We live in a society that is fascinated by the brain – how it works, how it differs across individuals or changes over our lifetimes and how it makes us different to other species. And over the years…
Would you prefer a beer right now or a bottle of champagne next week? So begins an interesting new study published today in the journal PloS Biology. Of course these kinds of choices feature throughout…
Our ability to grasp and manipulate objects relies on feedback from our sense of touch. Without these signals from the hand, we would have trouble performing even the most basic activities of daily living…
Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
We live in an age of great public fascination with minds and brains; books about brain plasticity, for instance, regularly make the bestseller lists. This fascination is not merely the product of our thirst…
The brain and the mind are two sides of the same coin. We have always wanted to understand how our minds work but, until recently, lacked the tools to investigate the brain. The jelly-like tissue that…
If you’ve ever tried spinning in circles while looking up to the sky, you’ll know the accompanying dizziness that can follow. But what stops ballet dancers, who pirouette endlessly for a living, from falling…
It may seem silly to ask yourself if your index finger is part of your body, but that question is actually perfectly reasonable in neuroscience research - and has led to important insights into key brain…
Five years on from Lehman Brothers’ collapse and “where did it all go wrong?” analysis is all the rage. Answers have varied: poor regulation, malicious bankers, dozy politicians, greedy homeowners, and…
Despite long standing associations with mysticism and stage hypnotism, hypnosis has also been used for medical and scientific purposes. For well over a century, hypnosis has been used to treat a wide range…
Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Is sex addiction real? That is, is it really a disorder, involving diminished control over behaviour? Questions such as these are difficult to answer because it’s always difficult to distinguish diminished…
Researchers in Japan have used the powerful K computer, one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, to simulate the complex neural structure of our brain. Using a popular suite of neuron simulating software…
If you’ve ever been frustrated by erratic memories, spare a thought for the mice involved in a study published in the journal Science. Researchers have been able to consistently create a “false memory…
Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
An American neuroscientist claims to have solved the problem of free will. Peter Tse, who works at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, says that the key to free will lies in how neurons can rewire each…
In the past few days, a great deal of media attention has been paid to Leanne Rowe, a Tasmanian woman who has lived eight years with a French accent she acquired after a car accident. This phenomenon is…
Researchers have used the radioactive fallout from atomic bomb tests to show that new neurons are produced in one part of the human brain throughout life. Studies have shown that rats can grow new neurons…
After many years of research, we still do not completely understand the brains of even the simplest organisms. The human brain with its 80 billion neurons is largely a mystery. But with better tools we…
Brains are smart enough to rewire themselves, a new international study of rats has found. The study turns on its head the common misconception brain damage is irreversible, showing the precise neural…