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empathy

·October 28, 2026·5 min read

Why Some People Love Hugs While Others Hate Them

Why do some hugs stay with us while others fade away? A survey of more than 15,000 UK adults published in PLOS One shows that 70% remember hugs for comfort, with empathy, relationship attachment styles, and body perception dictating how touch is stored in memory.

This shows the outline of two heads and swirls where brains should be.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·October 27, 2026·5 min read

How Ego and Self-Image Change Brain Sync

Why do some individuals struggle with genuine empathy? Brain scans show that people with high grandiose traits fail to synchronize their brain activity with others when watching someone lose face or experience social vulnerability.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·October 19, 2026·5 min read

Four Paths the Brain Takes After Trauma

A 6-month study of 1,035 adults reveals four distinct trauma trajectories, showing symptom tracking predicts PTSD far better than single mental health checks.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·October 14, 2026·6 min read

Reading Fiction Can Rewire Real-World Forgiveness and Empathy

A study of 1,563 people reveals that reading a character's private remorse fosters empathy that helps readers forgive real-world offenders.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·July 2, 2026·13 min read

Rats Display Genuine Empathy

Researchers utilized past behavioral experiments to demonstrate that rats display flexible, other-oriented helping behavior, successfully audits rodents against a novel 5-dimensional framework, confirming they possess a gradgrad "profile" of empathy, even if it lacks the mental-state mapping seen in humans.

This shows a person holding another upset person, comforting them.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·June 29, 2026·10 min read

Comforting Others Is a Cultural Trait, Not a Universal Instinct

Comforting others is a culturally bounded motive rather than a universal human instinct. While individualistic societies actively try to eliminate a peer's distress to foster intimacy, collectivistic cultures accommodate negative emotions, viewing them as vital instruments for self-reflection and relationship cohesion.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·June 29, 2026·8 min read

Adolescent Social Isolation Permanently Blunts Adult Empathy

A brief two-week period of social isolation during adolescence permanently destroys an animal's adult capacity to sense emotional distress in peers and perform consolation grooming. This socio-emotional blindness persists despite later re-socialization, whereas adult isolation leaves emotional discrimination fully intact.

Featured Neuroscience

·March 6, 2026·8 min read

Brain’s Parenting Hub Redirects Care Toward Peers

New research reveals that our drive to help others is powered by the same brain circuits used for parenting.

This shows people in a circle all holding hands.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·March 3, 2026·6 min read

Why Our Bodies Synchronize During Social Interaction

A new review reveals that our hearts and bodies literally "align" during social interactions, providing a biological foundation for empathy, teamwork, and trust.

This shows the outline of two people with their hands touching and oxytocin molecules floating around them.

Featured Neuroscience

·September 16, 2025·3 min read

Oxytocin Fuels Reciprocity and Empathy

Researchers developed a fully automated cooperation task showing that rats engage in true reciprocity, not just mutual benefit. Social interaction enhanced success, while dampened interaction reduced cooperative performance.

Featured Neuroscience

·August 28, 2025·5 min read

Immune Cells Found to Shape Teen Brain Circuits

Adolescence is a critical period for the brain’s frontal cortex, where executive functions mature and vulnerabilities to psychiatric disorders emerge. A new study shows that microglia, the brain’s immune cells, directly shape dopamine circuits during this time by strengthening axonal connections.

This shows a brain with glowing neurons and people surrounding it.

Featured Neuroscience

·August 26, 2025·4 min read

Tiny Neurons Shape Empathy and Social Memory

A new study shows that specific brain cells called PV interneurons play a crucial role in social decision-making and empathy. When researchers suppressed these neurons in mice, the animals stopped differentiating between familiar and unfamiliar peers and failed to show preference for distressed companions.