High-calorie, energy-dense foods are constantly available in our modern society. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Cologne have discovered that a group of nerve cells in the brains of mice ...
Apr 20, 2020
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123
The brain is permanently exposed to new impressions. Even when sleeping, it does not rest and processes recent experiences. In very early childhood, it has been thought that sleep primarily promotes semantic memory. This ...
Apr 7, 2020
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150
After a stroke, there is an increased risk of suffering a second one. If areas in the left hemisphere were affected during the first attack, language is often impaired. In order to maintain this capability, the brain usually ...
Mar 24, 2020
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204
Life expectancy in the USA is no longer rising. This stagnation has long been largely attributed to increasing numbers of drug deaths due to the opioid crisis. But Mikko Myrskylä and colleagues have now shown that deaths ...
Mar 17, 2020
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203
Erythropoietin, or Epo for short, is a notorious doping agent. It promotes the formation of red blood cells, leading thereby to enhanced physical performance—at least, that is what we have believed until now. However, as ...
Mar 9, 2020
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584
In order to understand what another person thinks and how he or she will behave, people must adopt someone else's perspective. This ability is referred to as "theory of mind." Until recently, researchers were at odds concerning ...
Mar 9, 2020
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1035
If the immune system attacks its own body, it can often have devastating consequences: autoantibodies bind to the body's structures, triggering functional disorders. The receptors for glutamate, a neurotransmitter, can also ...
Feb 24, 2020
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773
The left and right sides of the human brain are specialized for some cognitive abilities. For example, in humans, language is processed predominantly in the left hemisphere, and the right hand is controlled by the motor cortex ...
Feb 14, 2020
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1232
If we cross a road with our smartphone in view, a car horn or engine noise will startle us. In everyday life we can easily combine information from different senses and shift our attention from one sensory input to another—for ...
Feb 7, 2020
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368
The size of the human brain increased profoundly during evolution. A certain gene that is only found in humans triggers brain stem cells to form a larger pool of stem cells. As a consequence, more neurons can arise, which ...
Jan 7, 2020
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691
