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Auditory Neuroscience Featured Neuroscience

·January 31, 2025·6 min read

Ancient Ear Muscles Reactivate When We Struggle to Listen

Humans have vestigial ear muscles that once helped our ancestors focus on sounds. New research shows these muscles still activate when we strain to hear in noisy environments. Scientists used electromyography to measure auricular muscle activity in people listening to an audiobook with distracting background noise.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·January 17, 2025·6 min read

Do Accents Influence Guilt Perceptions?

Accents influence perceptions of guilt, with those judged as "lower status" being considered more likely to commit crimes. Researchers analyzed responses from 180 participants who rated voices from 10 UK accents on social traits and likelihood of certain behaviors, including crimes.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·October 13, 2024·5 min read

Teen Friendships Shape Long-Term Wellbeing

New research reveals that teenage friendships lay crucial foundations for adult wellbeing, with the timing and nature of these friendships playing a pivotal role. Early adolescence social acceptance is linked to better adult mental health, while close friendships in later teens impact job satisfaction and romantic stability.

This shows an older woman, a clock, and DNA.

Featured Genetics Neuroscience

·October 1, 2024·5 min read

Cheek Swab Test Predicts Aging and Mortality Risk

Researchers have developed a second-generation epigenetic clock called CheekAge, which accurately predicts mortality risk using cheek cell samples. Unlike earlier clocks based on blood samples, CheekAge is non-invasive and captures methylation patterns linked to aging and lifespan.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·September 6, 2024·6 min read

Robot Deception: Some Lies Accepted, Others Rejected

A new study examined how humans perceive different types of deception by robots, revealing that people accept some lies more than others. Researchers presented nearly 500 participants with scenarios where robots engaged in external, hidden, and superficial deceptions in medical, cleaning, and retail settings. Participants disapproved most of hidden deceptions, such as a cleaning robot secretly filming, while external lies, like sparing a patient from emotional pain, were viewed more favorably.

Featured Neurology Neuroscience

·September 6, 2024·3 min read

Nighttime Light Pollution Linked to Higher Alzheimer’s Risk

A recent study has found a positive correlation between nighttime light pollution and the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in the United States. Researchers discovered that higher levels of light at night are associated with increased AD rates, particularly among individuals under the age of 65.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·June 28, 2024·4 min read

Digital Devices Hinder Kids’ Emotional Regulation Development

A new study reveals that using digital devices to manage children's tantrums hampers their ability to regulate emotions later in life. Researchers found that frequent use of tablets or smartphones for calming children results in poorer anger management skills.

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Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·June 11, 2024·5 min read

Age Alters How We Navigate New Environments

Middle-aged adults explore new environments less thoroughly than younger individuals, prioritizing key locations over overall layout. Using virtual reality, the study observed significant differences in exploration and navigation behaviors between age groups.

Auditory Neuroscience Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·May 22, 2024·6 min read

Bilingual Babies’ Brains Adapt Early

Newborns exposed to multiple languages before birth show distinct brain responses to speech sounds. Unlike monolingual babies who are more attuned to a specific language's pitch, bilingual babies show greater sensitivity to a wider range of sounds. This study highlights the impact of prenatal linguistic environments on early brain development and sound processing.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·May 21, 2024·5 min read

Parental Distraction Negatively Impacts Child-Parent Interactions

A new study finds that any form of parental distraction, whether from screens or non-digital activities, negatively impacts parent-child interaction. Both digital and non-digital distractions led to reduced parental sensitivity and child engagement. This suggests that it's not the screens themselves, but rather the divided attention, that hinders parent-child communication.

Featured Neurology Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·April 5, 2024·7 min read

Heart Preserved Over 24 Hours: New Hope for Transplant Patients

Groundbreaking research demonstrates a significant advancement in heart transplant preservation, enabling pig hearts to be kept alive for over 24 hours using normothermic ex-vivo heart perfusion (NEHP). This method, which maintains donor hearts in a near-physiological state, could revolutionize the transplantation field by extending the viability period far beyond the current six-hour window.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·March 28, 2024·4 min read

Dogs Sniffing Out PTSD

Dogs can be trained to detect stress-related volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in human breath, potentially identifying the onset of PTSD flashbacks. This groundbreaking study utilized two dogs to distinguish between the breath of individuals recalling traumatic experiences and control samples, achieving over 70% accuracy.