Scientist David Nutt memorably said alcohol is more dangerous than crack. Now, he is trying to invent a healthy synthetic alternative, and the race is on to get it to market.

Anticholinergic drugs are generally bad for the brain. They affect the crucial neurochemical acetylcholine. One worry about anticholinergic drugs is a link to memory problems or Alzheimer’s disease (Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, 46(4);

For years, drugmakers have tried targeting a brain compound called beta amyloid. Not one of those attempts has worked.

We all have things we’d rather forget. But for over four million people in the US who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), that need becomes very real. Erasing memories has always been the stuff of science fiction and wishful thinking. After all, what happened, happened—your experiences are solidified in your head as part of your past, perhaps even molding your personality. But does it have to be this way?

Time wears differently on women’s and men’s brains. While the brain tends to shrink with age, men’s diminish faster than women’s. The brain’s metabolism slows as people grow older, and this, too, may differ between men and women. A new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis finds that women’s brains appear to be about three years younger than men’s of the same chronological age, metabolically speaking.

The ability to read facial expressions is key to interpreting important social cues during a conversation. For children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who commonly show impairments in social interactions, recognizing emotions in others is especially challenging. They also are hindered by a lack of interest in initiating conversation and atypical eye contact.

A team from the Department of Psychological Medicine and Department of Biochemistry at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has found that seniors who consume more than two standard portions of mushrooms weekly may have 50% reduced odds of having mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

In a scientific first, neuroengineers from the Zuckerman Institute at Columbia University have developed a system that translates thought into intelligible, recognisable speech. By monitoring someone's brain activity, the technology can reconstruct the words a person hears with unprecedented clarity. This breakthrough, which combines the power of speech synthesisers and artificial intelligence, could lead to new ways for computers to communicate directly with the brain.

“I’ve never told this story publicly, but now it’s time.”

The actor’s death leaves middle-age Americans wondering how it could happen — and whether it could happen to them. Here’s what scientists know.

Maybe that's not even the right question

Donna Kaye Hill realized that her 80-year-old mother was faltering cognitively when her phone suddenly stopped working. When Ms. Hill called the phone company, “they told me she hadn’t paid her bill in three months.” Finding other alarming evidence of memory gaps, she took her mother, Katie, to a memory clinic. A geriatrician there diagnosed dementia and recommended two prescription drugs and a dietary supplement, a form of vitamin E.

Have you ever been told to "grow up" in your 20s or need an excuse as to why you still find cat videos on the internet really funny? Well now you might have an official reason as to why you're not acting like a mature adult. People don't become fully "adult" until they're in their 30s, according to brain scientists. Currently the UK law says you become a mature adult when you reach the age of 18.

What do you think of when you think of a rainbow? If you’re sighted, you’re probably imagining colors arcing through the sky just after the rain. But what about someone who can’t see a rainbow? How does a congenitally blind person’s knowledge of a rainbow — or even something as seemingly simple as the color red — differ from that of the sighted?

Inside a 25,000 square foot room within Argonne National Laboratory one of the most formidable supercomputers in the world — Theta — is applying its incredible computing power to the largest batch of data ever recorded or analyzed. It’s information that researchers hope might one day contribute to our understanding of intelligence itself.

As powerful as the human brain is, once it's damaged it can't really recover completely. Now researchers at Penn State may have found a way to boost the brain's regenerative abilities, using certain molecules to convert neighboring cells into new neurons. The technique could eventually lead to pills that treat brain injuries, stroke or Alzheimer's disease.

Toy dolls can bring children comfort. And they may provide a similar perk later in life for people with dementia.

A lady with synesthesia shows us how she sees music.

If doctors said that aborting an unborn child would be the best option for everyone, most people would listen and take their advice. Especially if they were told not once, not twice, but five times to have the procedure.Shelley and Rob Wall were advised to have an abortion after finding out that their baby had no brain as it wasn’t developing correctly. However, they stuck to their guns and decided to keep the baby. Six years on, he is appearing on national television on Good Morning Britain. Watch the clip below.

