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When you learn math, you do better on math tests - makes sense, right? But how does learning math change how the brain responds to math problems? If students are struggling with math, how does their brain activity change when they take part in tutoring?
Read MoreDeepMind outperforms other AI models and performs impressive feats - but what exactly is it trying to do? Why are brains so good at adapting to new situations and learning from experiences?
Read MoreHave you ever wondered how singers like Adele and Beyonce are able to hit high and low notes with such flexibility and accuracy? Recently, a group of scientists at UCLA set out to investigate this very question. Read on to learn how our brains support our incredible ability to modulate the pitch of our voice during speech and song.
Read MoreWhen asked to imagine an alien, you might conjure up something with a large head, big eyes, and maybe some tentacles. But this description also fits a creature that lives here on earth, the octopus! In spite of our obvious differences, humans and octopuses may have some important features in common, such as how our brains allow us to socialize!
Read MoreEven during everyday interactions, our brains are hard at work. For example, how amazing is it that we can tune out our own voice, footsteps, or musical instrument so as to better hear sounds from other people? Read on to discover how the brain performs this incredible feat!
Read MoreWhen immediate early genes were first described in 1984, they were thought to be yet another set of proteins involved in the cell cycle. Recent research, however, suggests that these regulatory proteins may hold the key to understanding how the hippocampus forms and stores memories.
Read MoreNeuroscience dogma holds that neurons communicate to each other for electrical signals. However, one team of scientists believe that they may pass “notes” made of RNA to their neighbors, as well. Their findings could impact the way we think about how the brain creates and stores memories.
Read MoreNeuroscientists have a dizzying array of methods to listen in on hundreds or even thousands of neurons in the brain and have even developed tools to manipulate the activity of individual cells. Will this unprecedented access to the brain allow us to finally crack the mystery of how it works? Here we revisit a 2017 paper claiming that modern neuroscience approaches wouldn’t even allow us to understand the simplest “brain” (a microprocessor) and we re-evaluate that critique in the context of some exciting new research.
Read MoreThere are many ways for your brain to let your arm know it’s time to move. Just as verbal languages have different phrases that mean the same thing, the neural language also has groups of phrases that are thought to be redundant. Jay Hennig and his colleagues use a brain computer interface to try to understand the guiding principles for how neurons choose a specific phrase given so many equivalent options.
Read MoreThere are over 300 million people living with depression in the world, yet our biological understanding of depression and our ability to treat it remains woefully inadequate. Recently, a new drug has come into the spotlight as a potential solution to this need—ketamine. Dr. Hailan Hu and her colleagues try to shed light on the mechanism by which ketamine could alleviate symptoms of depression.
Read MoreHome of NeuWrite West and the Stanford Neuroblog.
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