We searched our blog archives for some of our favorite stories of the year. Exercise, art, language, and the social and developing brain top our 15 stories from 2015: Nature and nurture 1. Why It Should Always Be the Season for Exercise Michelle Voss (University of Iowa) talks about progress in her lab and others […]
Teasing Apart Depression from Traumatic Brain Injury
Every time an external force severely injures the brain – whether through a car accident, fall, war injury, or sports trauma – it leaves a lasting impact. For people with traumatic brain injury (TBI), one of the leading causes of death and injury worldwide, depression is a common symptom, occurring in half of all patients. […]
Does the Nose Know?
Guest Post by Lisa Qu, Northwestern University Smelling a cup of freshly brewed coffee can be a rich, almost magical, experience. In fact, in that brief moment, you are smelling a mixture of more than 800 different molecules that make up the smell of coffee. Part of what makes that experience so rich also makes […]
Have Schools Forgotten Brain Science?
Guest Post by Chris Forsythe, Sandia National Laboratories Being an applied neuroscientist, I was stunned as I skimmed my daughter’s 7th grade life science textbook and found that only 8 out of 400 pages discussed the nervous system. This amounted to one section of one chapter. In contrast, while genetics are certainly important, there were […]
Cochlear Implants Enable Deaf Children to Distinguish Basic Linguistic Features Rapidly
For parents of deaf children, deciding whether to get a cochlear implant can be tough. The great hope is that an implant will help deaf children gain oral language skills. Behavioral data has suggested that congenitally deaf children best receive implants by age 4, but little has been known about how they perceive their first […]
Devil is in the Details: Specific Planning Leads to Unique Brain Activity
In our daily lives, we are all constantly setting goals, whether to go to the gym more or to save up for a vacation. In creating goals, some people more specifically outline the steps to get there than others. Those different approaches to planning engage different structures in the brain, according to a new study, […]
How We Map Our Bodies from Infancy
I recently found myself in a touch tunnel at a science museum. Basically in pitch darkness in a box, I had to feel my way through a maze of turns. As I did so, I found myself often thinking about my arms’ position relative to not just the tunnel but to each other and the rest of […]
How We Sharpen Attention on the Fly in Response to Incentives
A simple trip to the grocery store can be an exercise in trying to keep your attention focused on a task. You may have a list of items you need to buy but have a constant barrage of sale signs and displays enticing you to reward yourself. How do these incentives affect our attention? A […]
Judgments of Competence Affect Anticipation of Pain
Picking a new dentist or doctor can be harrowing experience. Internet reviews and word of mouth may help, but oftentimes it comes down to first impressions, maybe even just a photo online. A new study shows that these impressions of people’s competence actually affect our anticipation of pain. “The goal of this study was to […]
Distinguishing Consonant Sounds in Noise Predicts Reading Ability in Preschoolers
When babies are born, they undergo a hearing test with a simple little machine. What if one day that test could also predict how well a child will be able to read and identify those children early may need extra help? A new study has taken a crucial first step toward that possibility. In PLOS […]
