Summary: New research shows that dogs have specialized brain networks that process human facial expressions. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and machine-learning analyses, scientists monitored the brains of awake pet dogs as they viewed photos of human faces showing happiness, anger, fear, and sadness. The study found that happy human faces preferentially activate a … Read more

Summary: Researchers have identified an unexpected role for the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Rather than always promoting behavioral flexibility, this brain region can sometimes hinder problem-solving by anchoring animals to a memory-driven default strategy — a “win-stay” habit that keeps mice returning to where they last found a pup instead of switching to a more … Read more

Summary: This review synthesizes evidence from 129 studies examining how exercise-induced muscle signaling protects against Parkinson’s disease (PD). It highlights the role of sarcopenia — the age-related loss of muscle mass, strength, and function — in worsening PD outcomes and explains how muscle-derived signaling molecules released during exercise can support brain health and slow disease … Read more

Summary: Researchers propose “apical hypercontextualisation,” a cellular-level neurobiological mechanism that explains how classical serotonergic psychedelics—such as psilocybin, LSD, DMT and mescaline—reshape perception, cognition and conscious experience. Moving beyond whole-brain neuroimaging, this framework focuses on the biophysics of layer V cortical pyramidal neurons, which concentrate serotonin 2A (5-HT2A) receptors along their apical dendrites and play a … Read more

Summary: Researchers have created a biologically grounded whole‑brain computer model that links microscopic molecular chemistry to macroscopic neural activity, demonstrating how regional differences in receptor density influence brain‑wide coordination and information flow. The team incorporated detailed, empirical maps of muscarinic acetylcholine receptor density across 68 cortical regions into The Virtual Brain (TVB) simulation platform, overlaying … Read more

Summary: Researchers have identified a concrete epigenetic mechanism that helps explain how early-life adversity permanently reshapes the brain’s stress-response systems. The study shows that childhood trauma raises levels of the enzyme SETD7 in dopamine-producing neurons of the ventral tegmental area (VTA), triggering lasting changes in chromatin structure that increase vulnerability to stress-related disorders in adulthood. … Read more

Summary: Researchers offer an evolutionary explanation for why human overconfidence endures despite producing costly mistakes. They argue that overconfidence can act like a costly biological signal—similar to a peacock’s tail—whose expense is precisely what makes it a credible indicator of real ability. Because the harms of inflated self-belief fall more heavily on low-ability individuals than … Read more

Summary: Researchers have discovered that aging drives a substantial and previously unrecognized migration of bone marrow–derived immune cells from the blood into the human brain. This finding overturns the long-standing view that the brain’s immune compartment is entirely maintained by resident microglia established before birth and isolated from peripheral influence. Key Facts Shifts long-held neuroimmunology … Read more

Summary: Researchers identified a specific structural change in the hippocampus linked with depression in older adults. High-resolution MRI scans from 2,009 cognitively unimpaired adults aged 50 to 90 showed that those with depression had significantly smaller volume in the CA23DG hippocampal subfield, a combined region made up of CA2, CA3 and the dentate gyrus. Key … Read more

Summary: The common marmoset, a New World primate closely related to humans, naturally shows age-related cognitive decline, making it a valuable model for neurodegenerative disease research. Using a telomere-to-telomere (T2T) reference together with population genomic data from 230 individuals, researchers at the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute produced a complete, gapless marmoset genome and mapped … Read more