Entering deep sleep and then waking up before completing the normal sleep cycle can result in a phenomenon known as sleep inertia. New brain scan research in NeuroImage helps explain why this phenomenon is associated with reduced cognitive performance.

Hints at potential treatments for age-related dementia and memory loss

Up to half of all patients who survive emergency medical treatment in the intensive care unit have mental problems when they return home. Doctors studying the problem say it starts with delirium.

Jered Chinnock's mantra was “lift the leg, kick the foot out.” The paired actions were all part of a tough, years-long rehabilitation routine the Wisconsin man took on after a snowmobile accident left his lower limbs paralyzed when he was 26 years old. Coupled with the arduous rehab, Chinnock had a device implanted in his lower spine, relaying electrical signals from brain to muscles under battery power.

Sleep is so very important—this is not news. But for the majority of us, getting enough of it is hard. The consequences of not getting enough shut eye can be as minor as feeling a little drowsy the next morning at work or as serious as chronic diseases like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and depression. And now, a new study from the researchers at Brigham and Women’s shows that teens who do not get enough sleep are more likely to engage in risky behaviors including smoking, drinking alcohol, and driving under the influence.

Although depression is one of the leading psychiatric disorders in Germany, its cause remains unclear. A recent study at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) in Leipzig, Germany, and the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the University Clinic in Leipzig found that those affected by depressive disorder have a larger hypothalamus compared to their healthy counterparts.

A new drug offers hope to people suffering from Multiple Sclerosis (MS).In clinical trials, the drug reduced nerve damaged in patients by almost 50%. Research tested an oral drug called ibudilast in patients with progressive Multiple Sclerosis (MS). 255 Multiple Sclerosis patients were recruited from medical centers and were randomly assigned to take either ibudilast or placebo pills for 96 weeks.

"Your memory is really your identity. Your own history, your own desires, your own fears.”

Starting schools before 8:30 a.m. shows a tragic disregard for both the mental health of children and for science.

The man was 23 when the delusions came on. He became convinced that his thoughts were leaking out of his head and that other people could hear them. When he watched television, he thought the actors were signaling him, trying to communicate. He became irritable and anxious and couldn’t sleep. Dr. Tsuyoshi Miyaoka, a psychiatrist treating him at the Shimane University School of Medicine in Japan, eventually diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia. He then prescribed a series of antipsychotic drugs. None helped. The man’s symptoms were, in medical parlance, “treatment resistant.”

What can hyperpolyglots teach the rest of us?

Money has poured into Alzheimer's research, but until very recently not much of it went toward investigating infection in causing dementia. A million dollar prize may lead more scientists to try.

On Amazon, you can shell out about $15 to buy pills made of cellulose, titanium dioxide, gelatin, and dye. None of these ingredients have any medical effect, but customers report taking these pills for pain relief, to reduce excessive sweating, and even to quit smoking. It’s not surprising, really. Medical quackery has a long and proud history, and so long as there’s gullible people, there will be somebody selling snake oil. But here’s the rub: Right on the bottle, in big, blue letters is the word “placebo.” The only claim the manufacturer makes about these pills is that they are guaranteed not to contain any kind of medicine.

You are in a strange neighbourhood, your cell phone’s dead, and you desperately need to find the closest garage. A couple of people on the street chime in, each sending you in opposite directions. One person sounds like a local and speaks in a nonchalant manner, while the other uses a loud, confident voice but speaks with a strong accent. Who are you going to trust? A recently published study shows that unless they speak in a confident tone of voice, you’re less likely to believe someone who speaks with an accent. And, interestingly, as you make this decision different parts of your brain are activated...

A study in mice hints at a new approach for thwarting neurodegenerative diseases—but many questions remain.

Scientists in the UK and Sweden believe they’ve come across an unprecedented advance in Alzheimer’s disease research: A method of developing new drugs that can target the roots of the fatal disease in a way that previous attempts couldn’t. But while the latest published work is genuinely intriguing, outside experts are worried that the researchers’ claims to the public are too grandiose.

