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developmental neuroscience

·July 3, 2025·5 min read

Forever Chemicals May Disrupt Brain Development

Despite its reputation as a safer chemical, PFHxA—a short-chain PFAS—may cause long-term behavioral changes when exposure occurs early in development. Researchers found that male mice exposed to PFHxA in utero and through breastfeeding displayed increased anxiety, memory deficits, and lower activity levels.

Featured Neuroscience

·July 2, 2025·4 min read

Kids Outsmart AI in Puzzle Game That Builds Critical Thinking

A new puzzle-based game helps children recognize where artificial intelligence still struggles. The game features ARC tasks—visual logic puzzles that are easy for humans but hard for AI—and allows kids to compare their answers with chatbot responses. Even when AI gets the right answer, its explanation is often wrong, teaching kids to question confidently stated misinformation.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·June 28, 2025·5 min read

Exercise Proven to Boost Kids’ Mental Health

A massive analysis of over 375 trials shows that structured exercise significantly reduces depression and anxiety in children and teens. Low-intensity resistance activities like light weights were most effective for easing anxiety, while moderate mixed-mode programs worked best for depression—especially when lasting under 12 weeks.

Featured Neuroscience

·June 26, 2025·4 min read

Why Baby Talk May Be Uniquely Human

Child-directed speech, or “baby talk,” plays a crucial role in language development and is a near-universal human behavior. Researchers investigated whether this vocal strategy is shared with our closest relatives—great apes—and found that humans use infant-directed speech far more frequently.

Featured Neuroscience

·June 25, 2025·4 min read

Babies Show Surprising Flexibility in How They Learn and Adapt

New research reveals that babies as young as eight months can flexibly adapt their learning strategies to changing environments. Using eye-tracking and shifting patterns of visual stimuli, researchers observed that infants adjusted their behavior based on whether the monster on screen appeared in a predictable or unpredictable location.

This shows a child, an MRI machine, and a brain.

Neuroscience

·June 25, 2025·4 min read

Cerebellum Shapes Children’s Empathy and Theory of Mind

Understanding others’ beliefs—especially false ones—is key to human communication and begins to develop between ages three and five. In a new study, researchers observed children’s brain activity while they watched movies in an MRI scanner to investigate the neurological roots of Theory of Mind (ToM).

Featured Genetics Neurology Neuroscience

·June 25, 2025·5 min read

Newborns and Alzheimer’s Patients Share a Brain Protein Spike

A new study has revealed that newborn babies and Alzheimer’s patients both have elevated levels of the same protein, p-tau217, in their blood. While this protein is a key marker of brain degeneration in Alzheimer’s, in newborns it appears to support healthy brain growth and development.

This shows a child, AI, and speech bubbles.

Featured Neuroscience

·June 24, 2025·4 min read

Why Children Learn Language Faster Than AI

Despite AI’s massive processing power, children still far outperform machines in learning language—and a new framework helps explain why. Unlike AI systems that passively absorb text, children learn through multisensory exploration, social interaction, and self-driven curiosity.

This shows a chimp and a child on cell phones.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·June 24, 2025·5 min read

Chimpanzees and Children Share a Curiosity for Social Drama

A new study shows that both chimpanzees and young children are drawn to watching social interactions—sometimes even at a cost. When given a choice between viewing videos of social behavior or solo individuals, both species consistently chose the social scenes.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·June 24, 2025·5 min read

Older Motherhood Linked to Higher Birth Risks, Especially After 45

A study analyzing over 300,000 births in Sweden found that babies born to mothers over 40—especially those aged 45 and older—face higher risks of complications at birth. These include stillbirth, premature delivery, low birth weight for gestational age, and neonatal low blood sugar.

Autism Featured Genetics Neuroscience

·June 20, 2025·3 min read

New Autism Data Reveals Insights Into Profound Cases

Researchers have released genetic and behavioral data from over 1,500 children and adolescents with autism who were hospitalized in psychiatric units across the U.S. This group, often representing those with profound autism—marked by minimal language and high support needs—has been largely missing from previous datasets.

Featured Neurology Neuroscience Pain

·June 19, 2025·5 min read

Pain Perception in Babies Develops in Stages After Birth

A new study shows that the networks responsible for processing pain in infants develop gradually, with emotional and cognitive pain responses maturing only after birth. Researchers scanned the brains of 372 infants, primarily born prematurely, to track how three brain subsystems related to pain perception matured over time.