Summary: A new noninvasive imaging approach combines acoustic imaging techniques and advanced inversion algorithms to map stiffness changes in the brain’s white and gray matter after head injury. Source: Acoustical Society of America Waveguide Elastography: Noninvasive Mapping of Brain Stiffness After Head Injury Researchers are refining a noninvasive technique to measure mechanical stiffness along fibrous … Read more

Summary: New analysis in the World Happiness Report shows a robust association between regularly sharing meals and higher levels of life satisfaction and positive emotions. This pattern appears across ages, genders, cultures and religions, and the number of meals eaten with others predicts well-being about as strongly as traditional indicators such as income or employment … Read more

Summary: A new Scientific Reports study finds that alcohol consumed after learning can unexpectedly enhance recall of information learned before drinking. In a naturalistic experiment, researchers report that social drinkers who drank alcohol after a word-learning task recalled more of the learned words the following day than those who remained sober. Source: University of Exeter. … Read more

Genes associated with autism and schizophrenia are active only during the earliest stages of brain development, a study in mice led by researchers at the University of Oxford reports. These findings strengthen the view that autism and schizophrenia are neurodevelopmental disorders—conditions that originate during the formative stages of brain growth. The study tracked gene expression … Read more

Vitamin B6 Can Improve Your Ability to Recall Dreams, University of Adelaide Study Finds Summary: A randomized, double-blind study shows that taking vitamin B6 before bed increases the amount of dream content people remember, although it does not change dream vividness, bizarreness, colour, or most sleep measures. Source: University of Adelaide Study Overview Researchers from … Read more

Summary: Research suggests that directly pursuing happiness may backfire during periods of uncertainty, while pursuing authenticity can provide more resilience. Source: Lab of Misfits Lab of Misfits, a perception-focused neuroscience creative studio led by Dr. Beau Lotto, recently carried out a “Looking Back” experiment to explore how people’s life goals were affected by a year … Read more

Summary: A new study shows that automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems trained on recordings from people with Parkinson’s disease can transcribe similar atypical speech patterns about 30% more accurately. Researchers collected more than 151 hours of speech from participants with varying degrees of dysarthria—a motor speech disorder common in Parkinson’s disease—and used those samples to … Read more

Summary: Regular physical exercise changes how iron is stored and transported in both the brain and skeletal muscles, and it lowers cortical hepcidin levels. These results clarify one mechanism by which exercise may offer protection in Alzheimer’s disease. Source: University of Eastern Finland New experimental evidence shows that sustained physical activity reshapes iron metabolism in … Read more

Summary: Feeding fruit flies a combination of probiotics and Triphala, a traditional herbal formulation, increased lifespan by about 60% and reduced signs of age-related disease, according to researchers. Source: McGill University. What we eat—and what our gut bacteria consume—shapes how we age. A team at McGill University reports that adding a synbiotic composed of probiotics … Read more

Summary: Researchers investigate the brain networks that process speech and music and find substantial overlap between the two. Source: Max Planck Institute Daniela Sammler studies how the brain handles the melodies of speech and music and uncovers many shared neural mechanisms. A mother croons a lullaby or modulates her voice when speaking to her infant. … Read more