Science and brain studies

• Music's Healing Notes: Traits Trump Genre for Stress Relief - Neuroscience News

  The research, involving 470 participants, identified that stress-relieving songs often share common features, regardless of their musical style.

• Reduced Brain Grey Matter Linked to Early Onset Psychosis - Neuroscience News

  A groundbreaking study reveals a strong association between a reduction in grey matter and Early Onset Psychosis (EOP).

• Study sheds light on how the brain consolidates emotional memories during sleep

  In a new scientific paper recently published in the journal Cell Press, researchers have unveiled new insights into how the brain processes and consolidates emotional memories during sleep. The paper, drawing on extensive rodent-based research, highlights the critical role of the hippocampus — a key brain region — in weaving together spatial and emotional aspects of memory, particularly during different stages of sleep.

• Study reveals a universal pattern of brain wave frequencies

  The six anatomical layers of the mammalian brain cortex show distinct patterns of electrical activity which are consistent throughout the entire cortex and across several animal species, including humans, a study has found.

• Power of Beliefs on Brain and Drug Dosing Behavior - Neuroscience News

  Researchers discovered that a person's beliefs about drugs can influence their brain activity and behavior similarly to pharmacological effects.

• Mapping the Brain Circuit Behind Panic Disorder - Neuroscience News

  Researchers have identified a brain circuit that mediates panic disorder, offering a crucial insight into the condition's origins.

• The Science of Sleep: Brain's Reset Mechanism Revealed - Neuroscience News

  Criticality is a state that optimizes thinking and information processing by balancing order and chaos in neural activity.

• Noninvasive Brain Activity Imaging

  Measuring and mapping brain activity without surgery or bulky machines

• Unlocking the Brain's Fear Code: Memory, Behavior, and the Brain - Neuroscience News

  Their study uncovers the concept of fear engrams, shedding light on the physical representation of memory in the brain.

• Home-based brain stimulation ineffective for major depression, study finds

  Home-based brain stimulation, coupled with digital psychological interventions, was ineffective in treating major depression. This conclusion came after a clinical trial conducted in São Paulo, Brazil, challenging earlier assumptions about the potential benefits of this accessible treatment method.

• We’ve never understood how hunger works. That might be about to change.

  Scientists have spent decades trying to unravel the intricate mysteries of the human appetite. Are they on the verge of finally determining how this basic drive functions?

• Unique Flow of Information Identified in The Human Brain

  Information doesn't make its way around our brains in the same way as it does in the brains of other animals, according to a new study, and it could teach us something important about the way our species has evolved.

• Depression linked to altered brain responses to different types of gestures, study finds

  A recent study found that individuals with depression show heightened brain activity in specific areas when perceiving gestures, with different responses to instrumental and expressive gestures.

• Infants' brainwaves reveal they can distinguish helpful and harmful actions at just 5 months old

  Infants as young as five months can differentiate between helpful and harmful behaviors, as shown by brainwave monitoring in a study published in Social Neuroscience. This research reveals early development in social cognition and moral evaluation, indicating that infants' brains respond differently to prosocial and antisocial actions.

• A Neuroscience Milestone: Complete Cellular Mapping of a Mammalian Brain

  A groundbreaking cell atlas mapping the entire mouse brain, detailing over 32 million cells, paves the way for a deeper understanding of the human brain and the development of precision therapies for brain disorders. For the first time ever, an international team of researchers has created a comp

• New neuroscience research links excessive smartphone use to specific changes in brain function

  New research links excessive smartphone use to weakened brain networks, affecting cognitive control and executive function. The study suggests similarities between digital device addiction and other addictive behaviors.

• Tracking Brain's "Wave of Death": New Insights into Neural End-of-Life - Neuroscience News

  Their study reveals that during anoxia, or oxygen deprivation, the brain undergoes a series of changes, including a massive release of glutamate and a surge in gamma and beta waves, potentially linked to near-death experiences.

• Brain Area Associated With Impulse Control Discovered - Neuroscience News

  A new study identified the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) as a central regulator in the brain's inhibitory control circuit.

• Brain Stimulation Enhances Memory in Schizophrenia Patients - Neuroscience News

  A new study suggests that repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) can improve aspects of prospective memory in individuals with schizophrenia.