If you’re sitting near a coffee mug, pick it up, and note how easy it is to do without really looking. You feel the curvature of the handle, the width of the cup, the slipperiness of the ceramic. Your hand glides into place and you squeeze, getting a sense of the weight, and bring the cup to your mouth. Now, imagine trying to do that with a robotic hand that gives you no sensory feedback. You get no information about the tiny adjustments that your fingers must make in order to grasp it properly. It feels more like operating a joystick than a hand.

The phenomenon of Mind has evaded philosophers, theologians, scientists, and artists since the dawn of civilization. Today, the concept of Mind is front and centre with advances in AI and machine learning. The promises of AI and the hope of a Singularity to lead civilization forward, into uncharted lands towards a utopian future is our latest, human all too human attempt to grasp at an idea to soothe the unsoothable.

Scientists think they've identified a previously unknown form of neural communication that self-propagates across brain tissue, and can leap wirelessly from neurons in one section of brain tissue to another – even if they've been surgically severed

Much has been written about video games, and quite a lot of it is negative. We have feared that video games are making our children less social and more violent, and making us all more stressed. There's been significant research on the topic, and some good news has come out of it: Video games can actually be good for our stress levels!

Summary: Researches use an epigenetic approach to correct synaptic dysfunction in the brain associated with memory loss. The findings could help to restore memory function in those with Alzheimer's an

What separates a lethal prion from dementia-inducing amyloid plaque? Maybe not much

An experimental drug that bolsters ailing brain cells has raised hopes of a treatment for memory loss, poor decision making and other mental impairments that often strike in old age. The drug could be taken as a daily pill by over-55s if clinical trials, which are expected to start within two years, show that the medicine is safe and effective at preventing memory lapses. Tests in the lab showed that old animals had far better memory skills half an hour after receiving the drug. After two months on the treatment, brain cells which had shrunk in the animals had grown back, scientists found.

I’ll just come right out and say it: Scientists have created human-controlled rat cyborgs. Lest you think this is some media sensationalism at work, here’s the actual title of the paper under discussion, which came out last week in Scientific Reports: “Human Mind Control of Rat Cyborg’s Continuous Locomotion with Wireless Brain-to-Brain Interface.” That pretty much says it all.

Sleep is pretty great. In humans, evidence suggests it has a whole range of benefits, including this one: it keeps the brain healthy by letting neurons prune unnecessary synaptic connections we make during the day.

Increasingly, our “little brain” is being recognized as playing a bigger role than previously thought in cognition, learning, emotions, and addiction. Because human cerebellum has a high density of CB1 cannabinoid receptors, there is speculation that cannabis use most likely affects both cerebellar function and structure. In recent months, two different systematic reviews have done deep and detailed dives into how cannabis affects the cerebellum.

Philosopher Peter Carruthers insists that conscious thought, judgment and volition are illusions. They arise from processes of which we are forever unaware

Freud’s notion of a dark, libidinous unconscious is obsolete. A new theory holds that the brain produces a continuous stream of unconscious predictions

Adorable babies and cute puppies can make us happy. But researchers say their cuteness can be so overwhelming that it unleashes some ugly thoughts.

Neuroscientists are teaching computers to read words straight out of people's brains. Kelly Servick, writing for Science, reported this week on three papers posted to the preprint server bioRxiv in which three different teams of researchers demonstrated that they could decode speech from recordings of neurons firing. In each study, electrodes placed directly on the brain recorded neural activity while brain-surgery patients listened to speech or read words out loud. Then, researchers tried to figure out what the patients were hearing or saying.

The long read: Five years after his last taste of alcohol, William Leith tries to understand its powerful magic

Scientists have found preliminary evidence that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other compounds found in marijuana can promote the cellular removal of amyloid beta, a toxic protein associated with Alzheimer's disease.