Enjoy a good scare? You’re not alone, according to a Kansas State University psychological sciences professor. For many people, Halloween is a night of candy, costumes and playful frights. Ghosts, ghouls and jump scares are part of the holiday’s appeal, and that element of fear can actually be beneficial, says Don Saucier, an associate professor … Read more

Summary: By using a rapid snap-freezing technique, researchers have captured and revealed the true ultrastructure of the connections—dendritic spines—that link neurons in the adult brain. Source: EPFL Most synaptic connections in the adult brain are located on dendritic spines—tiny micrometer-scale protrusions that extend from the neuron’s surface. The precise size and shape of these spines … Read more

Summary: Researchers have found that common cuttlefish can form false memories in a way that parallels humans. By exposing cuttlefish to events that shared overlapping visual and olfactory cues, scientists induced the animals to behave as if they remembered shrimp in a tube where no shrimp had been present. This work suggests cuttlefish reconstruct past … Read more

Early life stress alters a gene linked to GABA production, animal study shows Research published in the September issue of The Journal of Neuroscience indicates that early life stress can modify the GAD1 gene, a key regulator of the brain chemical GABA. Using a controlled animal model, scientists observed that rats deprived of maternal affection … Read more

Summary: Researchers at the University of California San Diego have created a new assessment tool, the San Diego Wisdom Scale (SD-WISE), to measure individual levels of wisdom. The scale is grounded in a neurobiological and psychosocial model and aims to capture distinct components of wisdom. Source: UCSD. UC San Diego researchers introduce the San Diego … Read more

Summary: New research indicates that imitation skills in young children with autism can help predict their later development of intentional, flexible speech. Source: University of Texas at Austin Nearly 30 percent of children with autism do not develop flexible spoken language by the end of elementary school. Pinpointing when and how to intervene in early … Read more

Summary: Researchers report that, on average, the hypothalamus is about five percent larger in people with mood disorders such as major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder compared with individuals without these conditions. Source: Max Planck Institute. Depression affects hundreds of millions globally. According to World Health Organization estimates for 2015, roughly 322 million people—about 4.4 … Read more

Summary: A new study reveals how social insect colonies withstand the violent upheaval that follows the loss of a queen. Focusing on tropical paper wasps (Polistes canadensis), researchers found that removing the queen sparks immediate social breakdown and aggressive fights as workers compete for reproductive dominance. Yet colonies often survive because a subset of peaceful … Read more

Summary: Researchers at the University of Missouri developed a new transgenic rat model that replicates key features of Alzheimer’s disease, including amyloid-β plaque accumulation and cerebrovascular changes, and can be used to study disease mechanisms and potential interventions. Source: University of Missouri Columbia. Alzheimer’s disease affects more than 5.5 million Americans and ranks among the … Read more

Summary: A recent study from NYU finds that ChatGPT’s healthcare-related responses are often indistinguishable from those provided by human healthcare professionals, suggesting chatbots may play a useful role in patient-provider communication. In a survey of 392 adults, participants reviewed a mix of responses written by human providers and generated by ChatGPT. Participants identified the source … Read more