Cortex News and Research

RSS

Gambling disorder alters the brain's control and reward systems

A new doctoral dissertation shows that gambling disorder is linked to brain networks involved in self-control and brain reward functions.

21 Jan 2026

The neuroscience of motivation-driven memory retention

Researchers from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine), and Duke University have proposed a neuroscience framework explaining how different types of motivation fundamentally reshape what and how the brain remembers.

21 Jan 2026

Deep brain region could be crucial for preserving physical strength during aging

A new study suggests that a little-known region deep in the brain could be crucial for preserving physical strength as we age. The findings could help detect and prevent frailty before it begins.

13 Jan 2026

Single-cell analysis reveals gene disruptions in early-onset Alzheimer's brain regions

A new study led by researchers at UTHealth Houston investigated both gene expression and regulation at single cell levels to reveal disruptions in gene function in three brain regions of patients with sporadic early onset Alzheimer's disease.

13 Jan 2026

Brain immune cells drive persistent negative emotions after repeated binge drinking

New research has identified that neuroinflammation driven by microglia (immune cells in the brain) is a primary underlying driver of prolonged negative feelings caused by repeated, sustained binge drinking (binge exposure).

12 Jan 2026

New insights into how rhythmic brain waves create a coherent sense of bodily self

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.

12 Jan 2026

Study uncovers a neural brake that limits motivation during unpleasant situations

Most of us know the feeling: maybe it is making a difficult phone call, starting a report you fear will be criticized, or preparing a presentation that's stressful just to think about.

9 Jan 2026

Unveiling IDH-mutant glioma's roots: A new path for early diagnosis

IDH-mutant glioma, caused by abnormalities in a specific gene (IDH), is the most common malignant brain tumor among young adults under the age of 50.

8 Jan 2026

How neural circuits orchestrate facial expressions

When a baby smiles at you, it's almost impossible not to smile back. This spontaneous reaction to a facial expression is part of the back-and-forth that allows us to understand each other's emotions and mental states.

8 Jan 2026

Scientists discover how stem cells navigate and repair brain damage after stroke

Some parts of our bodies bounce back from injury in fairly short order. The outer protective layer of the eye-called the cornea-can heal from minor scratches within a single day.

8 Jan 2026

Charting brain cell epigenomics to reveal origins of psychiatric disorders

In a revealing Genomic Press Interview published today in Genomic Psychiatry, Dr. Maria Margarita Behrens recounts an extraordinary scientific journey that wound through four countries and multiple disciplines before arriving at fundamental questions about how the brain develops and what goes wrong in psychiatric disorders.

6 Jan 2026

Small shifts in blood sodium may influence human brain excitability

This exploratory study in healthy young adults found that plasma sodium levels within the normal clinical range are significantly associated with resting motor threshold, an indirect measure of corticospinal excitability. Lower sodium concentrations were linked to lower thresholds, suggesting subtle physiological variation in electrolytes may relate to interindividual differences in brain excitability.

1 Jan 2026

Biomimetic brain modeling mirrors animal learning and neural dynamics

A new computational model of the brain based closely on its biology and physiology not only learned a simple visual category learning task exactly as well as lab animals, but even enabled the discovery of counterintuitive activity by a group of neurons that researchers working with animals to perform the same task had not noticed in their data before, said a team of scientists at Dartmouth College, MIT, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

30 Dec 2025