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prefrontal cortex

Featured Neuroscience

·October 19, 2020·3 min read

Happy Endings Trip up the Brain’s Decision-Making

How the brain represents and codes a pleasant outcome can have an impact on decision making.

Featured Neuroscience

·September 28, 2020·3 min read

How the Brain Balances Emotion and Reason

Area 32, a region of the anterior cingulate, balances activity from cognitive and emotional areas of the primate brain.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·September 24, 2020·4 min read

How the Human Brain Is So Resilient

Non-invasive brain stimulation technology may enhance the human system's ability for rapid and adaptive decision making.

Featured Psychology

·September 14, 2020·3 min read

Smartphones Can Predict Brain Function Associated With Anxiety and Depression

Data collected from smartphones can accurately predict connectivity between brain regions associated with emotional processing. Analyzing cellphone data, such as social activity, screen time, and location, alongside fMRI brain scans, researchers found smartphone data activity mirrors brain activity associated with depression and anxiety.

Featured Neuroscience

·September 11, 2020·5 min read

As Information Flows Through Brain’s Heirarchy, Higher Regions Use Higher Frequency Waves

Study provides new insight into how brain waves control the flow of information through the cortex.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·September 5, 2020·5 min read

New Discoveries on Decision-Making Process

Neuroimaging and computational neuroscience studies reveal different ways and brain areas implicated in decision making.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·August 31, 2020·4 min read

Researchers Discover a Specific Brain Circuit Damaged by Social Isolation During Childhood

Social isolation experienced during childhood has an impact on adult brain function and behavior. Following two weeks of social isolation immediately following weaning in male mice, researchers noticed a failure in activation of medial prefrontal cortex neurons projecting to the posterior paraventricular thalamus during social exposure in adulthood. Findings suggest medial prefrontal cortex neurons required for sociability are profoundly affected by social isolation at a young age.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·August 28, 2020·8 min read

Which OCD Treatment Works Best? New Brain Study Could Lead to More Personalized Choices

Neuroimaging predicts whether a person with OCD will respond to stress-reduction therapy or exposure-based therapy best. Analyzing brain activity may help to provide tailored treatments to individuals suffering from OCD.

Featured Neuroscience

·August 17, 2020·5 min read

How the Brain’s Internal States Affect Decision-Making

Animals slowly shift their likelihood of detecting stimulus changes over ten minutes. Researchers found the activity of neural populations from the V4 visual area and prefrontal cortex slowly drifted together with the behavioral fluctuations. The slow drift acts as an impulsivity signal.

Featured Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·August 3, 2020·5 min read

Experiencing Childhood Trauma Makes Body and Brain Age Faster

Children who experience early life adversity experience faster biological aging than children with no history of exposure to abuse. Trauma was associated with biological aging in early puberty, cellular aging, and alterations in brain structure. The findings may explain why children who experienced adversity early in life often suffer poor health as they age.

Featured Neuroscience

·July 28, 2020·4 min read

Your Brain on Birth Control

Oral contraceptive use is associated with blunted stress response and brain activity differences during working memory tasks in women who started using birth control during puberty. Early adulthood exposure to oral contraceptives was linked to significant structural changes in brain areas associated with memory and emotional processing.

This shows a male and female head with brains drawn on

Featured Neuroscience

·July 20, 2020·4 min read

Highly Reproducible Sex Differences in Aspects of Human Brain Anatomy

Analysis of over 2,000 brain scans revealed evidence of highly reproducible sex differences in the volume of different regions of the brain. On average, females had greater cortical volume in the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, superior temporal cortex, and lateral parietal cortex. Males had increased volume in the ventral temporal and occipital brain regions. Gene expression data suggest the potential role of sex chromosomes that contribute to the differences.