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Medical Xpress / Flexible brain circuits can switch between different tasks
As we move through everyday life, our brains engage in a huge variety of cognitive tasks. For example, during a grocery run, we might have to recall the items for a recipe, remember where the clerk said the flour was located ...
Medical Xpress / Brain circuit keeps tabs on what just happened to aid judgment of what's happening now
A brain must constantly cope with the highly variable, fast-paced nature of the world when trying to judge what's going on around it. On the one hand, it has to be open to whatever new sensory information may come its way, ...
Phys.org / Early hardship may shape how oxytocin influences altruism
While humans are inherently social beings, they can interact and connect with others in very different ways. For instance, while some people tend to be more altruistic, others are less prone to helping their friends, acquaintances ...
Medical Xpress / Brain immune cell map explains how defenses shift during Alzheimer's progression
The brain's immune cells are increasingly recognized as key players in Alzheimer's disease, but exactly how they change as the disease develops has remained unclear. A new study published in Nature Genetics provides the most ...
Medical Xpress / Lonely people can feel their heartbeat clearly like everyone else, but their brains respond differently
For a long time, psychologists have described loneliness as the discomfort that comes from wanting more social connection than we feel we have, but there is more nuance to loneliness. Scientists are increasingly finding that ...
Tech Xplore / When expressive humanoid robots are awkward, people become wary
People become more suspicious of a humanoid robot that makes errors, especially when the robot is an expressive conversation partner.
Medical Xpress / Study reveals prefrontal cortex can hinder learning more efficient behaviors
The prefrontal cortex, a brain region long associated with learning more flexible behaviors, can sometimes block the ability to think outside the box, a new study in mice shows. The finding by biologists at Emory University ...
Medical Xpress / How your conscious and unconscious mind interact
Have you ever heard the phrase "you only use 10% of your brain"? In reality, there is no way to measure consciousness in percentage terms—partly because the brain has no static baseline.
Medical Xpress / Soy lysolecithin counters high-salt diet-induced hypertension and cognitive impairment
High-salt (HS) intake is a major global health concern, closely linked to hypertension and growing evidence of cognitive and emotional decline. Although salt is a routine part of daily diets, long-term overconsumption can ...
Phys.org / Students are anxious—and it's no surprise, since we are teaching them to be that way
Temporary anxiety can often surface before the first day of school. Sometimes, that can help kids get in the right mindset for a big day. But when anxiety becomes a constant feature of children's and teenagers' days, that ...
Medical Xpress / Q&A: What I found when I scanned the brains of kids creating tunes on piano
Research shows that improvisation and creativity are good for the brain. In an episode of the Greater Good Science Center's "Science of Happiness" podcast, host Shuka Kalantari talked to Karen Barrett about what happens in ...
Medical Xpress / A skill becomes automatic as the brain rewires itself to bypass its own bottleneck, new study suggests
Riding a bike, reading a book or folding laundry while watching TV can feel effortless, almost like your brain does it on autopilot. This ease comes from repetition, built through practicing the same task again and again. ...
