Despite what sci-fi movies would have us believe, scientists cannot interact directly with the human brain because they don’t understand enough about how it codes and decodes information. But in a new study published in Science, neuroscientists at the McGovern Institute report that they have been able to read out a part of the visual […]
A study appearing in the British Journal of Psychiatry documents evidence of structural brain abnormalities in people who habitually lie, cheat and manipulate others. The researchers, from the University of Southern California, built on previous research that showed there is heightened activity in the prefrontal cortex – the area of the brain that enables most […]
A research team from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, led by Bruce T. Lahn, has uncovered some fascinating genetic pointers to the human brain’s evolution. Their findings, in the journal Science, relate to sequence variations in two genes that regulate the size of the brain in humans. Interestingly, the major variants in these genes arose […]
New research appearing in Neuropsychology details the anatomy of sarcasm and explains how the mind puts sharp-tongued words into context. The psychologists behind the research explain that for sarcasm to work, listeners must grasp the speaker’s intentions in the context of the situation, which calls for sophisticated social thinking and whether we understand that everyone […]
The human brain is wired with natural checks and balances that control negative emotions, but breakdowns in this regulatory system appear to dramatically heighten risk of impulsive violent behavior, according to findings of a University of Wisconsin-Madison study. As part of a special report on violence in the July 28 issue of the journal Science, […]
