Behavior News

January 25, 2025

Top Headlines

How Your Brain Learns from Rewards Might Hold the Key to Treating Depression

Jan. 22, 2025 — Using computational models, the researchers studied how the brain's reward-learning system functions in those with depression, especially among individuals experiencing anhedonia, the inability to ...

Violence on TV: What Happens to Children Who Watch?

Jan. 20, 2025 — Boys exposed to violent screen content in the preschool years were more likely to become antisocial and violent themselves a decade later, in their mid-teens, a new study ...

'Ding-Dong:' A Study Finds Specific Neurons With an Immune Doorbell

Jan. 17, 2025 — Neuroscientists have identified that the receptor IL-1R1 plays a critical role in enabling neurons to directly communicate with the immune system. The new study provides the most detailed mapping of neuronal IL-1R1 (nIL-1R1) expression in the mouse ...

From Caring Touch to Cooperative Communities

Jan. 15, 2025 — An international research team concludes that gentle touch is not only good for mental health, but also for the evolution of ...

Latest Headlines

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Insights Into How Populations Conform or Go Against the Crowd

Jan. 17, 2025 — Cultural traits -- the information, beliefs, behaviors, customs, and practices that shape the character of a population -- are influenced by conformity, the tendency to align with others, or ...

High Levels of Disordered Eating Among Young People Linked to Brain Differences

Jan. 10, 2025 — More than half of 23-year-olds in a European study show restrictive, emotional or uncontrolled eating behaviors, according to new research. ...

Study Links Gene Regulating Brain Circuit Formation to Autism and Seizures

Jan. 8, 2025 — A new study offers insights into how the gene neuropilin2 contributes to the development of behavioral changes associated with autism spectrum disorder and ...

Tiny Microbe Colonies Communicate to Coordinate Their Behavior

Jan. 8, 2025 — A new study reveals evidence of electrical signaling and coordinated behavior in choanoflagellates, the closest living relatives of animals. This elaborate example of cell communication offers key ...

How Electrical Synapses Fine-Tune Sensory Information for Better Decisions

Jan. 8, 2025 — Scientists have taken a major step in understanding how animal brains make decisions, revealing a crucial role for electrical synapses in 'filtering' sensory information. The new research ...

Mixed Signals: How the Brain Interprets Social Cues

Jan. 6, 2025 — Researchers have found that smell and sound signals merge in the mouse brain's hearing center, influencing social behaviors like pup retrieval. The discovery may lead to a better understanding of how ...

Preclinical Study Finds Surges in Estrogen Promote Binge Drinking in Females

Dec. 30, 2024 — The hormone estrogen regulates binge drinking in females, causing them to 'pregame' -- consume large quantities of alcohol in the first 30 minutes ...

Machine Psychology: A Bridge to General AI?

Dec. 19, 2024 — Artificial intelligence that is as intelligent as humans may become possible thanks to psychological learning models, combined with certain types of ...

Brain Inflammation Alters Behavior According to Sex, Mouse Study Finds

Dec. 19, 2024 — Inflammation in the hippocampus -- the brain's memory center -- significantly alters motivation and behavior in mice, according to new ...

Discouraged Zebrafish Help Reveal How Ketamine Works in the Brain

Dec. 17, 2024 — By taking advantage of a 'giving up' behavior exhibited by zebrafish, the ability to image the fish's entire brain, and a unique virtual reality system, a team of researchers found where ketamine ...

Naughty or Nice? Many Parents Rely on Threats to Manage Misbehavior -- From No Dessert to No Santa

Dec. 16, 2024 — When young children's behavior becomes challenging, many parents resort to threats -- from taking away toys to threatening that Santa will skip their house, a national poll ...

Can Lab-Grown Neurons Exhibit Plasticity?

Dec. 16, 2024 — This bioengineering breakthrough has found a way to make neurons grown in a dish react just like the real ...

Elucidating the Neural Mechanisms of Stress-Induced Cardiovascular Responses

Dec. 16, 2024 — The lateral habenula is a brain region associated with behavioral changes and autonomic responses during psychological stress. Researchers at the University of Tsukuba have identified the involvement ...

