Latest

brain research

Research articles and news stories tagged with brain research

Auditory Neuroscience Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·December 9, 2025·6 min read

Blinking Drops When We Strain to Hear Speech

People blink less when working harder to understand speech in noisy environments, suggesting that blinking is tightly linked to cognitive effort. Across two experiments, blink rates consistently dropped during key moments of listening, especially when background noise made speech difficult to process.

Featured Neuroscience

·December 9, 2025·7 min read

AI-Powered Bionic Hand Restores Natural, Intuitive Grasping Ability

A new study shows that integrating artificial intelligence with advanced proximity and pressure sensors allows a commercial bionic hand to grasp objects in a natural, intuitive way—reducing cognitive effort for amputees. By training an artificial neural network on grasping postures, each finger could independently “see” objects and automatically move into the correct position, improving grip security and precision.

Featured Genetics Neuroscience

·December 9, 2025·7 min read

Key Brain Protein Controls How We Learn Reward Cues

Changing levels of the brain protein KCC2 can alter how reward associations form, reshaping the learning process that links cues to outcomes. Reduced KCC2 activity increased dopamine neuron firing and strengthened new cue–reward connections, offering insight into how addictions and maladaptive habits develop.

This shows the outline of heads and newspapers.

Autism Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·December 9, 2025·6 min read

Reading Habits Predict Hidden Biases Toward Autism

A new study shows that the newspapers people read are strong predictors of their automatic, unconscious biases toward autism—even after accounting for age, education, political views, and personal experience. Readers of right-leaning tabloid outlets showed more negative automatic biases, reflecting the more stereotyped and less frequent coverage of autism in these publications.

This shows a map and the overlay of a person.

Featured Neuroscience

·December 9, 2025·6 min read

Insufficient Sleep Strongly Predicts Shorter Life Expectancy

A new nationwide analysis shows that getting fewer than seven hours of sleep a night is one of the strongest predictors of shorter life expectancy across U.S. counties. Sleep sufficiency outperformed other behavioral factors—including diet, exercise, and loneliness—with only smoking showing a stronger association.

Featured Neurology Neuroscience Pain

·December 8, 2025·4 min read

Nicotine Withdrawal Makes Smokers More Sensitive to Pain

A new study shows that abstinent smokers experience heightened pain sensitivity linked to altered activity in specific brain regions. Compared to nonsmokers, abstinent smokers required more postoperative pain relief—especially opioids—and their pain sensitivity increased the longer they remained nicotine-free.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·December 8, 2025·5 min read

PTSD Linked to Accelerated Brain Aging

A new study using advanced deep-learning brain age estimation shows that World Trade Center responders with PTSD exhibit signs of accelerated brain aging. Using BrainAgeNeXt, a model trained on more than 11,000 MRI scans, researchers found that responders with PTSD had “older” appearing brains than those without the disorder, especially among individuals with longer exposure at Ground Zero.

This shows a brain with computer components on it.

Featured Neuroscience

·December 8, 2025·5 min read

Brain Uses AI-Like Computations for Language

The human brain processes spoken language in a step-by-step sequence that closely matches how large language models transform text. Using electrocorticography recordings from people listening to a podcast, researchers found that early brain responses aligned with early AI layers, while deeper layers corresponded to later neural activity in regions such as Broca’s area.

This shows the outline of a child's head.

Featured Neuroscience

·December 8, 2025·6 min read

Extreme Heat Linked to Delays in Early Childhood Development

Young children exposed to unusually high temperatures are less likely to reach basic developmental milestones in literacy and numeracy. Analyzing data from over 19,000 children across multiple countries, the study found that average maximum temperatures above 86 °F were associated with measurable declines in early learning outcomes.

Featured Genetics Neurology Neuroscience

·December 6, 2025·7 min read

Blocking a Key Protein Greatly Reduces Alzheimer’s Damage

New findings show that removing Centaurin-α1, a protein elevated in Alzheimer’s disease, significantly reduces inflammation, plaque buildup, and cognitive deficits in a well-established mouse model. Eliminating this protein normalized several brain pathways, protected neural connections in the hippocampus, and improved spatial learning.

Featured Neuroscience

·December 5, 2025·6 min read

Why Memories Change: How the Brain Rewrites the Past

A new review explores how episodic memories are formed, stored, and reshaped over time, revealing why our recollections of past events often change. Rather than functioning like fixed files, memories consist of multiple components that can lie dormant until triggered by environmental cues.

Featured Genetics Neuroscience

·December 5, 2025·5 min read

Astrocytes Found to Drive Key Brain Changes in Nicotine Addiction

New research shows that astrocytes play an active role in nicotine-induced brain changes, challenging the long-held neuron-centered view of addiction. Nicotine stimulates receptors on astrocytes, triggering signaling cascades that boost glutamine synthetase activity and amplify glutamate-related pathways.

1 2 3 … 1,262

Subscribe