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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 ...
Court for man accused in girlfriends window fall

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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 ...

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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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Jewish group Detroit leaders abet Farrakhan bias

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Detroit mayoral candidates push to have competitors tossed from ballot

Labor activist Robert Davis urged the state's top elections official to step in on a controversy over whether Mike Duggan was a Detroit resident long enough when he filed to become an official candidate. / Patricia Beck/Detroit Free ...
Catholic archdiocese appoints new superintendent of its 96 schools

Detroit-area Catholic schools are getting a new superintendent.Brian Dougherty, who resigned Friday as superintendent from the cash-strapped Pontiac public schools, was appointed Wednesday by Archbishop Allen Vigneron to oversee 96 grade schools and high schools in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Monroe, St. Clair and Lapeer counties.Dougherty of Lake Orion was once a Catholic school teacher and ...
Game thread Verlander Tigers open up 6-2 lead on Indians

Justin Verlander's fast start to the 2013 season seems like ages ago. Now he tries to get back on track against the same Indians team who started to batter him May 11.The Tigers ace is 4-4 with a 3.17 ERA, but had a 1.55 ERA as of two start ago. Since then, he's given up 11 earned runs on 12 hits and seven walks in 7.2 innings against the Indians and Rangers, both losses.Ubaldo Jimenez ...

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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. ...