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Category: Neuroscience

Neuroscientists are studying octopuses for insights into how intelligence evolved

Neuroscientists are studying octopuses for insights into how intelligence evolved

Nature reports: Three hearts; blue blood; no skeleton; arms like tongues. These are just some of the alien features of octopuses, squid and cuttlefish — members of the cephalopod family. The outlandish list continues. Cephalopod skin can taste chemicals, sense light and change colour and texture rapidly. In many species, the sucker-covered arms can even regenerate. These invertebrates have evolved independently from the vertebrate lineage for more than 600 million years. Their last common ancestor was probably a worm-like creature…

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Shared music listening synchronizes brain activity

Shared music listening synchronizes brain activity

PsyPost reports: While sharing a musical experience with a friend might not drastically alter your overall enjoyment of a song, it tends to synchronize your brain activity and emotional responses. A recent study published in the journal Cortex has found that listening to music with another person increases the moment-to-moment similarity of subjective pleasure and enhances neural alignment. These findings help explain how music acts as a powerful tool for social bonding and collective emotional experiences. Human beings naturally use…

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A new type of neuroplasticity rewires the brain after a single experience

A new type of neuroplasticity rewires the brain after a single experience

Yasemin Saplakoglu writes: Every experience we have changes our brain, the way a ceramicist reshapes a slab of clay. Every corner we turn, every conversation we have, every shudder we feel causes cascading effects: Chemicals are released, electricity surges, the connections between brain cells tighten, and our mental models update. The brain is “incredibly plastic, and it stays that way throughout the lifespan of a human,” said Christine Grienberger, a neuroscientist at Brandeis University. This plasticity, the quality of being…

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How understanding bioenergetics can help our brain health

How understanding bioenergetics can help our brain health

Hannah Critchlow writes: About 2 billion years ago, evolution performed an improbable experiment. A larger ancestral cell engulfed a smaller bacterium. It should have been a meal. Instead, it became a merger. The bacterium survived inside its host, and together they forged one of the most consequential partnerships in the history of life. The host offered shelter and access to oxygen. The bacterium supplied something revolutionary: a vastly more efficient way to generate energy. From this intimate alliance emerged the…

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Does exposure to nature really help reduce negative emotions?

Does exposure to nature really help reduce negative emotions?

Neuroscience News reports: You probably heard it from your mom a thousand times – fresh air and sunshine; it’s the cure for most anything. Now scientists at the University of Houston concur, measuring the impact of mother’s advice on mother nature to find that exposure to nature is associated with reductions in negative emotions. Given that nearly 90% of the U.S. population is projected to reside in urban areas by 2050, researchers say integrating nature into urban design and public…

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Dopamine: How neuroscience is rethinking the ‘feel-good’ chemical

Dopamine: How neuroscience is rethinking the ‘feel-good’ chemical

Nature reports: When neuroscientists gather in the Spanish city of Seville in May for the annual Dopamine Society meeting, one discussion could be unusually lively. Session 31 will feature a debate between researchers who fundamentally disagree about the role dopamine has in the brain. Dopamine is one of the most extensively studied neurotransmitters, chemicals that convey signals from cell to cell. It’s the one with the highest profile outside neuroscience: often known as the ‘pleasure chemical’, it’s depicted as the…

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What happens to your brain in nature? The neuroscience explained

What happens to your brain in nature? The neuroscience explained

Yoho National Park, Field, Canada. (Unsplash/Hendrik Cornelissen) By Mar Estarellas, McGill University Have you ever felt calmer almost as soon as you step into the woods? Or maybe noticed your busy mind soften as you look out at the sea? We have known for some time, and many of us sense it intuitively, that spending time in nature is good for us. Neuroscience is now enabling us to understand why, and what the brain is actually doing in those moments….

