brain

People can't simulate realistic, internal sensations, like temperature change or pain — which is a reason why more people aren't terrified by climate change, says guest blogger Lisa Feldman Barrett.

When temperatures soar, there's nothing like a frozen treat to take off the edge. But if we dive in too fast, our brains are thrown for a distressing and sometimes painful loop. Here's why.

When we see a familiar face, we know instantly if we can remember that person's name. That's because the human brain has an ability called metamemory. Looks like rats may have that higher power, too.

Surgery that severs the link between brain hemispheres reveals that those halves have way different views of the world. We ask a pioneering scientist what that tells us about human consciousness.

NIH Director Francis Collins and Renée Fleming, who is Artistic Advisor at Large for the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., discuss music and medicine. They also sing a duet.

Sometime between grade school and grad school, the brain's information highways get remapped in a way that dramatically reins in impulsive behavior.

Researchers found that a protein in human umbilical cord plasma improved learning and memory in older mice, but there's no indication it would work in people.

When people have dreams, an area near the back of the brain seems to wake up. And specific patterns of brain activity in that area can even reveal what we're dreaming about.

Researchers following a group of New Zealanders over the course of 40 years found an association between childhood lead exposure and declines in intelligence and socioeconomic status later in life.

A new study suggests that diet had a big influence in driving the evolution of brain size in primates. Monkeys who thrive on fruit have bigger brains than their plant eating neighbors.

Some recent studies in synthetic biology, they say, raise new questions about the ethical limits of creating entities that might feel pain or resemble human embryos — or mimic humans in other ways.

Scientists now have a fairly noninvasive way to test for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare form of dementia. A similar test, they say, might offer earlier diagnoses of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.