Michigan Sun news

Potential brain switch responsible for our behavioural change identified

A new study by investigators at the University of Michigan and Eli Lilly may reveal the "switch" that helps our brains to make the shift from current behaviours to new ones. They measured levels of a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, which is involved in attention and memory, while rats monitored a screen for a signal. At the end of each trial, the rat had to indicate if a signal had ...
Emergency manager to decide on Detroit bankruptcy within six weeks

Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr has set a six-week deadline--until the end of the current fiscal year--to decide whether to file Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Detroit would be the largest city in US history to file for bankruptcy.Orr is using the threat of imminent bankruptcy--much like the Democrats and Republicans used the manufactured "fiscal cliff"--to force through sweeping ...
Troy voters keep moderate in office after recall of Janice Daniels

Dane Slater basks in the noise of his crowded victory party after being elected mayor of Troy in a special election today. / Bill Laitner/Detroit Free ...
See how much your Michigan hometown grew or shrank in 2012

Two out of three Michigan communities experienced population declines from 2011 to 2012, according to data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Statewide, total population increased by a marginal 0.07% - 6,559 people - during the same time period. • ...
Ford to end auto production in Australia in 2016

Rain falls on a car at a Ford dealership in Sydney on Thursday, May 23, 2013. Ford Motor Co. said it was closing its two Australian auto plants and ending production in the country in 2016, amid soaring manufacturing costs and plummeting sales. (AP Photo/Rick ...

Movie Review

Missing [DVD]

Costa-Gavrass Missing has gone from being speculative to definitive. It is a rare based-on-true-events political thriller whose conjectures about then-mysterious cover-ups and governmental deception have since been vindicated. At the time Missing was released, it was a center of ... ...

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Court for man accused in girlfriends window fall

ROYAL OAK TOWNSHIP — A judge has set a $765,000 bond for a suburban Detroit man ...
Farrakhan Kilpatricks sins would have been forgiven in white politicians

Speaking in a Detroit church Friday night, Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam said that he plans to visit former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in prison Saturday as he tried to portray him as a victim of white ...
U-M doctors use 3D printer to create airway implant for baby

University of Michigan researchers have used a 3D printer to create a custom-made, life-saving implant for a baby boy, they reported today in a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine.The baby, Kaiba Gionfriddo, had a rare disorder in which one of the airways in his lungs collapsed when he exhaled. The problem caused him to stop breathing and turn blue when he was 6 weeks old. Even with a ...
Gary Peters urges probe of Detroit oil waste storage

Michigan U.S. Rep. Gary Peters has taken to the House floor to criticize the storage of piles of an oil-refining byproduct known as petroleum coke along the Detroit ...
Deflecting Pressure Jimmy Howard Gives Red Wings a Boost

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Potential brain 'switch' responsible for our behavioural change identified

A new study by investigators at the University of Michigan and Eli Lilly may reveal the "switch" that helps our brains to make the shift from current behaviours to new ones.

They measured levels of a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, which is involved in attention and memory, while rats monitored a screen for a signal. At the end of each trial, the rat had to indicate if a signal had occurred.

Researchers noticed that if a signal occurred after a long period of monitoring or "non-signal" processing, there was a spike in acetylcholine in the rat's right prefrontal cortex. No such spike occurred for another signal occurring shortly afterwards.

"In other words, the increase in acetylcholine seemed to activate or 'switch on' the response to the signal, and to be unnecessary if that response was already activated," said Cindy Lustig, one of the study's senior authors and an associate professor in the U-M Department of Psychology.

The researchers repeated the study in humans using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which measures brain activity, and also found a short increase in right prefrontal cortex activity for the first signal in a series.

To connect the findings between rats and humans, they measured changes in oxygen levels, similar to the changes that produce the fMRI signal, in the brains of rats performing the task. ...