Latest

cognition

Featured Neuroscience

·June 3, 2026·10 min read

Octopuses Can Use Mirrors to Find Food

Octopuses can utilize mirrors to navigate and locate objects outside their direct line of sight.

Featured Neuroscience

·June 3, 2026·11 min read

Why the Brain Doesn’t Need Choices to Generate Intent

A new study rejects the traditional "sandwich model" which defines decision-making as a discrete cognitive step between perception and action.

This shows a person looking over an ocean.

Featured Neuroscience

·May 29, 2026·12 min read

Why Willpower Fails and How to Restore Focus

A new neurobiological framework reveals that the constant bombardment of digital notifications exploits our evolutionary dopamine pathways, making effortful focus increasingly difficult to sustain.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·May 28, 2026·9 min read

Toggling Embodied Cognition via the Rubber Hand Illusion

Utilizing the classic "rubber hand illusion," researchers discovered that participants who scored low on scales of identity clarity and stability were highly vulnerable to the sensory trick, attempting to absorb the fake hand into their self-concept even when visual and tactile stimuli were completely out of sync.

Featured Neuroscience

·May 27, 2026·215 min read

Teenage Lipid Dysfunction May Slow Brain Processing Speed

Blood markers of dysfunctional lipid metabolism are directly associated with poorer cognitive function in 15–17-year-olds.

Featured Neuroscience

·May 25, 2026·8 min read

Laughter Rewires Brain Architecture and Lowers Cognitive Load

Can laughter and play do their most brilliant work at a molecular level to accelerate human learning? A new developmental study reveals that laughter is a complex biological phenomenon that fundamentally rewires early brain architecture.

Neuroscience

·May 23, 2026·12 min read

Brain Region Discovered for Abstract Thought

A new study provides the first direct neural evidence of "compositional generalization," the cognitive capacity to recombine familiar elements into novel ideas.

Featured Neuroscience

·May 18, 2026·7 min read

Thinking Longer Leads to Worse Decisions

Does overthinking ruin strategic execution? A behavioral economics study demonstrates that faster decisions in professional chess are linked to higher decision-making quality.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·May 14, 2026·7 min read

Childhood Adversity Blunts the Social Benefits of Intelligence

We often assume that a higher IQ leads to better social outcomes, like being more trusting and cooperative. But new research suggests that your childhood environment might be the "volume knob" for that advantage.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·May 11, 2026·8 min read

Decoding the Metabolic Roots of Bipolar Disorder

New research identifies a specific pathway where insulin resistance leads to gray matter loss and cognitive impairment in BD patients, but not those with Major Depression. This discovery opens the door for personalized treatments, such as GLP-1 agonists, to target the metabolic roots of cognitive decline.

This shows the outline of two heads and a brain.

Featured Neuroscience

·May 11, 2026·6 min read

How the Brain Dampens Losses to Support Mental Toughness

Psychologically resilient people place less value on minor losses. This bias is driven by heightened prefrontal brain activity that helps regulate negative emotions, providing a potential neural target for training mental toughness.

This shows the outline of two people and brains.

Featured Neurology Neuroscience

·May 9, 2026·8 min read

Reducing Visceral Fat Protects the Brain for Decades

A landmark 16-year MRI study identified cumulative abdominal fat as a specific, modifiable risk factor for brain atrophy. The findings demonstrate that sustained reductions in visceral fat, mediated by better glucose control, are essential for preserving hippocampal volume and cognitive function in late midlife, independent of total weight loss.