Existing neuroscientific models of the visual system suggest that it represents the visual world just as a camera would, encoding the positions of different objects similarly. An animal's surrounding environment, however, constantly changes, and these changes could...
Humans are known to perceive the environment around them differently based on the situation they are in and their own feelings and sensations. Internal states, such as fear, arousal or hunger can thus affect the ways in which sensory information is processed and...
The cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the mammalian brain, is known to play a key role in numerous higher-level processes, including language, memory and decision-making. While countless studies have explored its structure and function, imaging its neuronal dynamics...
Humans and other primates can jointly make sense of different types of sensory information, including sounds, smells, shapes and so on. By integrating sensory stimuli in the brain, they can better understand the world around them, detecting potential threats, food and...
Over the past decade or so, social scientists have been trying to understand how social networks can influence people's beliefs and behavior. Despite the many studies on this topic, currently very little is known about how the human brain makes decisions in networked...
Microglia are primary immune cells that safeguard the mammalian brain, partly by devouring or 'phagocytosing' pathogens and toxic debris. Recent genetic studies have consistently highlighted the role of microglia in the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and...
Mood disorders are mental health conditions characterized by persistently dysregulated moods, such as recurring feelings of depression or euphoria. According to statistics by the National Institutes of Health, approximately 1 in 5 people in the United States will...
New technologies can greatly advance research in various fields, including medicine and neuroscience. In recent years, for instance, engineers have created increasingly sophisticated devices to record brain activity and other biological signals with high precision.
Proteins, long polymers comprised of smaller constituents known as amino acids, play a crucial role in the functioning of the human body. Over the course of a human's life, these "strings" of proteins fold into unique 3D structures or conformations, and this folding...
Anxiety disorders are becoming increasingly common, with estimates suggesting that almost one in three people in the U.S. will experience high levels of anxiety at some point in their life. Anxiety is essentially a feeling of unease, worry or psychological discomfort,...