Brain
‘Psychobiotics’: Can we control the way we think by altering gut bacteria?
The allure is simple: Drug development for neuropsychiatric disorders has lagged for decades, and many existing drugs don’t work for ...
Why were these 1,000-year-old skulls shaped like ‘sci-fi aliens’?
Tight wrapping in childhood produced deliberately deformed skulls ...
‘Skin hunger’: That burning desire for human contact supercharged by the coronavirus pandemic
Once a week, Alice, who lives alone, walks to the end of her garden to meet her best friend Lucy ...
‘A radical idea’: Could a single factor be responsible for all mental illnesses?
What are the roots of mental illness? In the hope of finding an answer, scientists have piled up an enormous ...
Menopause might be a tipping point for Alzheimer’s for millions of women
Estrogen is the master regulator of metabolism in the youthful female brain, orchestrating everything from glucose transport and uptake to ...
Can we boost human memory by tweaking the microbiome?
A new study is among the first to trace the molecular connections between genetics, the gut microbiome and memory in ...
Why girls with ADHD aren’t being diagnosed
Anxiety. Depression. School failure. Self-harm. Unemployment. Unplanned pregnancies. Even an increased risk of early death. The risks and toll of ...
Is this brain-controlled prosthetic arm—with the sensation of touch—the future of prosthetics?
[T]hree years ago, [electrician Rickard] Normark received a new kind of brain-controlled prosthetic that was surgically attached to the bone, ...
Biological marker for autism in babies could lead to earlier therapy and better development
A small study by researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine has identified a biological marker in the cerebrospinal fluid ...
Do rising carbon dioxide levels dampen our ability to think and make decisions?
As the 21st century progresses, rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations will cause urban and indoor levels of the gas ...
How to use your brain to keep food cravings from turning into eating
Many believe that cravings are caused by low blood sugar, or that the body lacks certain other nutrients. In the ...
Shedding light on ‘bizarre’ 1930s procedure in which doctors injected malaria into human brains
A new paper in a neurosurgery journal sheds light on one of the most bizarre and shocking medical procedures ever ...
Why do people trust ‘gut instinct’ even when it’s not the smart choice?
When faced with a decision, people may know which choice gives them the best chance of success, but still take ...
Alzheimer’s research is at a dead end. Here are 5 unexplored treatment routes
It is time to go back to basics. I have been a scientist involved in Alzheimer's research for three decades, ...
Language evolved 25 million years ago, monkey brain study suggests
Curious about how people started talking, researchers from the UK scanned the monkey species and the brains of the people ...
After injury, the adult brain attempts to repair itself with cells that revert to an embryonic state
When adult brain cells are injured, they revert to an embryonic state, according to new findings published in the April ...
Specialized ‘event’ cells help your brain keep all your memories organized, study suggests
Our recollection of events is usually not like a replay of digital video from a security camera—a passive observation that ...
Not just the lungs: Coronavirus also wreaks havoc on the brain
As the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases worldwide reaches 2 million, clinicians are realizing the disease doesn’t just ravage the ...
While you sleep, your brain decides which memories to keep, and which ones go to ‘the garbage bin’
We don’t remember every detail of our lives: Our brains decide which events are important for long-term storage and which ...
What’s real? Why ‘false memories’ are trouble for police, juries and judges
In 2015, memory researcher and psychologist Julia Shaw and her co-author published a study on false memories. Over the course ...
Is creativity driven by the right side of the brain? Not necessarily, according to this study of jazz guitarists
According to a popular view, creativity is a product of the brain's right hemisphere - innovative people are considered "right-brain ...
How America is neglecting its growing elderly autistic population
[E]merging research suggests that autistic adults are at high risk of a broad array of physical and mental health conditions, ...
Turning thoughts to text with brain implants and artificial intelligence
For people with limited use of their limbs, speech recognition can be critical for their ability to operate a computer ...
Something you want to forget? CRISPR could be used to ‘delete’ traumatic memories
Good memories give us a sensation of warmth and hope for better times, but bad memories can cause serious trauma ...
Explaining déjà vu: Is this eerily familiar ‘glitch in the matrix’ a form of conflict resolution?
Some think déjà vu is a sign that you're recalling an experience from a past life. Spooky! Carrie-Anne Moss, as ...
Biomarkers could be key to blood test for concussions
There is no single distinguishing feature of a concussion. Most of these symptoms can also be present in other types of injury ...
7 weird facts about how humans see the world
It might be the best-studied of all our senses, but surprises about the way our vision works just keep on ...
