About a dozen years ago, researchers identified ghrelin as a hormone that stimulates appetite. Known as the “hunger hormone,” ghrelin quickly became a target for drug development aimed at treating obesity, though those efforts have not yet produced effective weight-loss therapies. New work by neuroscientists at MIT shows that ghrelin’s role extends well beyond appetite … Read more

Summary: Equipping robots with social reasoning can make human-robot interaction smoother and more predictable, say MIT researchers. Source: MIT Robots can already deliver food on campus or make precise physical moves, but they struggle with simple social interactions that people rely on every day. Researchers at MIT have designed a computational framework that adds social … Read more

Summary: Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania apply cryptographic methods to decode motor neuron activity and predict limb movements. Source: University of Pennsylvania. Breaking the German Enigma cipher was a pivotal achievement in World War II. By combining clues from espionage with analytical and computational techniques, codebreakers discovered rules that converted scrambled characters into readable … Read more

Summary: Linking simple, easy-to-overlook tasks to distinctive, attention-grabbing cues encountered at the right place and time can significantly improve follow-through, according to new research. Source: APS Many everyday tasks—paying a bill, taking laundry out of the dryer, or dropping off a donation—get forgotten despite our good intentions. New research published in Psychological Science shows that … Read more

Summary: Human capacity to interpret dogs’ facial expressions develops with age and experience and appears to be shaped by cultural exposure rather than by an evolved, species-specific ability. Source: Max Planck Institute Dogs were the first animals domesticated by humans, and for more than 40,000 years people and dogs have shared social lives and interactions. … Read more

Summary: A large New York State study found that pregnancy and the postpartum period up to six weeks after delivery are associated with an increased risk of stroke in younger women, while older pregnant women did not show a similar increase compared with nonpregnant women of the same age. Source: JAMA Neurology Key finding: Women … Read more

Summary: A single session of moderate exercise in healthy older adults increases activity in brain regions tied to memory and recall. Participants who exercised showed stronger activation in the temporal gyrus, fusiform gyrus and hippocampus, indicating enhanced semantic memory engagement shortly after exercise. Source: University of Maryland One Workout, Noticeable Changes: Acute Exercise Boosts Memory-Related … Read more

Summary: New research links more than twenty genes to suicide risk that appears across generations in families. Source: University of Utah Every 11 minutes an American dies by suicide—about 132 people a day and more than 48,000 each year. For bereaved families and clinicians, understanding why remains urgent. Family history is an important and increasingly … Read more

A new study examining fruit fly brains reveals a previously unrecognized stem cell mechanism that may illuminate how diverse neurons form in humans. The research by scientists at the University of Oregon was published online in Nature ahead of the June 27 issue. “The question we confronted was, ‘How does a single kind of stem … Read more

Summary: Results from a mouse study identify the specific neurons and peptide that drive the sneeze reflex. Source: WUSTL A tickle in the nose triggers sneezing to expel irritants and pathogens, but the cellular and molecular mechanisms behind this reflex extend beyond the sinuses and have been incompletely understood. Researchers at Washington University School of … Read more