Summary: Researchers find that carefully designed music sessions can play a vital role in improving the lives of people whose speech is limited by conditions such as autism, brain injury, stroke, dementia and learning disabilities. Source: University of Plymouth. Tailored music sessions could transform life and communication for millions whose speech is affected by neurological … Read more

Brain regions tied to reward and pleasure are linked to the ability of the drug butorphanol to relieve itch, new research led by Gil Yosipovitch, MD, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Dermatology at Temple University School of Medicine and Director of the Temple Itch Center, finds. The study implicates opioid receptors in the … Read more

Summary: A new study finds that neurons in the prefrontal cortex treat each experience as novel, responding as if every event were unique even when it closely resembles past events. The authors suggest this neural coding may help explain sensations of déjà vu. Source: Medical University of Vienna Neuronal activity in the prefrontal cortex encodes … Read more

Summary: Neurons in the orbitofrontal cortex encode subjective values and their activity can directly influence which option is chosen. Source: WUSTL When you weigh two choices — for example, ice cream versus chocolate cake — groups of neurons just above the eyes become active as you assess the options. Animal research has shown that each … Read more

Repurposing an arthritis drug reversed toxic tau and rescued memory in a dementia model Researchers at the Gladstone Institutes report that salsalate, a long-used prescription drug for rheumatoid arthritis, reversed tau-driven dysfunction in an animal model of frontotemporal dementia (FTD). In their study, salsalate blocked a damaging chemical modification of the tau protein, reduced toxic … Read more

Summary: Children who play video games three or more hours per day showed stronger performance on cognitive tests of working memory and impulse control compared with children who do not play video games. Source: NIH A study of nearly 2,000 children found that those who reported playing video games for three hours per day or … Read more

Summary: Researchers review progress since the 2016 National Institutes of Health (NIH) policy requiring basic research to include sex as a biological variable. Their analysis highlights important advances in understanding sex differences in mood disorders and points toward priorities for future, more inclusive research that can inform personalized treatment approaches. The review emphasizes several consistent … Read more

Summary: A new model of attention explains how the human brain allocates limited perceptual resources to prioritize goal-relevant information in changing environments. Called “adaptive computation,” the model predicts which visual details people emphasize—such as a walk signal at an intersection rather than an eye-catching car—based on task demands. In controlled experiments that tracked attention to … Read more

Summary: People struggle to reliably tell human voices from AI-generated voices, correctly identifying them roughly half the time. Yet brain scans show distinct neural patterns: human voices engage regions tied to memory and empathy, while AI voices activate areas involved in error detection and focused attention. These results underscore both the sophistication of modern AI … Read more

Summary: Specialized neurons in the human hippocampus appear to encode moments in time, providing a neural basis for the “when” component of episodic memory. New findings show the human brain contains neurons that track temporal moments within an experience. Source: SfN Neurons in the hippocampus become active at particular moments during a task, according to … Read more