Memories from early childhood are notoriously elusive but why can’t we recall our most formative experiences? New research suggests it could be a case of the old making way for the new – neurons, that…
Imagine yourself, a picture of sartorial elegance and sipping champagne from a crystal flute, in Le Grande Casino at Monte Carlo. It is a Monday night – in fact, the date is August 18, 1913 – and you are…
Given the media coverage brain imaging studies get, you might think that they are constantly revealing important secrets about this mysterious organ. Catherine Loveday thinks otherwise. She makes the point…
Visual illusions, such as the rabbit-duck (shown above) and café wall (shown below) are fascinating because they remind us of the discrepancy between perception and reality. But our knowledge of such illusions…
Never before have we been such compulsive multitaskers, blogging and tweeting using multiple devices and smartphones anywhere and everywhere, from trains to cafes. It seems a little backwards, then, that…
Imagine you’ve suddenly been given a job as a car mechanic but there’s a slight hitch: you know nothing whatsoever about cars, there are no books to help you, no internet and no-one who is willing to tell…
Many amputees experience pain in their missing limbs, but allowing them to “see” their missing limbs in action through augmented reality technology may help alleviate this phantom limb pain (PLP), a case…
The structure of the brain reveals a network of massively interconnected electrochemically active cells. It is known that information can be represented by changes of state within this network, but that…
In times of financial uncertainty and crisis, high stress reactions lead to traders becoming more risk averse, which drives pessimism and further falls in finance, according to a new study. This is because…
This Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s debut appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in the US. But what was it about? Was it the moptop haircuts, Cuban heels, and “yeah yeah…
Memory is an essential part of our existence. Who we are, what we know and what we think can all be derived from our ability to remember. How reliable, though, are our memories? A study, published in the…
David Cameron plunged into the criminal punishment debate recently by throwing his support around proposals to impose incredibly long sentences (100 years or so) for some murders as a way to circumvent…
We now know that there’s much more to pain than simply what is happening in the painful body part, and attention has turned to the role of the brain. But not even this mysterious organ can tell us everything…
Neuroscientific knowledge of how the brain processes the separate attributes of visual images has expanded exponentially in recent years. The mesmeric appeal of the artworks created by the Australian new…
Perseverance is a quality that plays a large role in the success or failure of many pursuits. It has never been entirely clear why this trait seems more apparent in some people than others, but a new piece…
The headlines The Guardian: Male and female brains wired differently, scans reveal The Atlantic: Male and female brains really are built differently The Independent: The hardwired difference between male…
Are you a left brain or a right brain person? I’ve never met a person who doesn’t know what I mean by this question. The idea that creative people use the right side of their brain more than logical people…