shared memory

Shared Neural Activity for Shared Memories

January 23, 2017

After taking my kids to see Moana recently, I was struck by how differently they relayed the story to their dad than I did – different parts stood out to them as being especially funny or scary, and they used very different words to describe the plot and characters. Thus, […]

A Cortical Cartographer’s Journey: Q&A with David Van Essen

January 9, 2017

While an undergraduate chemistry major at Caltech, David Van Essen read The Machinery of the Brain by Dean Woolridge. Published in 1963, the book gives an engineer’s perspective of the biological foundation of brain function, likening it to a computer. “That immediately hooked me on neuroscience, and I never looked […]

11 Cognitive Neuroscience Stories Not to Miss from 2016

December 29, 2016

Implicit bias, plasticity, and language were front and center in the most popular CNS stories of 2016. From using neuroscience findings to help understand and reduce bias to exploring why some people learn a second language more easily than others to recent debates over neuroimaging techniques, cognitive neuroscientists continue to […]

We’re Back: CNS 2017 Returns to San Francisco with Big Ideas and More

December 21, 2016

Go for a trolley ride, visit Alcatraz, and take in world-class cognitive science talks when you visit San Francisco for CNS 2017. From March 25-28, 2017, more than 1,500 cognitive neuroscientists will gather to discuss the latest research on memory, language, aging, learning, and more in 50 talks and more than […]

Making Language Research Less Alien: The Science of Arrival

December 20, 2016

Outside of superintelligence thrillers like Lucy or Limitless, it’s rare to have a popular Hollywood blockbuster explore a sliver of cognitive neuroscience. Even rarer is for that sliver to involve language science, which is why I was thrilled to see linguistics front and center in Arrival. Aside from it being […]

We’re Hard Wired for Cranberry Sauce: Why Color Matters for Nutrition

November 22, 2016

Cranberry sauce is perhaps a non-obvious star of the Thanksgiving dinner table. With its rich red color – whether homemade or from the can – the holiday favorite is actually part of the hardwiring in our brain: A new study finds that people favor red-colored foods over green ones, and […]

intelligence

Sleep Offers a Window Into Human Intelligence

October 27, 2016

Not a day goes by, it seems, without some reminder of how important sleep is for our brain health – whether a headline about the dangers of cell phone use before bed or the latest start-up encouraging its workers to nap during the day. While we are all increasingly aware […]

Perceptions of Others’ Pain Rests on Perspective

September 29, 2016

While recently binge watching Game of Thrones, I frequently found myself reacting to particularly graphic scenes of violence as though I were about to directly experience those horrors. We have all had moments when we physically feel like we can feel the pain of others. But some experiences can feel […]

Debunking the Myth that fMRI Studies are Invalid

September 6, 2016

Guest Post by David Mehler, Cardiff University and University of Münster Are fMRI studies valid? That is a question that has been posited across the news media the past month – including most recently in the New York Times – in the wake of a new study by Anders Eklund […]

language

Brain Connectivity and Language Learning: New Findings, New Questions

August 29, 2016

Guest Post by Angela Grant, Pennsylvania State University  Do you remember the last time you took a language course? No matter if it was online or classroom based, immersive or translation focused, I would be willing to bet a large sum of money that your language abilities when you left […]

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