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This shows the outline of a head and brain. Behind are two people fighting.

·September 8, 2025·2 min read

Aggression Is Contagious: Observing Violence Primes the Brain for Aggression

A new study shows that observing violence can make individuals more likely to act aggressively later, but the effect depends on familiarity. Male mice who watched familiar peers attack others became more violent afterward, driven by amygdala neurons that “prime” aggression.

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Featured Neuroscience

·September 8, 2025·2 min read

Your Red Is My Red: Shared Brain Codes for Color

Human brains share common patterns of activity when perceiving colors, suggesting universal neural coding of color. Researchers compared brain responses from one group of participants to predict what colors another group was viewing, finding high accuracy in decoding both color and brightness.

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Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·September 1, 2025·2 min read

Depression Disrupts Learning to Avoid Unpleasant Events

Depression specifically impairs the ability to learn how to actively avoid unpleasant events, though it does not affect avoidance behavior once learned. Researchers tested 465 participants across a range of depressive symptoms in a task adapted from rodent research, involving sounds and visual cues.

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Featured Neurology Neuroscience

·August 26, 2025·3 min read

Elderly Positivity Bias May Signal Early Cognitive Decline

New research suggests that the tendency of older adults to misinterpret neutral or negative emotions as positive may be a warning sign of cognitive decline. In a study of 665 participants, positivity bias was associated with poorer cognitive performance but not with emotional decline such as depression.

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Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·August 25, 2025·3 min read

Brain Activity Pattern Linked to Self-Preoccupation and Anxiety

A new study identifies a brain activity pattern that signals self-preoccupied thinking, a trait associated with anxiety and depression. In experiments, the pattern appeared during mental breaks and predicted when people would soon turn their thoughts inward.

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Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·August 18, 2025·2 min read

Brain’s Inner Compass Reveals How We Navigate Cityscapes

A new study used virtual reality taxi driving tasks to uncover how the brain maintains a sense of direction in naturalistic environments. Neuroimaging showed that two brain regions consistently tracked forward-facing direction, even when visual features, task phases, and city layouts varied.

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Featured Neuroscience

·August 11, 2025·3 min read

Oxytocin’s Social Boost Depends on Motivation

A new study reveals that oxytocin’s ability to enhance social behavior depends heavily on the recipient’s motivation. In rhesus monkeys, the hormone boosted and sustained social decision-making only when the animals were already inclined toward social engagement.

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Featured Neuroscience Pain Psychology

·July 28, 2025·3 min read

What You Expect Shapes How Much Pain You Feel

A new brain imaging study reveals that how people expect pain relief—through visual cues or treatment explanations—can significantly influence how much pain they actually feel. External cues, like symbols signaling less pain, consistently reduced pain perception and altered brain regions tied to pain processing. In contrast, expectations based on treatment information were less consistent and instead activated brain areas involved in evaluation and meaning.

Featured Neuroscience

·July 21, 2025·3 min read

Right-Sided Brain Pathway Linked to Social Dominance

A new study uncovers how brain anatomy relates to social dominance in primates. Researchers found that the uncinate fasciculus, a tract tied to emotion and memory, strongly correlated with dominance behaviors in squirrel monkeys. This link was especially pronounced in the right hemisphere, aligning with human findings on social aggression.

Featured Neuroscience

·July 14, 2025·3 min read

Friendship Synchronizes Brains

A new study reveals that close friendships can synchronize brain activity and influence decision-making, particularly in consumer behavior. Researchers found that friends evaluated products more similarly than strangers, with this effect strengthening as friendships deepened.

Featured Neuroscience

·July 7, 2025·1 min read

Positive Emotions Boost Memory

A new study shows that positive emotions can enhance memory, even for meaningless information. Researchers recorded brain activity as participants viewed neutral squiggles paired with positive, neutral, or negative emotional images.

Featured Neuroscience

·July 1, 2025·3 min read

Aging Brain May Adapt to Decode Tricky Social Cues

New research shows that older adults may compensate for age-related cognitive decline by enhancing activity in a specific brain region linked to attention—the locus coeruleus (LC). In a brain imaging study, older participants showed stronger LC responses when interpreting ambiguous facial expressions, compared to younger adults.