• The Power of Music: Mind Control by Rhythmic Sound

  New Orleans, October 16, 2012 - You walk into a bar and music is thumping. All heads are bobbing and feet tapping in synchrony. Somehow the rhythmic sound grabs control of the brains of everyone in the room forcing them to operate simultaneously and perform the same behaviors in synchrony. How is this possible? Is this unconscious mind control by rhythmic sound only driving our bodily motions, or could it be affecting deeper mental processes?

• Anxious people use less suitable section of brain to control emotions

  When choosing their behavior in socially difficult situations, anxious people use a less suitable section of the forebrain than people who are not anxious.

• The brain uses bodily signals to regulate fear

  Fear is essential for survival, but must be well regulated to avoid harmful behaviors such as panic attacks or exaggerated risk taking. Scientists have now demonstrated in mice that the brain relies on the body's feedback to regulate fear. The brain's insular cortex strongly reacts to stimuli signaling danger. However, when the body freezes in response to fear, the heartbeat slows down leading to attenuated insular cortex activity. Processing these opposing signals helps the insular cortex to keep fear in balance. The body's reactions are thus actively used to regulate emotions and are much more than passive emotional responses.

• How expectation influences perception

  Neuroscientists have identified distinctive patterns of neural activity that encode prior beliefs and help the brain make sense of uncertain signals coming from the outside world. For the first time, they showed that prior beliefs exert their effect on behavior by warping the representation of sensory events in the brain.

• Brain Inflammation Linked to Suicide Risk - Neuroscience News

  The research identified overactive inflammation and the loss of protective brain mechanisms as key factors.

• Loneliness blurs brain's line between real friends and fictional characters, study finds

  A recent study published in Cerebral Cortex reveals that loneliness can blur the brain's distinction between real-life friends and fictional characters, particularly in fans of the TV series "Game of Thrones." Neuroimaging showed lonelier individuals have similar neural responses when thinking about real people and fictional characters. ...

• Brain Waves: Acetylcholine and Dopamine's Synchronized Dance in Striatum - Neuroscience News

  They identified wave-like patterns of the neurochemical acetylcholine in the striatum, a region vital for motivating actions.

• Inducing auditory hallucinations in a lab environment without using drugs

  A team of neuroscientists and psychologists at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, working with a colleague from University Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, has found that it is possible to induce auditory hallucinations in mentally healthy people without using drugs.

• It turns out we feel human touch through hair follicles too

  New research is revealing that cells in hair follicles—the structures that encircle the hair fiber—may also sense touch.

• Hair Follicles' Hidden Role in Touch Sensation - Neuroscience News

  A new study uncovered a previously unknown mechanism in hair follicles that allows us to detect touch.

• Is graph theory the key to understanding the brain?

  Graph theory is far from a mathematical abstraction. Read on to learn how it is being used to analyze brain signals.

• Visual Recognition Memory: Familiarity Decoded by Brief Spikes - Neuroscience News

  New research brings clarity to "visual recognition memory" (VRM), the process that ensures we prioritize what's most important in what we see.

• Hidden in the Hippocampus are the Neural Secrets Behind False Memories - Neuroscience News

  These findings not only offer insights into memory retrieval but may also pave the way for novel therapeutic interventions for disorders like PTSD.

• Facial Cues Reveal How We Respond to Verbal Stimuli During Sleep - Neuroscience News

  This exploration into consciousness during sleep might transform our understanding of sleep’s structure, activity, and perhaps even its definition.

• Rewiring the Brain: The Neural Code of Traumatic Memories - Neuroscience News

  Unveiling the neurological enigma of traumatic memory formation, researchers harnessed innovative optical and machine-learning methodologies to decode the brain’s neuronal networks engaged during trauma memory creation.

• Decoding Schizophrenia: Brain Connectivity's Role - Neuroscience News

  Researchers discovered differences in functional brain connectivity in individuals with and without schizophrenia, shedding light on the neural basis of the disorder.

• Schizophrenia Insights: Brain's Search for Words Mirrors Animal Foraging Patterns - Neuroscience News

  A new study suggests that the way our minds search for words and concepts in memory may parallel the age-old patterns animals use to hunt for food in their environments.

