Science, some would say, is an enterprise that should concern itself solely with cold, hard facts. Flights of imagination should be the province of philosophers and poets. On the other…
Category: Neuroscience
What do we mean by ‘COVID-19 changes your brain’?
Like all writers, I spend large chunks of my time looking for words. When it comes to the ultracomplicated and mysterious brain, I need words that capture nuance and uncertainties.…
How a scientist-artist transformed our view of the brain
The Brain in Search of ItselfBenjamin EhrlichFarrar, Straus and Giroux, $35 Spanish anatomist Santiago Ramón y Cajal is known as the father of modern neuroscience. Cajal was the first to…
A hit of dopamine sends mice into dreamland
A quick surge of dopamine shifts mice into a dreamy stage of sleep. In the rodents’ brains, the chemical messenger triggers rapid-eye-movement sleep, or REM, researchers report in the March…
Americans tend to assume imaginary faces are male
There may be a reason we see a man, rather than a maiden, in the moon. When people spot facelike patterns in inanimate objects, those faces are more likely to…
A faulty immune response may be behind lingering brain trouble after COVID-19
A tussle with COVID-19 can leave people’s brains fuzzy. SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, doesn’t usually make it into the brain directly. But the immune system’s response to even mild…
50 years ago, scientists were on the trail of ‘memory molecules’
Learning and memory transfer: More experimental evidence — Science News, November 6, 1971 The first memory molecule has been isolated, characterized and synthesized … [from the brains of] rats that had been…
‘Feeling & Knowing’ explores the origin and evolution of consciousness
Feeling & KnowingAntonio DamasioPantheon, $26 Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio believes that the link between brain and body is the key to understanding consciousness. In his latest book, Feeling & Knowing: Making…
Brainless sponges contain early echoes of a nervous system
Brains are like sponges, slurping up new information. But sponges may also be a little bit like brains. Sponges, which are humans’ very distant evolutionary relatives, don’t have nervous systems.…
A blood test may help predict recovery from traumatic brain injury
Elevated blood levels of a specific protein may help scientists predict who has a better chance of bouncing back from a traumatic brain injury. The protein, called neurofilament light or…