Antidepressants May Act in Gut to Reduce Depression and Anxiety

Dec. 11, 2024 — In animal studies, boosting serotonin in the cells that line the gut reduced anxious and depressive-like behaviors without causing cognitive or gastrointestinal side ...

Resolving Ambiguity: How the Brain Uses Context in Decision-Making and Learning

Dec. 10, 2024 — Life can be tricky. We have so many decisions to make. It's a good thing we have an orbitofrontal cortex and hippocampus to help us. These areas of the brain work together to help us sort ...

Sculpting the Brain (Without Chisel or Scalpel)

Dec. 10, 2024 — Researchers report that they have successfully tested a novel approach for teaching the human brain to learn through external manipulation and neural feedback -- what they call the ...

New Brain Mapping Technique Reveals Insights Into the Brain's Higher Functions

Dec. 6, 2024 — A new way of mapping activity and connections between different regions of the brain has revealed fresh insights into how higher order functions like language, thought and attention, are ...

Antipsychotic Medications Don't Always Work the Way They're Supposed to

Dec. 6, 2024 — A study analyzed data from nearly 500,000 Canadian patients who lived in nursing homes across Canada between 2000 and 2022. It found that residents who were given antipsychotic medications showed a ...

Unlocking the Science of Sleep: How Rest Enhances Language Learning

Dec. 5, 2024 — Sleep is critical for all sorts of reasons, but a team of international scientists has discovered a new incentive for getting eight hours of sleep every night: it helps the brain to store and learn a ...

The Secret to Our Big Brains Might Be in Our Gut

Dec. 4, 2024 — Brain tissue is among the most energetically costly in the body, and as a result, larger-brained mammals require more energy to support brain growth and maintenance. Exactly which biological changes ...

For Those With CTE, Family History of Mental Illness Tied to Aggression in Middle Age

Nov. 27, 2024 — People who have chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) who have a family history of mental illness may have a higher risk of aggression in middle age, according to a new ...

Brain Stimulation Effectiveness Tied to Learning Ability, Not Age

Nov. 27, 2024 — A study reveals that the effectiveness of brain stimulation on motor skills is determined by an individual's learning ability rather than age, highlighting the need for a more personalized ...

Machine Learning Reveals Behaviors Linked With Early Alzheimer's, Points to New Treatments

Nov. 26, 2024 — Scientists used a new video-based machine learning tool to pinpoint otherwise-undetectable signs of early disease in mice that were engineered to mimic key aspects of Alzheimer's. Their work ...

Dopamine and Serotonin Work in Opposition to Shape Learning

Nov. 25, 2024 — Research shows that reward-based learning requires the two neuromodulators to balance one another's influence -- like the accelerator and brakes on a ...

Need a Landing Pad for Helicopter Parenting? Frame Tasks as Learning

Nov. 22, 2024 — Parents are much less likely to intervene when their young children are getting dressed or performing other simple chores if those tasks are framed as learning opportunities, according to a new ...

New Model of Neuronal Circuit Provides Insight on Eye Movement

Nov. 22, 2024 — Working with week-old zebrafish larva, researchers decoded how the connections formed by a network of neurons in the brainstem guide the fishes' gaze. The study found that a simplified ...

Snoring Linked to Behavioral Problems in Adolescents Without Declines in Cognition

Nov. 21, 2024 — Adolescents who snore frequently were more likely to exhibit behavior problems such as inattention, rule-breaking, and aggression, but they do not have any decline in their cognitive abilities, ...

Confidence Drives Feedback-Seeking Behavior: Insights Into Learning and Motivation

Nov. 21, 2024 — New research reveals how low confidence drives feedback-seeking, enhancing learning with insights for education and rehabilitation ...

Neuroscientists Discover How the Brain Slows Anxious Breathing

Nov. 19, 2024 — Scientists discovered a brain circuit that allows us to regulate voluntary breathing, which connects the brain's emotional and behavioral cortical area to its automatic breathing brainstem area. ...

How Children Learned for 99% of Human History

Nov. 19, 2024 — Unlike kids in the United States, hunter-gatherer children in the Congo Basin have often learned how to hunt, identify edible plants and care for babies by the tender age of six or seven. This rapid ...