Articles about 'brain'

New research reveals how increasing brain stiffness as we age causes brain stem cell dysfunction, and demonstrates new ways to reverse older stem cells to a younger, healthier state. 

Researchers have identified how the human brain is able to determine the properties of a particular object using purely statistical information: a result which suggests there is an ‘inner pickpocket’ in all of us.

Scientists at the University of Cambridge have completed the world’s largest ever study of typical sex differences and autistic traits. They tested and confirmed two long-standing psychological theories: the Empathising-Systemising theory of sex differences and the Extreme Male Brain theory of autism.

Researchers have successfully demonstrated how an electronic device implanted directly into the brain can detect, stop and even prevent epileptic seizures. 

Researchers have shown how cholesterol – a molecule normally linked with cardiovascular diseases – may also play an important role in the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease. 

Researchers from the UK & Japan have identified how the brain’s natural painkilling system could be used as a possible alternative to opioids for the effective relief of chronic pain, which affects as many as one in three people at some point in their lives. 

A team of scientists at the University of Cambridge has discovered that specific genes are linked to individual differences in brain anatomy in autistic children.

Our lives are already enhanced by AI – or at least an AI in its infancy – with technologies using algorithms that help them to learn from our behaviour. As AI grows up and starts to think, not just to learn, we ask how human-like do we want their intelligence to be and what impact will machines have on our jobs? 

Making eye contact with an infant makes adults’ and babies’ brainwaves ‘get in sync’ with each other – which is likely to support communication and learning – according to researchers at the University of Cambridge.

New research on our internal trade-off when physical and mental performance are put in direct competition has found that cognition takes less of a hit, suggesting more energy is diverted to the brain than body muscle. Researchers say the findings support the ‘selfish brain’ theory of human evolution.