brain

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) captures coarse, colorful snapshots of the brain in action. While this specialized type of magnetic resonance imaging has transformed cognitive neuroscience, it isn’t a mind-reading machine: neuroscientists can’t look at a brain scan and tell what someone was seeing, hearing or thinking in the scanner. But gradually scientists are pushing against that fundamental barrier to translate internal experiences into words using brain imaging. This technology could help people who…

The researchers also showed the participants short Pixar videos that didn’t contain any dialogue, and recorded their brain responses in a separate experiment designed to test whether the decoder was able to recover the general content of what the user was watching. It turned out that it was. Romain Brette, a theoretical neuroscientist at the Vision Institute in Paris who was not involved in the experiment, is not wholly convinced by the technology’s efficacy at this stage. “The way the algorithm works is basically that…

Image: 1st footage (Shutterstock) Instagram is Testing Adding Songs to Your ProfileSocial media can be mentally draining. And when mentally drained, you are more likely to be influenced by a high number of likes on posts – even to the point of clicking on ads for products you don’t need or want – according to our recent experiments on how social media affects behavior.As a professor of advertising, I have studied social media behavior for years. In late 2022, my colleague Eric Haley and I conducted three online studies on…

A recent study discovered that long-term musical training can counteract age-related decline in audiovisual speech-in-noise perception by preserving youth-like brain activity and promoting functional compensation. The research highlights how musical training supports successful aging in speech processing and suggests potential avenues for targeted training regimens to protect speech functions in the elderly.The unprecedented aging of the world’s population is leading to various forms of cognitive decline, which presents a…

When it comes to fighting the deadly brain cancer known as glioblastoma, options are very much limited. This led a Canadian research team to take a novel approach. They tricked cancer cells into taking up carbon nanotubes, and they then shredded those cells by spinning the tubes using magnetic force. The treatment in mice shrunk tumor size and extended the rodents' lives, a finding that has the researchers hopeful for a similar result in humans.Glioblastoma tumors grow quickly, invade local brain tissue, and develop…

UK researchers have, for the first time, identified a genetic pathway in the brain that plays a key role in controlling anxiety, opening the door to the development of more effective treatments in the future.One in four people will be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder at least once in their lifetime, often presenting as repeated episodes of sudden feelings of intense anxiety, fear or terror that peak within minutes.It’s known that severe psychological trauma triggers genetic, biochemical, and structural changes in a part…

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have developed a novel hydrogel that has successfully cured 100% of mice with aggressive brain cancer, specifically glioblastoma. The hydrogel combines an anticancer drug and an antibody, and is applied to the brain after the surgical removal of a tumor. This treatment reaches areas that surgery might miss and current drugs struggle to access, killing lingering cancer cells and suppressing tumor growth. The gel also seems to activate an immune response, helping the body fight…

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have found that mild concussions can cause long-lasting effects on the brain, altering how brain regions communicate with each other and potentially leading to long-term symptoms such as fatigue and cognitive impairment. Despite a lack of obvious structural damage in routine brain scans, the study revealed that the thalamus, the brain’s relay system, becomes hyperconnected following a concussion. This overcompensation may be the cause of persistent symptoms experienced by…

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University have developed a treatment that could provide new hope for aggressive brain cancers. Injecting a drug-laden hydrogel into the brain after tumors have been surgically removed was found to launch a combined chemo- and immunotherapy attack that prevented the cancer from returning in 100% of treated mice.Glioblastoma is one of the most common and, unfortunately, deadly brain cancers in humans. Surgery to remove it is usually the best treatment option, but frustratingly the cancer tends…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Social media can be mentally draining. And when mentally drained, you are more likely to be influenced by a high number of likes on posts—even to the point of clicking on ads for products you don't need or want—according to our recent experiments on how social media affects behavior. As a professor…