https://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Navigating the world is no mean feat, especially when the world pushes back. For instance, airflow hitting a fly on its right side can, after a turn, become a headwind. To stay on course, the fly's brain must interpret sensations that constantly shift with each turn of its body. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-brain-reveals-function-unconventional-electrical.html Wed, 21 Jan 2026 16:32:34 EST news688235521 A new study from Karolinska Institutet, published in Nature Communications, reveals how rhythmic brain waves known as alpha oscillations help us distinguish between our own body and the external world. The findings offer new insights into how the brain integrates sensory signals to create a coherent sense of bodily self. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01-brain-1.html Mon, 12 Jan 2026 09:25:11 EST news687432176 Imagine driving a car with a steering that doesn't respond instantly and a GPS that always reflects where you were a second ago. To stay on course, you must constantly infer how to steer the wheel from outdated information. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-12-body-swap-robot-insights-brain.html Thu, 11 Dec 2025 10:38:22 EST news684671882 Humans have long wondered when and how we begin to form thoughts. Are we born with a pre-configured brain, or do thought patterns only begin to emerge in response to our sensory experiences of the world around us? Now, science is getting closer to answering the questions philosophers have pondered for centuries. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-11-human-brains-preconfigured-world-evidence.html Mon, 24 Nov 2025 05:00:13 EST news682947361 Exercise can help reduce the risk of falls—a major cause of injuries in older adults—but only 4% of older Canadian women complete 30 minutes of daily physical activity. As a Ph.D. candidate in health and exercise science at Concordia University, I am interested in developing fun and accessible balance-training programs using online dance classes. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-11-studio-home-falls-older-women.html Wed, 12 Nov 2025 13:37:04 EST news682177021 Newly decoded brain circuits make memories more stable as part of learning, according to a study led by NYU Langone Health researchers. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-10-decoded-circuits-reveal-brain-cell.html Thu, 30 Oct 2025 14:00:06 EDT news680951701 When you lift weights, walk up a steep hill or ride a bike, your body is continuously sending sensory signals to your brain. These signals paint a picture of the physical sensation of what you're doing. Your brain then takes these signals and filters them through your past experience, goals, expectations and current emotional state. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-09-cold-ease-stress-brain-reframe.html Thu, 18 Sep 2025 12:32:04 EDT news677417521 All current local anesthetics block sensory signals—pain—but they also interrupt motor signals, which can be problematic. For example, too much epidural anesthesia can prevent mothers in labor from being able to push. Prolonged local anesthesia after orthopedic surgery can leave patients unable to participate in rehab. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-09-local-anesthetic-doesnt-impair-motor.html Wed, 17 Sep 2025 15:46:03 EDT news677342761 An Adelaide-based research collaboration has identified the specific nerve pathways responsible for relaying pain signals from the bowel to the brain, paving the way for new irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) treatments. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-09-insights-gutbrain-axis-decode-chronic.html Wed, 10 Sep 2025 07:39:04 EDT news676708741 A new study by UT Health San Antonio and Stanford University scientists brings us closer to understanding how the body detects different sensations such as pain, itch and touch. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-08-neuronal-imaging-sensory-real.html Wed, 06 Aug 2025 13:20:01 EDT news673705096 Until now, the sensory neurons inside the tooth were primarily thought to send pain signals to the brain, but a new study shows those neurons are multitaskers that also trigger a jaw-opening reflex that almost instantaneously prevents damage and further injury to teeth. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-07-tooth-nerves-pain-detectors-purpose.html Mon, 28 Jul 2025 10:16:15 EDT news672916570 Researchers at the University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG) have shown how a minimal change in a single ion channel increases the sensitivity of sensory cells in the inner ear. Even soft sounds, such as a whisper, are perceived more clearly, but can cause prolonged overloading, which can ultimately lead to long-term hearing loss. These findings deepen our understanding of how sound information is encoded in the ear. The results have been published in the journal Science Advances. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-06-dysfunction-cellular-calcium-channel-affects.html Fri, 27 Jun 2025 09:47:03 EDT news670236421 Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have discovered clues as to how our bodies turn sensations such as heat and touch into signals sent to the brain—and how these signals can be altered by inflammation to drive pain. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-04-inflammation-nerve-cell-responses-painful.html Wed, 23 Apr 2025 13:04:03 EDT news664632241 Stanford Medicine investigators have replicated, in a lab dish, one of humans' most prominent nervous pathways for sensing pain. This nerve circuit transmits sensations from the body's skin to the brain. Once further processed in the brain, these signals will translate into a subjective experience, including the uncomfortable feeling of pain. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-04-recreating-neural-pathway-dish-pain.html Wed, 09 Apr 2025 11:00:13 EDT news663410627 Beijing Normal University-led researchers have identified specific high-order thalamic nuclei that drive human conscious perception by activating the prefrontal cortex. Their findings enhance understanding of how the brain forms conscious experience, offering new empirical support for theories that assign a central role to thalamic structures rather than cortical areas alone. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-04-thalamic-nuclei-conscious-perception.html Tue, 08 Apr 2025 10:30:02 EDT news663324754 Researchers have discovered that stomach cancers make electrical connections with nearby sensory nerves and use these malignant circuits to stimulate the cancer's growth and spread. