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movement

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.

Featured Neuroscience

·October 3, 2024·4 min read

AI Model Predicts Complex Animal Movements

Scientists have developed a highly accurate model simulating animal movements, using the nematode worm C. elegans as a base. This model captures both predictable and random behaviors, with applications in medicine and robotics.

Featured Neuroscience

·September 26, 2024·7 min read

How Reflexes Shape Smooth Movement

Researchers have uncovered how the spinal cord helps modulate reflexes to allow for smooth, voluntary movements. Using simulations, the study shows how circuits within the spinal cord regulate stretch reflexes, preventing disruptions during skilled movements like reaching.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·July 3, 2024·5 min read

AI Decodes Emotion Through Movements

A new methodology developed by an international research team uses motion capture and the EMOKINE software to decode emotions from movements. The team recorded a dancer performing choreographies expressing various emotions and analyzed the kinematic features of her movements.

Featured Neuroscience

·June 12, 2024·7 min read

How Brain Maps Memories Without Movement

Mental maps in the brain are activated when thinking about sequences of experiences, even without physical movement. In an animal study, they found that the entorhinal cortex harbors a cognitive map of experiences, which is activated during mental simulation. This is the first study to show the cellular basis of mental simulation in a nonspatial domain. The findings could enhance our understanding of brain function and memory formation.

Featured Neuroscience

·April 30, 2024·5 min read

Robot Masters Terrain with Animal-Like Gait Transitions

Researchers leveraged deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to enable a robot to adaptively switch gaits, mimicking animal movements like trotting and pronking, to traverse complex terrains effectively. Their study explores the concept of viability—or fall prevention—as a primary motivator for such gait transitions, challenging previous beliefs that energy efficiency is the key driver.