Reference Terms
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Thought
Thought or thinking is a mental process which allows beings to model the world, and so to deal with it effectively according to their goals, plans, ends and desires.
Thinking involves manipulation of information, as when we form concepts, engage in problem solving, reason and make decisions. Thinking is a higher cognitive function and the analysis of thinking processes is part of cognitive psychology.
The basic mechanics of the human brain reflect a process of pattern matching or rather recognition. In a "moment of reflection", new situations and new experiences are judged against recalled ones and judgments are made. In order to make these judgments, the intellect maintains present experience and sorts relevant past experience. It does this while keeping present and past experience distinct and separate. The intellect can mix, match, merge, sift, and sort concepts, perceptions, and experience. This process is called reasoning. Logic is the science of reasoning.
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Mind & Brain News
August 26, 2026
Aug. 26, 2026 Early-life stress may physically alter how DNA is packaged in the brain, leaving stress-related genes primed to activate more easily years later. In mice, researchers were able to block this effect, preventing the heightened anxiety and stress ...
Aug. 25, 2026 Older adults who received the Shingrix shingles vaccine were 24% less likely to be diagnosed with dementia over four years in a study of more than 500,000 people. Researchers estimate the difference could amount to roughly one dementia case ...
Aug. 25, 2026 A major study found that adults with depression show disrupted production of new neurons in the hippocampus, potentially weakening the brain’s ability to separate new experiences from painful memories. The researchers also identified broad ...
Aug. 24, 2026 Both too little and too much sleep may be linked to faster aging throughout the body. Researchers analyzing 23 biological aging clocks found the lowest aging levels among people sleeping about 6.4 to 7.8 hours per day. Short or long sleep was also ...
Aug. 23, 2026 Researchers have uncovered a possible reason why the Alzheimer’s risk gene APOE4 can disrupt the brain long before memory problems begin. In mice, APOE4 increased a protein called Nell2, shrinking ...
Aug. 23, 2026 Older adults with mild cognitive impairment and sleep problems who took at least 5,000 IU of vitamin D daily scored more than 13% higher on a cognitive test than those taking none. The preliminary findings suggest vitamin D could be worth studying ...
Aug. 22, 2026 Mice that developed compulsive drinking after alcohol abstinence showed more than double the activity in a brain region associated with stress and addiction. Because the signal appeared before they drank again, researchers think it could eventually ...
Aug. 22, 2026 People who speak several languages may have brains that age more slowly, with four-language speakers showing brains that appeared about 13 years younger than those of monolinguals. Starting earlier and becoming highly fluent were also linked to a ...
Aug. 20, 2026 Ozempic may work in the brain in almost the opposite way scientists expected, activating hunger-linked neurons that appear essential for sustaining fat loss. The surprising discovery in mice could reveal new targets for developing even more ...
Aug. 20, 2026 Specialized brain scans reveal that schizophrenia is linked to widespread loss of the synapses that connect brain cells, with the left side of the brain hit especially hard. The damage follows a surprisingly organized pattern tied to the brain’s ...
Aug. 19, 2026 Researchers have developed a new way to turn ordinary antibodies into tiny disease-fighting molecules that can work inside human cells, potentially opening new paths for treating Alzheimer’s, ...
Aug. 17, 2026 An eight-year Finnish study found that children who spent more time on screens tended to show better cognitive processing as teenagers, challenging common assumptions about screen use. Researchers ...
Latest Headlines
updated 12:56 pm ET
Aug. 25, 2026 A neuroscientist is challenging the idea that the brain contains a central system that actually “makes” our decisions. What we experience as choosing may instead emerge from the continuous ...
Aug. 19, 2026 The brain has a remarkably flexible system for handling uncertainty and changing situations. Researchers found that the frontoparietal cortex constantly shifts how it communicates with other brain ...
Aug. 18, 2026 Traveling electrical waves sweeping across the brain may help determine what we notice, predict what comes next, and construct our internal picture ...
Aug. 18, 2026 Childhood criticism can leave people carrying a fear of failure long into adulthood, but new research suggests those emotional patterns may be surprisingly flexible. Young adults who revisited ...
Aug. 16, 2026 An experimental Alzheimer’s compound prevented damaging protein clumps from forming in the brains of mice, helping nerve cells survive longer and ...
Aug. 16, 2026 Exercise and healthy blood sugar levels in midlife may help slow cognitive decline decades later. Physical activity appeared especially beneficial for Mexican American adults, suggesting that some ...
Aug. 14, 2026 Scientists have discovered that the aging human brain may be far less isolated from the rest of the body than once believed. Stanford researchers found that large numbers of immune cells from the ...
Aug. 14, 2026 A surprising stress-related signal may help the brain repair itself after injury. Researchers found that myelin-producing precursor cells rapidly release the stress hormone CRH near damaged brain ...
Aug. 14, 2026 Women who used estrogen-only hormone therapy later in life were less likely to develop dementia and showed fewer signs of Alzheimer’s disease in their brains, according to a large study of more ...
Aug. 13, 2026 A protein inside appetite-controlling brain cells may play an important role in preventing overeating and obesity, particularly when high-fat foods are readily available. Unexpected differences ...