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Neuroscience news

Psychology & Psychiatry

No, your brain doesn't suddenly 'fully develop' at 25. Here's what the neuroscience actually shows

If you scroll through TikTok or Instagram long enough, you'll inevitably stumble across the line: "Your frontal lobe isn't fully developed yet." It's become neuroscience's go-to explanation for bad decisions, like ordering ...

Genetics

Why the human brain matures slower than its primate relatives

The human brain is a fascinating and complex organ that supports numerous sophisticated behaviors and abilities that are observed in no other animal species. For centuries, scientists have been trying to understand what is ...

HIV & AIDS

Brain chemistry can reactivate or suppress dormant HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections are still fairly common and an estimated 40 million people worldwide are currently living with this condition. The HIV virus attacks the body's immune system and thus makes those ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Humans could have as many as 33 senses

Stuck in front of our screens all day, we often ignore our senses beyond sound and vision. And yet they are always at work. When we're more alert, we feel the rough and smooth surfaces of objects, the stiffness in our shoulders, ...

Neuroscience

To flexibly organize thought, the brain makes use of space

Our thoughts are specified by our knowledge and plans, yet our cognition can also be fast and flexible in handling new information. How does the well-controlled and yet highly nimble nature of cognition emerge from the brain's ...

Neuroscience

How age affects recovery from spinal cord injury

A study published in Neurology looks at how age may affect recovery for people with spinal cord injuries. "With population growth and improvements in medicine, the number of people diagnosed with spinal cord injury is increasing ...

Neuroscience

Why there's always room for dessert—an anatomist explains

You push back from the table after Christmas lunch, full from an excellent feast. You really couldn't manage another bite—except, perhaps, a little bit of pudding. Somehow, no matter how much you've eaten, there always ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Compulsive behaviors may stem from too much (misguided) self-control

A long-held view is that compulsive behaviors involve individuals getting stuck in a "habit loop" that overrides self-control, but new research in rats from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) suggests this might not ...

Oncology & Cancer

How brain tumor cells influence neurons and vice versa

Gliomas are cancers that originate directly in the brain, instead of spreading to the brain from other parts of the body. These cancers cannot be cured with conventional cancer treatments, as they spread into healthy brain ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Exploring why some people tend to persistently make bad choices

When people learn that surrounding visuals and sounds may signify specific choice outcomes, these cues can become guides for decision making. For people with compulsive disorders, addictions, or anxiety, the associations ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Groove is in the brain: Music supercharges brain stimulation

Music affects us so deeply that it can essentially take control of our brain waves and get our bodies moving. Now, neuroscientists at Stanford's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute are taking advantage of music's power to synchronize ...

Medical research

More than a reflex: How the spine shapes sex

For decades, it was thought that while the brain orchestrated male sexual behavior—arousal, courtship, and copulation—the spinal cord merely executed the final act: ejaculation. But a study from the Champalimaud Foundation ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Brain abnormalities seen in epilepsy patients with psych comorbidities

Epilepsy patients with versus without psychiatric comorbidities have a higher proportion of abnormal brain magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalogram findings, according to a study published in The Journal of Craniofacial ...

Neuroscience

How the brain splits up vision without you even noticing

The brain divides vision between its two hemispheres—what's on your left is processed by your right hemisphere and vice versa—but your experience with every bike or bird that you see zipping by is seamless. A new study ...