All animals have to make decisions every day. Where will they live and what will they eat? How will they protect themselves? They often have to make these decisions as a group, too, turning what may seem like a simple choice into a far more nuanced process. So, how do animals know what’s best for their survival? For the first…
Light enhances brain activity during a cognitive task even in some people who are totally blind, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Montreal and Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The findings contribute to scientists’ understanding of everyone’s brains, as they also revealed how quickly light impacts on cognition. “We were stunned to discover that the…
If a 6-month-old can distinguish between 20 dots and 10 dots, she’s more likely to be good at math in preschool. That’s the conclusion of a new study, which finds that part of our proficiency at addition and subtraction may simply be something we’re born with. Researchers have long wondered where our math skills come from. Are they innate, or…
Human fingertips have several types of sensory neurons that are responsible for relaying touch signals to the central nervous system. Scientists have long believed these neurons followed a linear path to the brain with a “labeled-lines” structure. But new research on mouse whiskers from Duke University reveals a surprise — at the fine scale, the sensory system’s wiring diagram doesn’t…
In a breakthrough for understanding brain evolution, neuroscientists have shown that differences between primate brains – from the tiny marmoset to human – can be largely explained as consequences of the same genetic program. In research published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Professor Marcello Rosa and his team at Monash University’s School of Biomedical Sciences and colleagues at Universidade Federal…
In studying spotted hyenas, lions and, most recently, the raccoon family, Sharleen Sakai has found a correlation between the size of the animals’ frontal cortex and their social nature. In her latest study, Sakai examined the digitally recreated brains of three species in the Procyonid family — the raccoon, the coatimundi and the kinkajou — and found the coatimundi had…