Room for dessert? I don’t have room to breathe! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Even after dinner, your brain still craves sugar. Why? Enter Marielle Minère and team at Max Planck Institute. They discovered a brain circuit connecting fullness with sugar cravings. These neurons
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Don’t come any closer! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. People with psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, tend to need more personal space. Why? Enter, Louis Vinke and team at Massachusetts General Hospital. They recruited healthy adults and participants diagnosed with schizophrenia. While participants watched
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*sniff sniff* Smells…noisy? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Is there a link between smell and sound? Enter Diego Hernandez and team at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. They trained mice to associate high-pitched SOUNDS with WATER rewards, and fruity SMELLS with NO reward. When the
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Neuroscience goes punk? I’m a teenage lobotomy! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. No one wants to leave from their brain scan looking like Joey Ramone! But that bulky headgear for electroencephalograms is a guaranteed bad hair day. How can we make E-E-G’s … cooler
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Click click! Brain selfie! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Diagnosing mental health disorders takes a VILLAGE of experts and medical tests. Despite progress, diagnoses are still taken with a BRAIN of salt. How can we do better? Enter Spencer Kinsey and team from Georgia
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Can we save memories before they slip away? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Alzheimer’s kills brain cells, leading to memory loss and confusion. How can we stop this destruction? Marta Koper and the team at University Hospital Leuvenin Belgium may have found a hidden
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Music as medicine?! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Has a song ever moved you to tears? Music’s emotional impact has inspired researchers from Shanghai to explore its potential to treat depression. They focused on its ability to activate brain circuits connected to emotion and
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Lights, camera… neural action! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science saying… What is your brain actually doing while you watch a movie? Reza Rajimehr at MIT observed brain activity in two hundred people watching film clips. Why? To understand how our brains process information from
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In a food coma after too much holiday fressing? This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Researchers at the University of Manchester, lead by Dennis Burdakov, can explain. When we’re hungry, we have low levels of glucose in our bloodstream and brain. That activates tiny proteins
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Bad night’s sleep? Try a HEAD RUSH! This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Rapid eye movement – or REM – sleep is important not only for dreaming, but our mental health too. Does that mean we NEED to dream? Enter Chia-Jung Tsai and colleagues at
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