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Do Brains Operate at a Tipping Point? New Clues and Complications
New experimental results simultaneously advance and challenge the theory that the brain’s network of neurons balances on the knife-edge between two phases.
Brains Speed Up Perception by Guessing What’s Next
Your expectations shape and quicken your perceptions. A new model that explains how that happens also suggests it’s time to update theories about sensory perception and decision making.
Goals and Rewards Redraw the Brain’s Map of the World
Two new studies show that the brain’s navigation system changes how it represents physical space to reflect personal experience.
How the Brain Links Gestures, Perception and Meaning
Neuroscience has found that gestures are not merely important as tools of expression but as guides of cognition and perception.
Neuroscience Readies for a Showdown Over Consciousness Ideas
To make headway on the mystery of consciousness, some researchers are trying a rigorous new way to test competing theories.
Doudna’s Confidence in CRISPR’s Research Potential Burns Bright
Jennifer Doudna, one of CRISPR’s primary innovators, stays optimistic about how the gene-editing tool will continue to empower basic biological understanding.
How the Brain Creates a Timeline of the Past
The brain can’t directly encode the passage of time, but recent work hints at a workaround for putting timestamps on memories of events.
The Brain Maps Out Ideas and Memories Like Spaces
Emerging evidence suggests that the brain encodes abstract knowledge in the same way that it represents positions in space, which hints at a more universal theory of cognition.
A ‘Self-Aware’ Fish Raises Doubts About a Cognitive Test
A report that a fish can pass the “mirror test” for self-awareness reignites debates about how to define and measure that elusive quality.