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A single finger nerve cell distinguishes between touch stimuli better than the whole person
In a nutshell: One explanation for this unexpected finding is that signals from single nerve cells are corrupted as they travel from cell to cell to the brain. An alternative explanation is that as the brain pools information from many nerve cells to… Read more
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Who’s to blame when medicine triggers criminal behaviour?
By Adrian Carter
In a nutshell: Adrian Carter discusses the thorny issues surrounding neuro-medication and culpability. Read more
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For quick processing of emotional and non-emotional faces, the amygdala matters
In a nutshell: Adds to an emerging theory that the amygdala, an almond-shaped bundle of neurons, is a “behavioural relevance detector,” that helps us sort out which human behaviours we should be paying attention to. Read more
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Conductor? Traffic cop? Or something else…
In a nutshell: This finding will help work out the role of a mysterious sheet of brain cells, called the claustrum. Is it a brain “orchestrator”, helping create our seamless experience of the world? A traffic controller? Or something else entirely? Read more
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Lopsided Brains
In a nutshell: This finding helps explain why damage to the brain’s right side can be more harmful than damage to the left when it comes to perceiving space around you. Read more
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On-line gaming gives brain research a leg-up
In a nutshell: Describes MASSIVE, equipment for collecting, processing, visualising and storing the huge amounts of brain image data that are part and parcel of modern neuroscience. Read more
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Working out why some brain regions are more susceptible to Alzheimer’s than others
In a nutshell: This finding rules out a key theory that the parts of the brain most susceptible to Alzheimer’s disease are the ones that are larger in humans. Read more
