When thinking about the necessities for a safe childhood, we often think of visible and measurable things: low crime, stable housing, sufficient income. A new study shows how something more subtle is just as important: how safe a child feels. This subjective experience is not only psychologically relevant, but also visible in the brain.
Can you picture an apple? If the answer is no, you might have aphantasia. New research is shedding new light on to the purpose of visual imagination, helping us understand empathy, memory, and maybe even consciousness itself.
Ramadan is a holy month in Islam, focused on introspection. A key part is fasting between sunrise and sunset. What effect does this have on the brain? Esther Aarts, scientist and research program leader in Nutrition & Cognition, explains.
Learning something new can make old knowledge feel harder to reach, but that doesn’t mean your brain is running out of space.
Neurowetenschap kan de dood niet volledig verklaren, maar ze laat wel zien dat sterven geen abrupt einde is.
New research reveals a surprising connection between gut bacteria and social fear
Do you remember a childhood time when you are tickled? Do you like the sensation of being tickled? Who are the ones who tickled you and who would you like to tickle? Have you tried tickling ourselves? Tickle is a familiar sensation to most of us. Yet, we lack a thorough scientific understanding of tickling. A recent article by Dr. Kilteni from Donders Institute and Karolinska institute looked at the status and the prospect of research on tickling, revealing interesting facts about this underrated subfield in neuroscience.
The brain is an impressively rapid forecaster, completing sentences before they finish, as if informed by a crystal ball. Similar to language models like GPT, it constantly predicts words to come and is sensitive to errors.
A sudden flash of understanding can feel magical. But new research shows that “Aha!” moments are more than just a feeling, they reshape our brains in ways that make those discoveries stick.
When we talk about the human brain, we often picture the adult form – a fully folded cortex, distinct regions, complex circuits, continuous changes and overlapping functions. Yet the story of how this structure emerges is one of the most striking narratives in biology. Early brain development is an orchestrated progression of cellular decisions, migrations, and refinements that begins long before birth and sets the stage for everything that follows.
Feeling safe: the basis for healthy brain development 
When the mind’s eye is blind 
Ramadan: What does fasting do to your brain? 
