When hungry, not only our bodies long for food, our brains do too. And it appears that when it comes to social interaction, a similar thing happens. Social deprivation leads to a brain angry for social contact. A recent study [Livia Tomova et al (2020) Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger […]
IQ is often hailed as a crucial driver of success, particularly in fields such as science, innovation and technology. In fact, many people have an endless fascination with the IQ scores of famous people. But the truth is that some of the greatest achievements by our species have primarily relied on qualities such as creativity […]
Consider the statements below. What do they describe? A trip on psychedelics? A dream? I felt I could reach through the screen to get to another place. Lasers became entire fans of light sweeping around, and then it felt as if the screen began to expand. I saw old stone buildings … like a castle […]
Mental wandering, sometimes referred to as off-task thinking or, colloquially, going on autopilot, is the experience of thoughts not staying on a single topic, but jumping without control from one thing to another. This is particularly striking when we are engaged in a task that requires focus. A common place for mental wandering is when […]
If you ask people to list the most intelligent animals, they’ll name a few usual suspects. Chimpanzees, dolphins and elephants are often mentioned, as are crows, dogs and occasionally pigs. Horses don’t usually get a look in. So it might come as a surprise that horses possess an unusual skill, widely considered an indicator of […]
Depression is a psychiatric and psychological diagnosis that describes a temporary or permanent mood disorder characterized by feelings of dejection, unhappiness and guilt. Depressed people show a low mood and an aversion to activity and are characterized by sadness, difficulty thinking and concentrating, and a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping […]
How much are you conscious of right now? Are you conscious of just the words in the centre of your visual field or all the words surrounding it? We tend to assume that our visual consciousness gives us a rich and detailed picture of the entire scene in front of us. The truth is very […]
Parkinson’s disease is characterized by neuronal loss in the brain’s substantia nigra region. What if another cell type, namely, astrocytes, could replace them? The work of two research groups recently published Zhou, H. et al. Cell 181, 590–603.e16 (2020). shows that, at least in mice, transforming astrocytes (a non-neuronal cell type in the brain) into […]
We all know some of the symptoms of sleep deprivation: bad mood, tiredness…but when bad comes to worst, this lack of sleep can even lead to death. A recently published article by neuroscientists at Harvard Medicine School have shown, in flies, that lack of sleep might be killing from the gut. Because flies share many […]
Amyloid plaques are a hallmark of some neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Even though the exact role of amyloid protein in the disease is not clear, being able to follow amyloid protein misfolding and plaque formation could be a step forward for the study of the disease. Now, Matthew Lew’s lab has developed a […]