Signalling from the sympathetic nervous system of mice when subjected to stress leads to the depletion of a stem-cell population in their hair follicles. This discovery sheds light on why stress turns hair prematurely grey.

The strange, startling, and competing explanations for human—and possibly nonhuman—consciousness.

Mothers’ and babies’ brains can work together as a ‘mega-network’ by synchronising brain waves when they interact. The level of connectivity of the brain waves varies according to the mum’s emotional state: when mothers express more positive emotions their brain becomes much more strongly connected with their baby’s brain. This may help the baby to learn and its brain to develop. 

In findings published in JAMA Psychiatry, researchers were able to predict attention problems, as well as mood disorders such as depression and anxiety, in young grade school children using functional MRI.

In January, we broke the news that we may finally know what causes Alzheimer’s disease. For decades, it had been thought that the condition is caused by a protein called beta-amyloid going awry in the brain. But in 2019, evidence pointed the finger elsewhere: at Porphyromonas gingivalis, a type of bacteria involved in gum disease.

"Take emotion out of the equation, memory can seem frustratingly random—trivial events can stick in our minds for a lifetime," says Charles Fernyhough.

They’ve been linked to road rage, pathological gambling, and complicated acts of fraud. It turns out many ordinary medications don’t just affect our bodies – they affect our brains.

Harvard researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital find that participating in an eight-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy, and stress.

A new study from Boston University is the first to illustrate that the brain’s cerebrospinal fluid pulses during sleep, and that these motions are closely tied with brain wave activity and blood flow. It may confirm the hypothesis that CSF flow and slow-wave activity both help flush toxic, memory-impairing proteins from the brain.

Does music serve as an alternative medicine enhancement?

Pract Neurol doi:10.1136/practneurol-2015-001139

An over-reliance on using computers and search engines is weakening people's memories, according to a study. It showed many people use computers instead of memorising information. Many adults who could still recall their phone numbers from childhood could not remember their current work number or numbers of family members.

Meet the woman from Perth whose super sense of smell could change the way Parkinson's disease is diagnosed. Joy Milne's husband, Les, died in June, aged 65. He worked as a consultant anaesthetist before being diagnosed with Parkinson's at the age of 45.

A company called EnChroma has built a pair of glasses that claims to restore colour vision for the colourblind. Predictably, the internet has erupted with excitement. But it’s not the first... By Diane Kelly and Maddie Stone.

“Hey, we need the police stat, to the hospital. We have a family member with a gun.” This is the call that a staff member at Tomball Regional Medical Center put in 11 months ago, when George Pickering of Pinehurst, Tex., angrily pulled out a 9 mm handgun while standing at his son’s hospital bedside. Gary Hammond, Tomball police’s head of criminal investigations, told the Houston Chronicle at the time that Pickering was “distraught” over the care his son...

Need to remember something important? Take a break. A proper one – no TV or flicking through your phone messages. It seems that resting in a quiet room for 10 minutes without stimulation can boost our ability to remember new information. The effect is particularly strong in people with amnesia, suggesting that they may not have lost the ability to form new memories after all.

Scientists showed that they could alter brain activity of rats and either wake them up or put them in an unconscious state by changing the firing rates of neurons in the central thalamus, a region known to regulate arousal. (Dec. 17)

Could hypnosis help to reduce the psychological trauma associated with “awake craniotomy” for brain cancers? A new “hypnosedation” technique offers a new alternative...

Taking a high dose of vitamin D3 is safe for people with multiple sclerosis and may help regulate the body's hyperactive immune response...