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Open Neuroscience Articles

Open access neuroscience articles are research articles that use at least one open access research paper as a reference. Open access articles are free for anyone to read.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·May 29, 2025·4 min read

How Personality and Family Shape Athletic Self-Perception

A new study of Japanese undergraduates finds that students' perceptions of their own athletic ability are shaped by a mix of personality traits, childhood environment, and social feedback. Those who rated themselves as more athletic also tended to display grit, resilience, and a growth mindset. Factors like early walking age, athletic parents, frequent sports participation, and being called athletic by others were also linked to higher self-ratings.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Visual Neuroscience

·May 20, 2025·4 min read

Color Knowledge Tied to Language-Visual Brain Circuitry

A new study shows that our ability to recall details about familiar objects—like a banana’s typical color—depends on strong connections between visual and language-processing areas of the brain. Researchers found that stroke patients with disrupted neural pathways between these regions had weaker object-color knowledge and altered brain activity.

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Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·May 8, 2025·5 min read

People Prefer to Empathize With Groups Over Individuals

People are more likely to choose to empathize with groups rather than individuals, even though they find empathizing equally difficult in both scenarios. Using a card-based empathy selection task, participants opted to empathize 53% of the time when shown groups, versus just 34% for individuals. Researchers suggest that groups provide more contextual information, making empathizing feel more intuitive or meaningful.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·May 5, 2025·5 min read

Out-of-Body Experiences Offer New Clues About Consciousness

Out-of-body experiences (OBEs) are often dismissed as hallucinations or brain malfunctions, but a new study gives voice to those who have lived them. Through in-depth interviews, participants described their OBEs as vivid, often peaceful, and undeniably real—sometimes more real than waking life.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·April 18, 2025·5 min read

How Intent Shapes Perception of Action

A groundbreaking study used a brain-machine interface to explore how intentions, actions, and their outcomes are temporally linked in the human brain. By recording single-neuron activity from a paralyzed individual with implanted electrodes, researchers enabled intentional hand movement through machine-learning-driven muscle stimulation.

This shows a person sticking out their tongue and neurons.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·April 10, 2025·5 min read

Purkinje Cells Control Tongue Precision in Skilled Movements

Researchers studying marmosets discovered that Purkinje cells in the cerebellum help regulate tongue movement by signaling when to stop as the tongue nears its target. These cells were highly engaged during precision tasks, like inserting the tongue into narrow tubes, but not during casual grooming.

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Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·April 9, 2025·4 min read

How the Brain Separates Touch We Choose vs. Touch We Receive

Touch is a vital sense, yet the brain processes active and passive touch using distinct pathways. In mice, researchers found that different regions of the thalamus—the brain’s sensory hub—respond uniquely depending on whether the animal actively explored with its whiskers or passively received a touch.

Autism Featured Genetics Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·April 1, 2025·4 min read

Protein Imbalance Triggers Autism-Like Behavior

A new study reveals that autism-like symptoms in mice emerge when two nerve proteins—MDGA2 and BDNF—fall out of balance. MDGA2 typically keeps BDNF/TrkB signaling in check, but when MDGA2 levels drop, heightened neuronal activity and social impairments occur.

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Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·March 29, 2025·5 min read

Why Simply Putting Away Your Phone Won’t Help You Focus

A new study reveals that placing your smartphone out of reach doesn’t significantly reduce distraction or boost productivity. While participants used their phones less when they were farther away, they simply shifted their attention to other devices like laptops. The core issue isn’t the phone itself but the deeply ingrained habits and routines we’ve built around it. Smartphones remain the preferred tool for distraction due to their multifunctionality, portability, and tactile design.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·March 21, 2025·4 min read

Sleep-Deprived Fruit Flies Show Sharper Memory via PKA Signaling

Fruit flies with genetic mutations that severely reduce sleep show enhanced performance in olfactory memory tasks, challenging assumptions about sleep’s role in cognition. This paradox appears to be driven by increased protein kinase A (PKA) signaling in the mushroom body, a brain region responsible for memory and sleep regulation.

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Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·February 18, 2025·4 min read

Depression Speeds Up Physical Illness

Adults with a history of depression develop long-term physical conditions about 30% faster than those without, according to a large study. Researchers analyzed data from over 172,000 participants and found that those with depression accrued an average of 0.2 additional conditions per year, compared to 0.16 in those without.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·February 12, 2025·5 min read

AI vs. Human Therapists: Study Finds ChatGPT Responses Rated Higher

A new study suggests that ChatGPT’s responses in psychotherapy scenarios are often rated higher than those written by human therapists. Researchers found that participants struggled to distinguish between AI-generated and therapist-written responses in couple’s therapy vignettes.