All Posts: brain
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Tweaking AI Software to Function Like a Human Brain Improves Computer’s Learning Ability
WASHINGTON (January 12, 2021) — Computer-based artificial intelligence can function more like human intelligence when programmed to use a much faster technique for learning new objects, say two neuroscientists who designed such a model to mirror human visual learning. In the journal Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, Maximilian Riesenhuber, PhD, professor of neuroscience at Georgetown University […]
Category: News Release
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Study of Reaching and Grasping with Hand or Foot Reveals Novel Brain Insights
WASHINGTON (October 26, 2020) — People born without upper limbs who use their feet to reach for an item engage the same area in the brain that people with hands use to reach for something, report Georgetown University Medical Center neuroscientists. The finding, published October 26, 2020, in PNAS, advances the basic science of brain […]
Category: News Release
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Study Suggests Unconscious Learning Underlies Belief in God
WASHINGTON (September 9, 2020) — Individuals who can unconsciously predict complex patterns, an ability called implicit pattern learning, are likely to hold stronger beliefs that there is a god who creates patterns of events in the universe, according to neuroscientists at Georgetown University. Their research, reported in the journal Nature Communications, is the first to […]
Category: News Release
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Children Use Both Brain Hemispheres to Understand Language, Unlike Adults
WASHINGTON (September 7, 2020) — Infants and young children have brains with a superpower, of sorts, say Georgetown University Medical Center neuroscientists. Whereas adults process most discrete neural tasks in specific areas in one or the other of their brain’s two hemispheres, youngsters use both the right and left hemispheres to do the same task. […]
Category: News Release
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Gulf War Illness and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Distinct Illnesses, Georgetown Study Suggests
WASHINGTON (August 10, 2020) — A brain imaging study of veterans with Gulf War illness (GWI) and patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) (sometimes called myalgic encephalomyelitis), has shown that the two illnesses produce distinctly different, abnormal patterns of brain activity after moderate exercise. The result of the Georgetown University Medical Center study suggests that […]
Category: News Release
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Early-life Education Improves Memory in Old Age — Especially for Women
WASHINGTON (June 5, 2020) — Education appears to protect older adults, especially women, against memory loss, according to a study by investigators at Georgetown University Medical Center, published in the journal Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition. The results suggest that children — especially girls — who attend school for longer will have better memory abilities in […]
Category: News Release
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Nilotinib Appears Safe and Affects Biomarkers in Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical Trial
WASHINGTON (May 29, 2020) — A Georgetown University Medical Center clinical trial investigating the cancer drug nilotinib in people with Alzheimer’s disease finds that it is safe and well-tolerated, and researchers say the drug should be tested in a larger study to further determine its safety and efficacy as a potential disease-modifying strategy. The results […]
Category: News Release
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Georgetown’s José Merino Becomes Editor-In-Chief of the World’s Leading Clinical Neurology Journal
(April 18, 2020) — José G. Merino, MD, MPhil, FAHA, FAAN, professor of neurology at Georgetown University School of Medicine, became interested in medical journals as a medical student; he later gained experience in peer-reviewing journals as a fellow. Now, he will merge his longtime interest and extensive experience as he begins a 10-year term […]
Category: GUMC Stories
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Zooming in on Brain Circuits Allows Researchers to Stop Seizure Activity
WASHINGTON (December 16, 2019) — A team of neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center have found, in animal models, that they can “switch off” epileptic seizures. The findings, published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), provide the first evidence that while different types of seizures start in varied areas of the […]
Category: News Release
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Nilotinib Appears Safe in Parkinson’s Trial; Drug Thought to Allow Dopamine Replenishment
WASHINGTON (December 16, 2019) — A clinical trial investigating the repurposed cancer drug nilotinib in people with Parkinson’s disease finds that it is reasonably safe and well tolerated. Researchers also report finding an increase in dopamine, the chemical lost as a result of neuronal destruction, and a decrease in neurotoxic proteins in the brain among […]
Category: News Release