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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.

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·June 27, 2024·2 min read

Hypothalamus Key in Switching Between Survival Behaviors

The hypothalamus helps humans switch between survival behaviors like hunting and escaping. Researchers used AI-enhanced fMRI scans to analyze brain activity in 21 participants playing a survival game. They found distinct hypothalamus activity patterns linked to behavior switching. This discovery highlights the hypothalamus's crucial role in survival strategies.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·June 20, 2024·4 min read

Decision Speed Reveals Hidden Social Preferences

People can infer hidden social preferences by observing how quickly others make decisions. The study used the Dictator Game to show that decision speed, even without knowing the actual choices, can predict preferences. This finding challenges the notion that only choices reveal social preferences. Incorporating response times into predictive models offers a more nuanced understanding of human behavior.

This shows emoji faces and a person's hand.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·June 12, 2024·4 min read

Tactile Emoticons Boost Social Media Communication

Incorporating tactile emoticons into social media interactions enhances feelings of support and approval. Participants using a mock platform preferred receiving feedback through both visual and tactile cues over visual-only feedback. Tactile feedback, such as a stroke on the forearm, conveyed additional emotional context. The findings suggest touch can improve digital communication, informing future technology developments.

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Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·June 11, 2024·5 min read

Age Alters How We Navigate New Environments

Middle-aged adults explore new environments less thoroughly than younger individuals, prioritizing key locations over overall layout. Using virtual reality, the study observed significant differences in exploration and navigation behaviors between age groups.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·June 4, 2024·3 min read

Study Reveals Shifting Language in Mental Health Over 79 Years

A study of 340,000 texts over 79 years found a shift from terms like “disease” and “disturbance” to “mental health” and “psychiatric,” with “mental illness” now the most-used term. This evolution reflects growing recognition of mental health. The findings highlight the changing language in mental health discourse. Further research is needed to understand the impact of these terms on those experiencing mental ill health.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·June 4, 2024·2 min read

Internet Addiction Disrupts Adolescent Brain Networks

A new study reviewed neuroimaging research on internet addiction in adolescents, revealing disrupted brain signaling in critical neural networks. These disruptions affect attention, memory, coordination, and emotional processing, impacting mental health. The review highlights the need for more diverse studies to understand these effects fully.

This shows a person with a blindfold that says Not.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·May 30, 2024·4 min read

How ‘Not’ Changes Everything: Brain Interprets Negated Adjectives

Researchers found that negating adjectives with "not" affects how our brains interpret their meaning, mitigating rather than inverting their definition. In lab-based experiments, participants took longer to process phrases like "not bad" compared to "good" or "bad."

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·May 29, 2024·4 min read

Babies’ Squeals and Growls Show Early Vocal Practice Patterns

Infants' vocalizations, like squeals and growls, appear in significant clusters, suggesting active noisemaking play and sound practice. Researchers analyzed recordings from 130 infants and found 40% of squeals and growls clustered significantly.

Auditory Neuroscience Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·May 22, 2024·6 min read

Bilingual Babies’ Brains Adapt Early

Newborns exposed to multiple languages before birth show distinct brain responses to speech sounds. Unlike monolingual babies who are more attuned to a specific language's pitch, bilingual babies show greater sensitivity to a wider range of sounds. This study highlights the impact of prenatal linguistic environments on early brain development and sound processing.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·May 21, 2024·5 min read

Parental Distraction Negatively Impacts Child-Parent Interactions

A new study finds that any form of parental distraction, whether from screens or non-digital activities, negatively impacts parent-child interaction. Both digital and non-digital distractions led to reduced parental sensitivity and child engagement. This suggests that it's not the screens themselves, but rather the divided attention, that hinders parent-child communication.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·May 18, 2024·4 min read

Bird Brains: Jays Show Episodic-like Memory

A new study finds that Eurasian jays exhibit episodic-like memory, a type of memory previously thought to be unique to humans. The birds were able to remember incidental details of past events, such as the visual characteristics of cups used in a food-hiding experiment.

Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·May 16, 2024·2 min read

Stress May Boost Helping Behavior When Witnessing Injustice

A new study finds that acute stress experienced while witnessing injustice can make people more likely to help victims rather than punish offenders. This shift in behavior is linked to increased activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a brain region involved in decision-making. The findings suggest that helping others may be a more intuitive response than punishing them, especially under stress.