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-02-stomach-cancers-electrical-nervous-fuel.html Wed, 19 Feb 2025 11:00:30 EST news659100361 A new mathematical model sheds light on how the brain processes different cues, such as sights and sounds, during decision making. The findings from Princeton neuroscientists may one day improve how brain circuits go awry in neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's, and could help artificial brains, like Alexa or self-driving car technology, more helpful. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-02-neuroscientists-code-decisions-mathematical-framework.html Mon, 10 Feb 2025 09:53:51 EST news658403624 In a new study, scientists at the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology (LIN) and University Hospital Magdeburg demonstrated that the spinal cord is far more than just a transmission pathway that transmits sensory stimuli from the body. Instead, sensory stimuli are processed in the spinal cord before reaching the brain. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-01-highway-spinal-cord-processor-sensory.html Thu, 23 Jan 2025 12:22:04 EST news656857321 The ability to regulate one's own food intake is essential to the survival of both humans and other animals. This innate ability ensures that the body receives the nutrients it needs to perform daily activities, without significantly exceeding calorie intake, which could lead to health problems and metabolic disorders. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-01-neuronal-subtypes-uncovers-parallel-gut.html Tue, 21 Jan 2025 07:00:01 EST news656334041 Why do some people feel itchy after a mosquito bite or exposure to an allergen like dust or pollen, while others do not? A new study has pinpointed the reason for these differences, finding the pathway by which immune and nerve cells interact and lead to itching. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-09-mechanism-underlying-allergic-blocked.html Wed, 04 Sep 2024 11:38:03 EDT news644668681 In a struggle that probably sounds familiar to dieters everywhere, the less a Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) worm eats, the more slowly it loses fat. Now, scientists at Scripps Research have discovered why: a small molecule produced by the worms' intestines during fasting travels to the brain to block a fat-burning signal during this time. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-08-gut-molecule-fat-fasting.html Thu, 22 Aug 2024 10:39:04 EDT news643541941 Chaos may be behind the brain's ability to compute probabilities, according to a new analysis by two neuroscientists at RIKEN. The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-07-chaotic-dynamics-brain-enable-probabilistic.html Thu, 25 Jul 2024 10:50:01 EDT news641122540 In the split second as you accidentally touch the hot handle of a cast iron skillet, pain and a sense of danger rush in. Sensory signals travel from the pain receptors in your finger, up through your spinal cord, and into your brainstem. Once there, a special group of neurons relays those pain signals to a higher brain area called the amygdala, where they trigger your emotional fear response and help you remember to avoid hot skillets in the future. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-07-tools-reveal-neuropeptides-neurotransmitters-encode.html Mon, 22 Jul 2024 12:27:04 EDT news640870021 Researchers have developed tiny, flexible devices that can wrap around individual nerve fibers without damaging them. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-04-robotic-nerve-cuffs-range-neurological.html Fri, 26 Apr 2024 05:00:01 EDT news633267886 The typical job of the proteasome, the garbage disposal of the cell, is to grind down proteins into smaller bits and recycle some of those bits and parts. That's still the case, for the most part, but, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers, studying nerve cells grown in the lab and mice, say that the proteasome's role may go well beyond that. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-04-cell-garbage-disposal-role-neurons.html Fri, 12 Apr 2024 12:36:38 EDT news632144195 You were probably taught that we have five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. This is not quite right: "touch" is not a single sense, but rather several working together. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-03-gentle-molecule-confers-tactile-sensation.html Sat, 02 Mar 2024 14:40:01 EST news628504840 The central (CNS) and peripheral (PNS) nervous system work together to coordinate and regulate the functions of our body in addition to hosting our human intelligence. The CNS is the control center and includes the brain and the spinal cord. While the brain processes information, makes decisions, and sends out instructions, the spinal cord and the associated PNS is the communication highway that carries nerve signals to and from the brain. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-pills-pulses-electrifying-medicine-peripheral.html Thu, 15 Feb 2024 14:49:07 EST news627230941 During decision-making, the human brain essentially accumulates useful information and weighs options until it has enough evidence to choose. Past studies showed that choice-relevant evidence is accumulated in specific parts of the brain's outer layer, known as the cortex, yet the neural mechanisms underlying the final 'selection' of a decision remain poorly understood. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-09-unveils-neural-mechanism-involved-terminating.html Fri, 15 Sep 2023 08:56:56 EDT news613987011 My first experience with motion sickness was as a college student, standing on the back of a marine research vessel looking at interesting things dredged from the seafloor off the California coast. It was a day trip, the weather was good and the sea was calm. I was unaware of the boat's gentle pitching and rolling, instead concentrating on the mud and organisms on a table in front of me. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-motion-sickness-mismatch-brain.html Tue, 11 Apr 2023 14:14:03 EDT news600441241 Our brains are made of billions of neurons, which are connected forming complex networks. They communicate between themselves by sending electrical signals, known as action potentials, and chemical signals, known as neurotransmitters, in a process called synaptic transmission. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-04-photons-neurotransmitters-neurons.html Thu, 06 Apr 2023 11:24:07 EDT news599999040