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May 24, 2013 Itch can be a useful warning sign, or a maddening symptom with no cure. But the origins of itch have long been a mystery. Scientists think they've come closer to understanding the origins of itch in a molecule that makes mice scratch like mad.

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April 19, 2013 Tylenol may relieve more than physical pain; it may dull existential aches, too. Researchers say their work is consistent with a growing body of research that suggests the brain processes physical and emotional pain in similar ways.

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April 11, 2013 Researchers say they can measure how much pain someone is experiencing and even watch as prescription painkillers relieve it. The scanning technique could help doctors treat pain better, but the work is also fraught with questions about how the technology could interfere with the relationship between doctors and patients.

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April 4, 2013 Philosophers, poets and psychologists have long shared a fascination with dreams. Now Japanese scientists have scanned the brains of dreaming volunteers to create a lexicon of imagery that can be used to detect and decode dreams while a person sleeps.

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March 22, 2013 Is "neuroscience care" a new kind of care? A new medical speciality? Or a new kind of marketing? Commentator Alva Noë says: don't believe the hype.

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March 18, 2013 Some people with a rare neurological condition known as synesthesia can taste shapes or smell color. And when these people work in the food industry, it can radically redefine flavor profiles. (Blue wine? Moss-flavored cotton candy?)

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March 7, 2013 For more than a century, neurons have been the superstars of the brain. Now researchers say that when they placed human versions of another type of brain cell into mice brains, the mice grew up to be faster learners. This supports the hypothesis that these glial cells — and not just better-known neurons — play an important role in learning.

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March 6, 2013 Scientists are beginning to understand how people focus on a single voice in a crowded, noisy room. This ability, known as the "cocktail party effect," appears to rely on areas of the brain that have completely filtered out unwanted sounds.

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January 31, 2013 You're watching the Super Bowl, and on the screen flashes a number to text a $10 donation for brain research. This hasn't happened yet, but as the big event nears, commentator Barbara J. King asks how should we react to the Super Bowl in light of the link between repetitive brain injuries and degenerative brain disease.

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January 10, 2013 Neuroscientists have found that bilingual seniors were better at certain skills that can fade with age than their monolingual peers, which could help protect them against Alzheimer's disease. But the researchers don't know whether learning a second language in adulthood would provide the same benefit.

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December 13, 2012 Communing with nature has long helped artists get their creative juices flowing. A neuroscientist wondered how backpacking trips without any electronic devices might change the way people solved problems.

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December 7, 2012 We are fascinated by pictures of the brain produced by new imaging technologies. Alva Noë reminds us that these pictures are not images of the brain in action; they are not pictures of the mind at work. They are bits of theory.

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November 23, 2012 What made Einstein a genius? Maybe his weirdly curvy brain had something to do with it. Scientists have recently analyzed photos from the 1950s to try to figure out what made the genius tick.

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November 8, 2012 When we listen to a new musical phrase, it is the parts of the brain that control muscle movement, not areas involved in hearing, that help us remember what we've heard. Keeping the notes in order is a little like getting your muscles to move at the right time.

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October 17, 2012 New research suggests that by the time an Alzheimer's patient is diagnosed, many key neurons are already dead. Neuroscientists say it's possible that several recent trials of drugs for Alzheimer's have failed because the drugs were given after symptoms had already started to appear.

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