• "The worst dietary experiment": How the US government wrecked our relationship with dietary fats

  And here is one simple way we can fix it

• ‘What would you do if you were me, doctor?’: randomised trial of psychiatrists' personal v. professional perspectives on treatment recommendations | The British Journal of Psychiatry | Cambridge Core

  ‘What would you do if you were me, doctor?’: randomised trial of psychiatrists' personal v. professional perspectives on treatment recommendations - Volume 197 Issue 6

• Modern Microprocessors - A 90-Minute Guide!

  A brief, pulls-no-punches, fast-paced introduction to the main design aspects of modern processor microarchitecture.

• Psychedelics induce "hypersynchrony" in multiple brain regions

  New research published in the journal Communication Biology shows that psychedelic substances like LSD and ketamine induce "hypersynchrony" in the brain, characterized by highly synchronized high-frequency oscillations across different regions. This unique synchronization, observed in rats, provides insights into altered states of consciousness and may offer a new model for studying the neural basis of consciousness and certain psychotic disorders. ...

• Brain Implants That Help Paralyzed People Speak Just Broke New Records

  Two new studies show that AI-powered devices can help paralyzed people communicate faster and more accurately.

• University of California BCI study enables paralyzed woman to 'speak' through a digital avatar | Engadget

  A stroke-paralyzed patient has regained the ability to speak thanks to a BCI implant, albeit she now talks through a digital avatar..

• The key to depression, obesity, alcoholism – and more? Why scientists are so excited by the vagus nerve

  Stimulating the vagus nerve is being hyped as the simplest way to reduce stress, dampen anxiety – and could even curb obesity. But what exactly is it? And how does tickling your ear help?

• Elon Musk’s Neuralink Wants ‘Sewing Machine-Like’ Robots to Wire Brains to the Internet

  A San Francisco company financed by Mr. Musk, Neuralink says it has created a device that could one day wire data links directly to the brain.

• Acoustic stimulation as a promising technique to enhance slow-wave sleep in Alzheimer's disease: results of a pilot study - PubMed

• Neurotech Overhears Songs from Listener’s Brainwaves

  Researchers reconstruct heard sounds—and probe how people perceive music

• Sound Really Can Travel in a Vacuum, And We Can Finally Explain How

  Given the right circumstances, it is possible for sound to travel through a perfect vacuum.

• Learning produces a hippocampal cognitive map in the form of an orthogonalized state machine

  Cognitive maps confer animals with flexible intelligence by representing spatial, temporal, and abstract relationships that can be used to shape thought, planning, and behavior. Cognitive maps have been observed in the hippocampus, but their algorithmic form and the processes by which they are learned remain obscure. Here, we employed large-scale, longitudinal two-photon calcium imaging to record activity from thousands of neurons in the CA1 region of the hippocampus while mice learned to efficiently collect rewards from two subtly different versions of linear tracks in virtual reality. The results provide a detailed view of the formation of a cognitive map in the hippocampus. Throughout learning, both the animal behavior and hippocampal neural activity progressed through multiple intermediate stages, gradually revealing improved task understanding and behavioral efficiency. The learning process led to progressive decorrelations in initially similar hippocampal neural activity within and across tracks, ultimately resulting in orthogonalized representations resembling a state machine capturing the inherent structure of the task. We show that a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) and a biologically plausible recurrent neural network trained using Hebbian learning can both capture core aspects of the learning dynamics and the orthogonalized representational structure in neural activity. In contrast, we show that gradient-based learning of sequence models such as Long Short-Term Memory networks (LSTMs) and Transformers do not naturally produce such representations. We further demonstrate that mice exhibited adaptive behavior in novel task settings, with neural activity reflecting flexible deployment of the state machine. These findings shed light on the mathematical form of cognitive maps, the learning rules that sculpt them, and the algorithms that promote adaptive behavior in animals. The work thus charts a course toward a deeper understanding of biological intelligence and offers insights toward developing more robust learning algorithms in artificial intelligence. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.

• Regional, circuit and network heterogeneity of brain abnormalities in psychiatric disorders - Nature Neuroscience

  A new brain mapping approach tailored to individual people reveals that volume changes in psychiatric illness occur in highly variable locations across individuals, but that these differences often aggregate within common brain systems.

• Scientists reconstruct Pink Floyd song by listening to people’s brainwaves

  Breakthrough raises hopes that musicality of natural speech can be restored in patients with disabling neurological conditions