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movement

·November 10, 2025·3 min read

Why the Brain Struggles to Switch Between Learned Motor Skills

A new study shows that people often struggle to switch between familiar motor skills and newly learned movement patterns, leading to predictable errors. Volunteers tended to stick with the previous movement strategy even when instructed to switch, revealing how deeply motor habits persist.

Featured Neuroscience

·September 11, 2025·6 min read

Octopus Arms Inspire Next-Gen Robots with Unmatched Flexibility

Researchers have compiled the first complete catalog of octopus arm movements from 25 wild octopuses filmed in their natural habitats. The study revealed 12 types of arm motions, including elongation, shortening, bending, and probing, with specific regions of the arm specialized for certain actions.

This shows a brain and a pair of hands holding a tool.

Featured Neuroscience

·August 19, 2025·6 min read

How the Brain Constructs Human Tool-Using Abilities

New research shows that the brain organizes hand movements using a kind of “action alphabet” stored in the supramarginal gyrus. This brain region builds complex actions like turning a key or using scissors by recombining small sets of basic movement patterns, or kinematic synergies.

This shows a person standing still and others moving.

Featured Neuroscience

·July 17, 2025·7 min read

Motion is Your Signature: How Dynamic Cues Reveal Identity

New research highlights the critical role of dynamic motion in recognizing familiar people, beyond static facial or body features. Faces, voices, and body movements each carry unique, idiosyncratic motion patterns — or “dynamic fingerprints” — that help perceivers identify individuals, even under challenging conditions.

Featured Neuroscience

·July 16, 2025·5 min read

Running the Clock: Attention and Movement Skew Time Perception

A new study shows that the way we move our bodies can warp our sense of time — not just because of physical exertion, but because of the cognitive demands of motor control. Researchers found that participants overestimated stimulus durations while running, walking backward, or performing a distracting mental task, compared to standing still.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·June 11, 2025·4 min read

How Serotonin Circuits Learn from Motion to Regulate Behavior

Scientists have uncovered how serotonergic neurons in larval zebrafish process visual information tied to movement to determine when and how much serotonin to release. This neuromodulator fine-tunes the fish’s swimming effort, adjusting behavior based on the effectiveness of past actions.

Featured Neuroscience

·May 28, 2025·6 min read

Brain Neurons Act Like Traffic Lights to Control Every Move

New research reveals that neurons in the basal ganglia not only initiate movement but also suppress it with remarkable precision, challenging the traditional view that they merely act as a brake. Scientists studying mice found that individual neurons in the Substantia Nigra pars reticulata (SNr) switch dynamically between activation and inhibition based on the phase of a movement.

Autism Featured Neuroscience

·May 6, 2025·4 min read

Finger Movements Offer New Clues for Autism Detection

Subtle hand movements during grasping tasks may help diagnose autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with high accuracy. Using machine learning, researchers analyzed how autistic and non-autistic individuals used their fingers to grasp objects, achieving approximately 85% classification accuracy.

Featured Neuroscience

·February 27, 2025·5 min read

Research Rewrites Striatum’s Role in Action and Movement

A new study challenges the long-held belief that the striatum is responsible for selecting actions. Researchers found that instead of making decisions, the striatum and motor cortex work together to specify movement details, such as how to reach for an object.

Featured Neuroscience

·February 11, 2025·5 min read

The Urge to Move to Music Is Hardwired

A new study finds that the urge to move to music—known as groove—is a distinct physiological response, separate from musical enjoyment. Researchers examined individuals with musical anhedonia, who feel little or no pleasure from music, and found they still had a strong urge to move when listening to rhythmic beats. Participants rated how much pleasure they experienced and how much the music made them want to move, revealing that movement itself may generate pleasure for those with anhedonia.

This is an AI rendition of macrophages in muscle tissue.

Featured Neuroscience

·December 4, 2024·5 min read

Immune Cells Modulate Movement and Energy

Macrophages, immune cells typically known for fighting infections, have been discovered to play a vital role in controlling movement and linking neural activity with metabolic demands. Located in muscle spindles, these cells modulate neural activity using glutamate signaling, fine-tune muscle contractions, and optimize energy use during physical activity.

Featured Neuroscience

·October 23, 2024·6 min read

Neural Pathways Link Dopamine to Movement and Motivation

Researchers have discovered two new brain pathways that modify movement and emotional decisions by controlling dopamine release. These pathways, found in the striatum, either stimulate or inhibit dopamine-producing neurons, influencing the go and no-go pathways that control movement.