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Using music to escape negative thought loops

Using music to escape negative thought loops

Stefan Koelsch writes: We all know the feeling: you’re trying to focus, relax or simply enjoy a quiet moment, but your mind has other plans. It wanders, replaying worries, rehearsing anxieties or drifting into a spiral of self-criticism. This internal chatter is not merely distracting – it can be emotionally draining, even painful. Have you ever, in moments like these, put on some music to help get your thoughts in order? Humans have long turned to music for solace, and…

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The vagus nerve: How our longest nerve orchestrates the mind-body connection

The vagus nerve: How our longest nerve orchestrates the mind-body connection

R. Douglas Fields writes: It is late at night. You are alone and wandering empty streets in search of your parked car when you hear footsteps creeping up from behind. Your heart pounds, your blood pressure skyrockets. Goose bumps appear on your arms, sweat on your palms. Your stomach knots and your muscles coil, ready to sprint or fight. Now imagine the same scene, but without any of the body’s innate responses to an external threat. Would you still feel…

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Neuroscientists reveal how jazz improvisation shifts brain activity

Neuroscientists reveal how jazz improvisation shifts brain activity

PsyPost reports: Recent findings in neuroscience provide new evidence that musical creativity is not a static trait but a dynamic process involving the rapid reconfiguration of brain networks. By monitoring the brain activity of skilled jazz pianists, an international research team discovered that high levels of improvisational freedom rely less on introspection and more on sensory and motor engagement. The study suggests that the brain shifts its processing strategy depending on how much creative liberty a musician exerts. These findings…

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We’re finally learning what it’s like to die. And it’s not as bad as you think…

We’re finally learning what it’s like to die. And it’s not as bad as you think…

Nate Scharping writes: The last words Steve Jobs, the legendary Apple founder, spoke were simple: “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow.” Their mystery is enticing – what did Jobs, the digital prophet who brought us the smartphone, see as he neared death? We’ll never know. But stories of near-death experiences (NDEs) tantalise the living, and something unique seems to be happening inside our brains as we sense death approaching. Despite NDE testimonies, the moments surrounding death largely remain a mystery…

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Once thought to support neurons, astrocytes turn out to be in charge

Once thought to support neurons, astrocytes turn out to be in charge

Ingrid Wickelgren writes: The human brain is a vast network of billions of neurons. By exchanging signals to depress or excite each other, they generate patterns that ripple across the brain up to 1,000 times per second. For more than a century, that dizzyingly complex neuronal code was thought to be the sole arbiter of perception, thought, emotion, and behavior, as well as related health conditions. If you wanted to understand the brain, you turned to the study of neurons:…

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Why some people are wired to help strangers, and what their brains reveal

Why some people are wired to help strangers, and what their brains reveal

The Washington Post reports: Abigail Marsh, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Georgetown University, studies extraordinary altruism — people who jump in to rescue strangers in emergencies or donate a kidney to someone they don’t know. Marsh spoke with Cristina Quinn, host of The Washington Post’s podcast “Try This,” about what her work has uncovered, and what brain science reveals about people who habitually engage in selfless acts. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. You often…

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Chimp sounds trigger a strange brain signal in humans

Chimp sounds trigger a strange brain signal in humans

SciTechDaily reports: The human brain is not limited to recognizing speech from other people. Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have found that specific parts of the auditory cortex react strongly to the vocalizations of chimpanzees. These primates are our closest relatives both in evolutionary terms and in the acoustic qualities of their calls. The study, published in the journal eLife, points to the presence of specialized subregions in the human brain that are particularly responsive to the sounds…

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Microbes may hold the key to brain evolution

Microbes may hold the key to brain evolution

Northwestern University: A groundbreaking new study reveals that changes to the gut microbiome can change the way the brain works. Humans have the largest relative brain size of any primate, but little is known about how mammals with larger brains evolved to meet the intense energy demands required to support brain growth and maintenance. A new study from Northwestern University provides the first empirical data showing the direct role the gut microbiome plays in shaping differences in the way the…

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How ‘brain cleaning’ while we sleep may lower our risk of dementia

How ‘brain cleaning’ while we sleep may lower our risk of dementia

nopparit/Getty By Julia Chapman, Macquarie University; Camilla Hoyos, Macquarie University, and Craig Phillips, Macquarie University The brain has its own waste disposal system – known as the glymphatic system – that’s thought to be more active when we sleep. But disrupted sleep might hinder this waste disposal system and slow the clearance of waste products or toxins from the brain. And researchers are proposing a build-up of these toxins due to lost sleep could increase someone’s risk of dementia. There…

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