Although the human brain remains a great unknown, little by little scientists are unraveling the mysteries of our mind. A team from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, has discovered a molecule in the absence of which the memory of mammals multiplies.
Maternal cuddling during infancy can help today's children "resist" the temptation to use drugs and other addictive substances when they reach adulthood. This is what is deduced from a study carried out by Duke University (USA) and the University of Adelaide (Australia) and published in 'The Journal of Neuroscience'.
Who hasn't ever been frustrated having to talk to an answering machine? A new computer system is able to detect whether your interlocutor is bored or fed up, so that it can tailor its response to the person's mood.
"Where is Vicente going? Where are people going". With this popular phrase, the Spanish proverb picks up one of the principles that governs collective behavior, since social animals focus on how others behave to make certain decisions. Scientists from the Cajal Institute (CSIC) have deduced for the first time a mathematical equation for collective behavior.
A study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA) has identified new differences in the brains of psychopaths that could explain their antisocial behavior. Specifically, researchers have found that in these subjects there are fewer connections between neurons in the prefrontal ventromedial cortex, the part of the brain responsible for feelings such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which regulates fear and anxiety.
A study from the University of California (USA) published in the journal Current Biology reveals that while we dream, our brain chemistry of stress is deactivated and the brain processes emotional experiences to "erase" painful or unpleasant emotions stored in memory. This is deduced in a series of experiments carried out using magnetic resonance imaging. According to the authors, the finding offers a new explanation for why we dream.
A person with normal reading ability can read a word incredibly fast, in less than a second. This is because on the first reading of a word, the brain encodes it visually and phonetically. But when the term is learned, it is recognized only visually, as if it were an object without a sound part.
The intelligence quotient (IQ), the standard that measures a person's intelligence, can increase or decrease during adolescence, according to a study by University College London published in the journal Nature. This is the first study to reveal that this value is not constant throughout life.
Danni Büchner is invited to Sam Dylan's Halloween party. But the "Goodbye Germany" emigrant has no desire for many other party guests. And find clear words.
