Past neuroscience and psychology research has repeatedly demonstrated the crucial role of rewards in how humans and other animals acquire behaviors that promote their survival. Dopaminergic neurons, neurons that produce dopamine in the mammalian central nervous...
Eating chocolate is typically discouraged by nutritionists, as it is can be high in calories, fat and sugar. Cocoa, however, chocolate's primary ingredient derived from the seed of the cacao plant, has been found to have numerous qualities that could be beneficial for...
Epilepsy is a common condition that causes those affected to experience frequent seizures, which are bursts of electrical activity in the brain that temporarily impair its functioning. These seizures can present differently and can be associated with uncontrollable...
The Piezo-type mechanosensitive ion channel component 2, or PIEZO2, is a protein coding gene that has been linked to mechanically-activated (MA) cation channels, which connect mechanical forces to biological signals. The PIEZO2 encoded protein can quickly adapt MA...
Neuroscientists have been trying to understand for decades how the human brain changes over the lifespan. This could ultimately help to devise more effective treatments for neurological and cognitive disorders primarily observed in the elderly.
Learning is known to promote the creation of new connections in the brain, particularly excitatory synapses, synapses that increase the likelihood of action potential firing in neurons. Action potentials are changes in electrical potential that are linked to the...
Recent scientific and technological advances have led to the development of increasingly sophisticated tools to conduct neuroscience research. These new methods are helping neuroscientists to better understand the functions and organization of specific cell...
When adult humans and animals severely injure their spinal cord, they become irreversibly paralyzed and are no longer able to move body parts controlled by the section of the spinal cord below their lesion. To counteract the damage done by the injury, doctors often...
Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 had disastrous humanitarian consequences, forcing numerous Ukrainians to leave their home and part from their loved ones, while also exposing people of all ages to the destruction, pain and traumas of war. The ongoing...
The hippocampus is a region of the brain known to the associated with memory, learning, spatial navigation and emotion. In 1971, neuroscientists discovered that the hippocampus influences spatial navigation through the formation of a series of "spatial codes," which...