to July 1st. She notes that, “The Brain Piece