Our past, present, and future are intimately linked by our memories. Scientists know now that the same brain processes we use to remember the past, also help us plan for the future and imagine different possible scenarios. Recent research even suggests that in depressed people, impaired memory not only makes it difficult for remember past […]
Guest Post by Lisa Qu, Northwestern University Beer and neuroscience – an unlikely combination, you might think, for anything other than a collegiate shooting the breeze over drinks. But in my field of study – olfaction – they can be tightly intertwined. I work to uncover the neural mechanisms of how we learn about a […]
33 School superintendents along the U.S. East Coast had a daunting decision to make this week: With a massive winter storm forecasted, they had to weigh whether to keep the schools open or to close in anticipation of the poor weather. Many factors go into the decision, such as temperature and anticipated snowfall, but there are also […]
Cookie or apple? Many of us would choose the cookie if we were by ourselves. But what about around others? If you have ever been at, say, a conference where you see many of your peers choosing an apple, you might choose one as well. New research suggests that this behavioral change also happens on […]
Q&A with Marta Kutas Marta Kutas has been smitten from the beginning with ERPs – event-related potentials, measures of electrical activity in the brain. She calls them “temporally exquisite instruments for investigating what the brain does – loosely, the mind.” Kutas, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, San Diego, is this year’s recipient […]
“The memorable peaks in life come scattered among the many hard and often dreary days of work.” -Michael Gazzaniga In an interview with National Geographic on the occasion of his new book, Michael Gazzaniga, a founder of CNS, talks about his work on the “split brain,” his early years at Caltech, the nature of consciousness, […]
On Twitter yesterday, social psychologist Amy Cuddy asked psychologists what theme they believe to be generally true about human nature. Among the great responses was this by social cognitive neuroscientist Jay Van Bavel: “We are social animals.” Indeed, in a new study, researchers have found that even when we are zoning out, we are preparing […]
The paintings of Paul Cézanne, whose birthday we celebrated this week, transport us to a different time and different place. His use of color and brushstroke force us to look at people and places in new ways. But any person’s evaluation of a single piece of art, of course, is subjective. While some may gravitate […]
Guest Post by Michelle Voss, University of Iowa We all know that exercise is good for us And this past holiday season, the market was awash with activity monitors like the FitBit and Nike Fuel Band to help you reach your fitness goals from the neck down. But what about from the neck up? Although […]
Seeing the new photos of the Pillars of Creation from the Hubble Telescope took my breath away. Beautiful and awe-inspiring. But what was happening in my brain when I looked at them? How and why we react to beauty is something we rarely think about, but neuroscientists are making progress in better understanding these processes. […]
