When I have taken my children to art museums in the past (pre-COVID), they loved to strike the poses they saw in the sculptures and paintings around them, mimicking the positions and actions that inspired the works. While many of us adults may not act out pieces of art, we may be mentally simulating the […]
Controlling the Urge to Relieve Pain
The internal battle between the need to act and the need to suppress an action is something I have been through multiple times this summer: trying to suppress the urge to scratch itchy mosquito bites. Such a state is common in everyday life and also important to several clinical disorders but has yet to be […]
Playing an Instrument Changes Our Perception of Music
The musical instrument you play, or played as a child, likely has a big impact on how you perceive music every day. In a novel new study looking at beatboxers and guitarists, cognitive neuroscientists found that areas of the brain that control movement were activated in the musicians’ brains but not in non-musicians’ brains. Past […]
Memory, Language, Action: Watch Big Ideas in Cognitive Neuroscience
Does the human brain process memory like a computer processes information? What enables human language with all its nuances and complexities? How does flexibility in the brain give rise to learning? These were just a few of the questions explored at Big Ideas in Cognitive Neuroscience, a special session at this year’s CNS meeting in […]
Faces Distract Our Movements, Especially Emotional Ones
It’s breakfast time, and you head to the fridge to grab some orange juice but just as you go to pour it into your cup, you hear someone calling to you, turn toward the sound, and pour it into your cereal bowl instead or maybe even onto the floor. We’ve all been there – had […]
Coordinating Movement, Language, and Thoughts? An Expanded Role for the Cerebellum
Anytime we are using our coordination – whether taking a shot in golf or just reaching for a coffee mug – the cerebellum is at play. The small structure at the base of the brain is well-known to be critical in coordinating our movements, their precision and timing. But according to a growing body of […]
Unraveling the Motor Movements That Connect All Primates
Q&A with Jon Kaas Grasping, reaching, climbing – these are just some of the basic instinctive behaviors that we see even in babies. While these movements are not uniquely human, how they unfold neurologically is unique to primates. All primates have these motor behaviors, or “motor primitives,” and they all occur in similar ways across […]
