Category: Brain
Blood Transfusions May Accelerate Alzheimer’s Progression
New research shows that blood from older animals can speed up Alzheimer’s-related changes in the brain, while young blood may slow them down. In a long-term experiment, mice engineered to develop Alzheimer’s symptoms received weekly blood infusions from either young or old donors.
Positive Imagining Changes the Brain in Seconds
Vividly imagining a positive interaction with someone can increase how much you like them — and even alter how your brain stores information about that person. During imagined encounters, participants developed stronger preferences, and brain scans revealed activity patterns similar to those seen when people learn from real rewarding experiences.
Stick to the plan. Key Brain Protein Controls How We Learn Reward Cues
Changing levels of the brain protein KCC2 can alter how reward associations form, reshaping the learning process that links cues to outcomes. Reduced KCC2 activity increased dopamine neuron firing and strengthened new cue–reward connections, offering insight into how addictions and maladaptive habits develop.
How the Brain Interprets Sarcasm, Tone, and Hidden Meaning
A large study of 800 adults shows that pragmatic language skills—the ability to understand sarcasm, indirect requests, tone, and nonliteral meaning—organize into three distinct cognitive clusters. These clusters draw on social-rule knowledge, understanding of how the physical world works, and sensitivity to speech intonation.
Blinking Drops When We Strain to Hear Speech
People blink less when working harder to understand speech in noisy environments, suggesting that blinking is tightly linked to cognitive effort. Across two experiments, blink rates consistently dropped during key moments of listening, especially when background noise made speech difficult to process.
