When a task adds more steps, this circuit helps you notice
From the Picower Institute at MIT media release: Life is full of processes to learn and then relearn when they become more elaborate. One day you log in to an app with just a password,…
Research on recognizing facial emotion expressions could change our understanding of autism
From the Flinders University media release: There’s a common perception that autistic individuals are poor at recognising others’ emotions and have little insight into how effectively they do so. Study co-author and Matthew Flinders Distinguished…
Education, job, and social life may help protect brain from cognitive decline
From the American Academy of Neurology media release: Why do some people with amyloid plaques in their brains associated with Alzheimer’s disease show no signs of the disease, while others with the same amount of…
The many ways nature nurtures human well-being
From the University of Tokyo media release: A systematic review of 301 academic articles on “cultural ecosystem services” has enabled researchers to identify how these nonmaterial contributions from nature are linked to and significantly affect…
Researchers gain insights into the genetic and molecular machinery that predisposes individuals to Alzheimer’s disease
From the The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine media release: Mount Sinai researchers have achieved an unprecedented understanding of the genetic and molecular machinery in human microglia — immune cells that…
Our brain is a prediction machine that is always active
From the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics media release: Our brain works a bit like the autocomplete function on your phone — it is constantly trying to guess the next word when we are listening…
How Sound Reduces Pain in Mice
From the NIH/National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research news release: An international team of scientists has identified the neural mechanisms through which sound blunts pain in mice. The findings, which could inform development of…
Study examines why the memory of fear is seared into our brains
From the Tulane University media release: Experiencing a frightening event is likely something you’ll never forget. But why does it stay with you when other kinds of occurrences become increasingly difficult to recall with the…
Study links psychological stress to greying hair
From the Columbia University Irving Medical Center press release: Legend has it that Marie Antoinette’s hair turned gray overnight just before her beheading in 1791. Though the legend is inaccurate — hair that has already…
Study finds impairments in neurons derived from people with schizophrenia and genetic mutation
From the University of Massachusetts Amherst press release: A scientific team has shown that the release of neurotransmitters in the brain is impaired in patients with schizophrenia who have a rare, single-gene mutation known to…