Last update:

Neuroscience news

Neuroscience

Nerve injuries can affect the entire immune system, study finds

Nerve injuries can have long-lasting effects on the immune system that appear to differ between males and females, according to preclinical research from McGill University.

Psychology & Psychiatry

Seeing persuasion in the brain: Neural responses to content may serve as universal indicators

An analysis of brain scans from 572 people reveals that activity in brain regions linked to reward and social processing can predict how effective messages will be. The work is published in PNAS Nexus.

Neuroscience

Social interactions help to form lasting memories, study finds

Researchers from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine), have uncovered a previously overlooked role of the hippocampus in shaping memory, revealing how social interactions can ...

Neuroscience

Exploring the relationship between sleep and diet

Sleep patterns and eating habits can influence each other, but the link between these behaviors remains unclear. In a new JNeurosci paper, researchers led by William Ja, from the Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Long-term study challenges assumptions about epilepsy recovery

Patients with treatment-resistant epilepsy often cycle through multiple medications as they seek relief from the seizures that disrupt their lives. Yet in many cases, these drugs offer little benefit, reinforcing the long-held ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Using music to explore the dynamics of emotions

How does the human brain track emotions and support transitions between these emotions? In a new eNeuro paper, Matthew Sachs and colleagues, from Columbia University, used music and an advanced approach for assessing brain ...

Neuroscience

How the brain supports social processing as people age

Because aging weakens cognitive skills, older people can struggle to read difficult social cues. A brain region involved in attention and arousal—the locus coeruleus (LC)—helps with complex tasks, and its connections ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Dopamine menus: Approach uses brain chemistry to improve task performance

You are likely accustomed to encountering a range of menus in daily life, but there is one that may be new to you: a dopamine menu. Dr. Robert Wilfahrt, a family medicine physician at Mayo Clinic and an expert in attention-deficit/hyperactivity ...

Psychology & Psychiatry

Attention scan: How our minds shift focus in dynamic settings

A person's capacity for attention has a profound impact on what they see, dictating which details they glean from the world around them. As they walk down a busy street, the focus of their attention may shift to a compelling ...

Medical research

How dysfunction of a cellular calcium channel affects hearing

Researchers at the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) have shown how a minimal change in a single ion channel increases the sensitivity of sensory cells in the inner ear. Even soft sounds, such as a whisper, are perceived ...

Neuroscience

How changes in the central amygdala drive anxiety

Researchers at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience have discovered how loss of a gene strongly associated with autism and macrocephaly (large head size) rewires circuits and alters behavior.

Neuroscience

Study shows sleeping brain remains alert to harsh, urgent sounds

During sleep, the brain must achieve a delicate balance: disconnecting from sensory input to allow restorative functions, while remaining alert enough to wake if danger arises. How does it sort through external stimuli—particularly ...

Neuroscience

New instrument for enhanced imaging of nerve fibers in the brain

In order to understand the structure and functioning of the brain, neuroscientists need to study the complex, three-dimensional pathways and connections of nerve fibers. The intersection of multiple nerve fibers poses a particular ...