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learning

·July 10, 2025·5 min read

Learning Music Boosts Kids’ Wellbeing, Confidence, and Belonging

A new study highlights the powerful role of music learning in improving children’s social, emotional, and educational wellbeing. Beyond listening or casual participation, learning music builds self-confidence, emotional awareness, and a sense of belonging.

This shows a child and an adult in a surgical mask.

Featured Neuroscience

·July 8, 2025·6 min read

Masks Don’t Muffle Word Learning: Toddlers Learn Without Seeing Mouths

Toddlers as young as two can successfully learn new words even when a speaker’s mouth or eyes are covered, a study shows. Researchers found that children’s ability to follow the speaker’s gaze and link words to objects drives vocabulary learning, not reliance on seeing mouth movements.

$This shows a teen and a glowing brain.$

Featured Neuroscience

·July 1, 2025·5 min read

Brain Stimulation Boosts Math Skills in Struggling Learners

New research shows that safe, non-invasive brain stimulation can enhance math learning in young adults with lower natural brain connectivity. Participants who received transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS) to the dlPFC performed better during math training than those who received placebo treatment or stimulation elsewhere.

Featured Neuroscience

·June 28, 2025·4 min read

Sleep Learning: How Synapses Strengthen While We Rest

New research reveals how synaptic connections in the cerebral cortex can strengthen during sleep, offering insight into how the brain continues learning even while we rest. Using computer simulations, researchers demonstrated that synaptic activity during sleep follows known "synaptic learning rules" when neural activity reaches specific thresholds.

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, 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.

$This shows Legos.$

Featured Neuroscience

·June 18, 2025·4 min read

LEGO Lessons Boost Kids’ Math and Spatial Skills in 6 Weeks

Incorporating LEGO-based activities into daily classroom instruction can significantly improve children’s math and spatial reasoning abilities, according to a new study. Researchers evaluated a six-week program called SPACE, where teachers guided structured LEGO-building sessions with students aged 6 to 7.

Featured Neuroscience

·June 10, 2025·6 min read

Baby Talk Enhances Infant Speech Learning

A new meta-analysis confirms that adults exaggerate vowel sounds when speaking to infants, a feature known as vowel hyperarticulation in infant-directed speech (IDS). By analyzing 55 studies across at least 10 languages, researchers found consistent evidence for this speech pattern, though its strength varied depending on language, method, and sample size.

Featured Neuroscience

·June 4, 2025·4 min read

Brain Uses Separate Synapses to Balance Learning and Stability

New research has overturned a long-held belief in neuroscience by showing that the brain uses separate synaptic transmission sites for spontaneous and evoked signaling. Traditionally thought to share the same origin, these two forms of communication actually emerge from distinct sites, each following its own developmental path.

This shows AI representations of neurons.

Featured Neuroscience

·June 2, 2025·6 min read

Inhibitory Neurons May Hold the Key to Spatial Learning and Memory

A new study explores how the brain quickly learns and remembers important locations by focusing not on excitatory neurons, but on inhibitory ones called parvalbumin interneurons (PVs). These PVs act like circuit breakers, briefly reducing their activity to allow learning-related neurons to strengthen connections. Using optogenetics and virtual reality mazes in mice, researchers found that learning was blocked when PV inhibition didn’t decrease at the right time.

Featured Neuroscience

·May 27, 2025·3 min read

Amygdala Shapes Social Choices in Song-Learning Young Birds

Young zebra finches learn their birdsong by observing and imitating adult "tutor" birds, but they don’t follow just anyone. A new study shows that juvenile finches prefer tutors who sing longer but less often, suggesting social cues guide their choices.