Neuroscience

Why Anesthesia Is One of the Greatest Medical Mysteries of Our Time

Anesthesia was a major medical breakthrough, allowing us to lose consciousness during surgery and other painful procedures. Trouble is, we’re not entirely sure how it works. But now we’re getting closer to solving its mystery — and with it, the mystery of consciousness itself. When someone goes under, their cognition and brain activity continue, but…

Are We About to Cross the Blood-Brain Barrier, and Transform Medicine?

One of the greatest frustrations for doctors dealing with brain tumors is called the blood brain barrier (BBB). It’s the defense our bodies have created to keep toxins from passing from our blood into our brains — but it also stops medicines from making the crossing too. Now that may be about to change. Today…

Is There a Brain Region Associated with a Belief in Social Justice?

Some people believe that we could live in a just world where everybody gets what they deserve. Others believe that’s impossible. Now, neuroscientists say they have evidence that the “just world hypothesis” is a cognitive bias that’s connected with a specific part of the brain. This does not mean there is a “social justice center”…

Terrifying, Century-Old Photographs from Neuroscience Experiments

An 1862 monograph by pioneering French neurologist Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne de Boulogne (1806-1875) is full of disturbing photos of human subjects. Using electrodes, the scientist triggered muscular contractions in their faces. You know, for science. The scientist was trying to figure out whether there was some kind of evolutionary basis for facial expressions, so he would…

Can You Condition Your Body To Require Less Sleep?

One way to have more time for work and play every day is to sleep a little bit less. But eventually, staying awake for longer periods can have a negative impact on the quality of our lives. So where does the break-even point lie, and can it be shifted? What You Stand To Lose Few…

What Happens When Your Sense of Smell Gets Twisted?

Ever had a cold hijack your sense of smell? Some people’s sense of smell gets a lot more twisted than that. Find out what the world is like when a banana smells like rotten meat, and roses smell like garbage. When we look at a banana we know that we’re seeing thousands of little particles…

How To Create An Invisible Rabbit On Someone’s Arm

Have you ever wanted to make your friends believe that there is an invisible animal crawling on them? It’s easy. Just build up some coordination, make some very long-suffering friends, and create the Cutaneous Rabbit Illusion on someone’s arm. The cutaneous rabbit illusion is proof that we don’t know our bodies, or reality, or both,…

Why Do We Laugh?

In this short documentary for The Atlantic, longtime laughter researcher Robert Provine tells filmmaker Sam-Price Waldman about some of his most notable observations and conclusions. Photo Credit: Trey Ratcliff via flickr | CC BY 2.0 It also features one of the more convincing fake laughs I’ve heard in some time (like smiling, it’s hard to…

We May Finally Know Why Sleep Improves Memory

Countless tests have shown that a good night’s sleep makes it easier to recall what you’ve learned. But we don’t know why. For decades, scientists have hypothesized that sleep strengthens our brains’ neural corrections, but direct evidence for this has been lacking. Now, we may finally have that evidence. What Makes A Memory? Decades of…

Why A “Sex Chip” Could Be Considerably More Trouble Than It’s Worth

The ability to trigger feelings of extreme pleasure on-demand is a prospect that’s fascinated both scifi writers and scientists for decades. Indeed, the day is coming when we’ll be able induce orgasmic-like sensations at the flick of a switch — a prospect with obvious appeal, but with some serious downsides. Back in 2008, neuroscientists Morten…

Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder: Why Do People Get SAD in Summer?

By now you’ve probably heard of SAD, or seasonal affective disorder. Each winter, some people become a little bit melancholy, perhaps owing to the decrease in daylight hours. But there’s a second group of people who become sad in the summer. How does that work? When I tell my friends that I prefer dark, cold,…

Make Your Own Dune Pain Box

Want to put someone through “humanity test,” like the Bene Gesserit did in the Dune series? First you’ll need a needle filled with “meta cyanide.” That, I can’t help you with. Then you need a box that can cause burning pain without harm. It’s all possible if you use the “Thermal Grill Illusion.” The Thermal…

Depressed in Summer? It May Be Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, is usually something that wrecks your mood during the dark, cold months of winter. But for some people, summer is the time they feel the worst. It’s called reverse SAD, and neuroscientists are just beginning to understand how it works.

A New Technique Could Erase Painful Memories — Or Bring Them Back

By using pulses of light, researchers at the UC San Diego School of Medicine have produced, erased, and restored fearful memories in rats. It’s a finding that could have profound implications for people struggling with neurodegenerative and anxiety disorders. The study, though not the first to implant a memory in a rodent, is the first…

Can You Supercharge Your Brain With Electricty?

Applying mild electrical currents to your head could take away pain, help memory and improve attention – and the US military is very interested. Emma Young reports. In the summer of 2010, Ryan Clark twisted his ankle during a gym class. It was painful, but inconvenient more than anything. He was put on crutches for…

The U.S. military is funding research into developing brain implants that will regulate human emotions. The idea is to locate and “stop” feelings experienced by soldiers and veterans, including depression and fear. What could go wrong?

New 3D Visualization Of A Synapse Is Both Gorgeous And Weird

Our brains contain trillions of synapses, each of them capable of converting an electrical signal into a chemical one, and vice-versa. But while that might sound simple, the mechanics behind this process is anything but — as this spectacular new 3D visualization so beautifully illustrates. These visual representations of an average synapse are probably the…

Do You Feel Like You’re Not Sleeping, Even When You Are?

Pseudoinsomnia is a sleep disorder, even though people who suffer from it appear to have perfectly normal sleep patterns. When pseudoinsomnicacs fall asleep every night, they feel as if they are lying awake, anxiously trying to get some rest. But they’re not imagining things. They really do have an unusual form of insomnia. In last…

Have Scientists Solved The Mystery Of Phantom Limb Pain?

Nearly all amputees feel their missing limb as if it still existed, and many experience chronic phantom limb pain. The going theory is that this pain is triggered by the brain. But scientists have now located and blocked these sensations in the body itself — a finding that upends conventional thinking. According to the popular…

Self-Surgery: The Correct Way to do Human Experimentation

This 1908 paper is a gem. It’s about recovery from nerve trauma — and the research was done by two doctors who were so interested in the subject that one volunteered to have his nerves severed, just to see how they healed. In 1903, neurological research was in its early stages. A group of doctors,…