Moving Beyond Dopamine to Treat Schizophrenia

Summary: Schizophrenia treatment has been dominated by dopamine-targeting drugs for decades, but these often fail to address the debilitating cognitive and negative symptoms of the disorder. A comprehensive review synthesizes…

The Oxytocin Switch That Controls Your Social Vibe

Summary: The brain communicates through more than just lightning-fast electrical pulses; it also relies on a slow, diffuse “chemical atmosphere” to regulate our moods. A study has identified SNAP-47 as…

Multilingualism Calculator Reveals True Language Strengths

Summary: A new study introduces a multilingualism calculator that quantifies how multilingual a person truly is, offering a clearer alternative to vague labels like “bilingual.” By combining age of acquisition…

Brain Blends Fast and Slow Signals to Shape Human Thought

Summary: Researchers mapped the brain connectivity of 960 individuals to uncover how fast and slow neural processes unite to support complex behavior. They found that intrinsic neural timescales—each region’s characteristic…

Early Screen Time Linked to Long-Term Brain Changes, Teen Anxiety

Summary: New research following children for more than a decade links high screen exposure before age two to accelerated brain maturation, slower decision-making, and increased anxiety by adolescence. Infants with…

Doubting Your Doubts Can Boost Motivation

Summary: When people facing uncertainty about an important identity goal are nudged to question the validity of their own doubts, their commitment to that goal actually increases. The research demonstrates…

AI Brain Model Shows How Neurons Learn, and Where They Fail

Summary: A biologically grounded computational model built to mimic real neural circuits, not trained on animal data, learned a visual categorization task just as actual lab animals do, matching their…

Numbers in Vision Can Shift How We Perceive Space

Summary: New research reveals that numbers in our visual field can subtly distort how we judge spatial positions, showing that perception is shaped by both numerical magnitude and object-based processing.…

Smiling Faces Trigger Mimicry, and Make Us Trust Them More

Summary: People instinctively mimic others’ facial expressions, but new research shows we do this far more with joyful faces than with sadness or anger—and that the intensity of mimicry predicts…

Guilt and Shame Shape Behavior Through Separate Brain Pathways

Summary: Guilt and shame arise from different cognitive triggers and rely on distinct neural systems to guide compensatory behavior. Using a controlled game that manipulated both harm and responsibility, researchers…