Language plays a critical role in the development of the brain. As Patricia Kuhl demonstrated during Monday morning’s keynote session at CNS 2013, early childhood exposure to multiple languages not only enhances the ability to learn languages later in life, but also improves mental flexibility and creative thinking. But what can the way the brain […]
A neural device to help patients who do not have the ability to speak is now possible, thanks in part to the work of Robert Knight. Celebrating career accomplishments, leadership, and mentoring, CNS presented the second annual Distinguished Career Contributions Award to Knight on Monday afternoon at the annual meeting in San Francisco. For the […]
The recently discovered neurons that keep track of time – so-called time cells – are gaining traction in the memory community. Audience members found out why at a session for the CNS meeting Monday, as several researchers presented the latest on how these cells encode memories over time in rats, humans, and other primates. Just as […]
April 15, 2013 – San Francisco – A brain-training task that increases the number of items an individual can remember over a short period of time may boost performance in other problem-solving tasks by enhancing communication between different brain areas. The new study being presented this week in San Francisco is one of a growing […]
Everyone attending CNS 2013’s first symposium Sunday morning on the regulation of emotion and mental illness took part in a group belly laugh when James Gross played a video to open his talk. In the clip, a newscaster nervously interviews an animal handler holding a 5-foot snake. Unbeknownst to the viewers (and perhaps the newscaster), […]
The audience for Sunday morning’s keynote lecture at CNS 2013 got to play the part of monkeys during a talk by William Newsome of Stanford University, though our task was a bit easier than what his test monkeys usually experience. Normally, in Newsome’s experiment, monkeys have 750 milliseconds to determine either whether a flashing field […]
Unlike in other organs in the body, in the adult brain, new cells form throughout our lifetimes – creating new opportunities to learn. Turns out that the same region of the brain where new nerve cells are generated is the same region of the brain involved in distinguishing events in our memories. Researchers are now […]
CNS 2013 Poster Preview Our willingness to take financial risks relates to our sensitivity to physical pain, according to new research being presented today at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS) in San Francisco. The study is one of several highlighted in Saturday’s opening poster session, which also includes research on when […]
“Studying how the brain makes decisions can help treat brain disorders of decision-making. It may eventually help us to improve the way we present information to people when they have to make decisions, like how to save for retirement or whether taxation is the best way to reduce consumption of addictive substances.” – Michael Platt […]
“…cognitive neuroscience research could help jurors and other participants in the legal system to better understand why it is that memory does not operate like a video recorder, and why it is sometimes prone to error and distortion.” Neuroscience is in the legal spotlight more than ever before, with the courts increasingly considering science-based evidence […]