Monash University research raises the prospect of a link between antidepressants and light sensitivity.

“I myself am a victim to narrative,” says Alex Rosenberg, a Duke University philosophy professor whose new book hopes to convince readers that narratives — and especially narrative history — are flawed as tools of knowledge. Rosenberg is a philosopher of science and a writer of historical fiction. How History Gets Things Wrong: The Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories, out this week from MIT Press, does not deny that stories can be wonderful as art and effective at eliciting emotions that then push action.

Researchers at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience in Norway in have discovered a network of brain cells that expresses our sense of time within experiences and memories. "This network provides timestamps for events and keeps track of the order of events within an experience," says Professor Edvard Moser, Nobel laureate and director of the Kavli Institute, which is based at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). This area of the brain where time is experienced is located right next to the area that codes for space.

Ever wonder why some people seem to feel less pain than others? A study conducted at Wake Forest School of Medicine may have found one of the answers—mindfulness. "Mindfulness is related to being aware of the present moment without too much emotional reaction or judgment," said the study's lead author, Fadel Zeidan, Ph.D., assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy at the medical school, part of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. "We now know that some people are more mindful than others, and those people seemingly feel less pain."

It’s hard to overstate the benefits of a night’s rest for human memory, and neuroscientists are just beginning to understand why. Jakke Tamminen has plenty of students who do that very studenty thing of staying up all night right before an exam, in the hope of stuffing in as much knowledge as they can. But “that’s the worst thing you can do”, the psychology lecturer at the UK’s Royal Holloway University warns them.

As a type of immune cell, it has always been considered one of the good guys. But in a stunning breakthrough in schizophrenia research, scientists say the "macrophage" immune cell can go rogue, causing havoc in the brain. "Macrophage" means "big eaters" in Greek and is a fitting name for the cell because - when behaving - it digests cellular debris and foreign substances.

Hugging is a particularly intimate and intense way to express emotions. Through a hug we can convey joy or sorrow, we can say to a person that can count on us unconditionally and understand his state of mind without speaking. But the fact is that embraces not only help us connect with others and express what we feel, also have a very positve effect on the emotional balance and brain health.

It's a psychological quirk that when something becomes rarer, people may spot it in more places than ever. What is the 'concept creep' that lets context change how we categorize the world around us?

Growing evidence suggests that hallucinogenic drugs can help quell depression. Following the government’s review of medicinal cannabis last month, Jack Dutton asks whether we are at a turning point in drug policy

The pursuit of perfection, taken to extremes, can lead to OCD and depression – and the number of students reporting the problem has jumped by 33% since 1989

Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields may have adverse effects on the development of memory performance of specific brain regions exposed during mobile phone use, suggests a recent study involving nearly 700 adolescents in Switzerland.

Our floodlit society has made sleep deprivation a lifestyle. But we know more than ever about how we rest—and how it keeps us healthy.

For years, scientists have been exploring how we can use signals from the brain to control prosthetic limbs. Usually, this work is focused on restoring motor function to people who have lost an arm or a leg, but new research from Japan shows how the same technology can also be used to augment existing human capabilities.

Nick Chater argues our brain is a storyteller, not a reporter from an inner world.

Why some people choose to do evil remains a puzzle, but are we starting to understand how this behaviour is triggered?

A boy who had large parts of the right side of his brain removed due to a slow-growing tumor made a nearly full recovery in the three years after his surgery, with other areas of his brain compensating for the loss, researchers reveal this week in Cell Reports. Their case study highlights the brain’s tremendous ability to adapt to such losses and will help researchers...

A hypothetical model to understand how “touch” is represented in the brain.

Tests stating staff suffered brain damage were ‘misinterpreted’ and ruled out other explanations such as mass psychogenic illness

Autism can be spotted in babies as young as four months old simply by monitoring their response to games such as peek-a-boo or incy-wincy spider, a new study suggests.