Perception News

December 24, 2025

Top Headlines

Parkinson’s Breakthrough Changes What We Know About Dopamine

Dec. 22, 2025 A new study shows dopamine isn’t the brain’s movement “gas pedal” after all. Instead of setting speed or strength, it quietly enables movement in the background, much like oil in an engine. When scientists manipulated dopamine during ...

The 98% Mystery: Scientists Just Cracked the Code on “Junk DNA” Linked to Alzheimer’s

Dec. 19, 2025 Researchers have revealed that so-called “junk DNA” contains powerful switches that help control brain cells linked to Alzheimer’s disease. By experimentally testing nearly 1,000 DNA switches ...

Glowing Neurons Let Scientists Watch the Brain Work in Real Time

Dec. 19, 2025 A new bioluminescent tool allows neurons to glow on their own, letting scientists track brain activity without harmful lasers or fading signals. The advance makes it possible to watch individual brain cells fire for hours, offering a clearer, deeper ...

Neurons Aren’t Supposed to Regrow but These Ones Brought Back Vision

Dec. 19, 2025 After injury, the visual system can recover by growing new neural connections rather than replacing lost cells. Researchers found that surviving eye cells formed extra branches that restored communication with the brain. These new pathways worked ...

Scientists Rewired Down Syndrome Brain Circuits by Restoring a Missing Molecule

Dec. 17, 2025 A missing brain molecule may be disrupting neural wiring in Down syndrome, according to new research. Replacing it in adult mice rewired brain circuits and improved brain flexibility, challenging the ...

Scientists Reveal Why Some Brains Stop Growing Too Soon

Dec. 17, 2025 Researchers used miniature human brains grown in the lab to uncover why certain genetic mutations lead to abnormally small brains. Changes in actin disrupted the orientation of early brain cell divisions, causing crucial progenitor cells to ...

Scientists Reveal a Tiny Brain Chip That Streams Thoughts in Real Time

Dec. 9, 2025 BISC is an ultra-thin neural implant that creates a high-bandwidth wireless link between the brain and computers. Its tiny single-chip design packs tens of thousands of electrodes and supports advanced AI models for decoding movement, perception, ...

Her Food Cravings Vanished on Mounjaro Then Roared Back

Dec. 8, 2025 Deep-brain recordings showed that Mounjaro and Zepbound briefly shut down the craving circuits linked to food noise in a patient with severe obesity. Her obsessive thoughts about food disappeared as the medication quieted the nucleus accumbens, the ...

This Tiny Implant Sends Secret Messages to the Brain

Dec. 8, 2025 Researchers have built a fully implantable device that sends light-based messages directly to the brain. Mice learned to interpret these artificial patterns as meaningful signals, even without touch, sight, or sound. The system uses up to 64 ...

Humans Are Built for Nature Not Modern Life

Dec. 8, 2025 Human biology evolved for a world of movement, nature, and short bursts of stress—not the constant pressure of modern life. Industrial environments overstimulate our stress systems and erode both health and reproduction. Evidence ranging from ...

Scientists Find Hidden Layers in Brain’s Memory Center

Dec. 6, 2025 Scientists uncovered a surprising four-layer structure hidden inside the hippocampal CA1 region, one of the brain’s major centers for memory, navigation, and emotion. Using advanced RNA imaging techniques, the team mapped more than 330,000 genetic ...

Scientists Find Hidden Brain Nutrient Drop That May Fuel Anxiety

Dec. 4, 2025 Researchers found that people with anxiety disorders consistently show lower choline levels in key brain regions that regulate thinking and emotions. This biochemical difference may help explain why the brain reacts more intensely to stress in ...

Latest Headlines

updated 5:36am EST

Hidden Brain Maps That Make Empathy Feel Physical

Dec. 23, 2025 When we watch someone move, get injured, or express emotion, our brain doesn’t just see it—it partially feels it. Researchers found eight body-like maps in the visual cortex that organize what we ...

Are They Really Listening? Watch Their Blinks

Dec. 23, 2025 Your eyes may reveal when your brain is working overtime. Researchers found that people blink less when trying to understand speech in noisy environments, especially during the most important ...

Why Consciousness Exists at All

Dec. 15, 2025 Consciousness evolved in stages, starting with basic survival responses like pain and alarm, then expanding into focused awareness and self-reflection. These layers help organisms avoid danger, learn ...

These Simple Habits Could Make Your Brain 8 Years Younger, Study Finds

Dec. 15, 2025 New research shows that your brain’s “true age” can shift dramatically depending on how you live, with optimism, restorative sleep, stress management, and strong social support acting like ...

Human Brains Light Up for Chimp Voices in a Way No One Expected

Dec. 10, 2025 Humans don’t just recognize each other’s voices—our brains also light up for the calls of chimpanzees, hinting at ancient communication roots shared with our closest primate relatives. ...

New Brain Imaging Breakthrough Reveals Clues to Parkinson’s

Dec. 1, 2025 A high-speed “zap-and-freeze” method is giving scientists their clearest view yet of how brain cells send messages. By freezing tissue at the instant a signal fires, researchers revealed how ...

Scientists Reveal Five Big Moments When Your Brain Dramatically Changes

Dec. 1, 2025 A large study of brain scans shows that our neural wiring evolves through five major stages from birth to late old age. These phases are separated by sudden turning points that mark big shifts in how ...

Scientists Discover a Hidden Brain Circuit That Rewrites Vision

Nov. 30, 2025 MIT scientists found that what we see is strongly influenced by how alert or active we are. Parts of the brain responsible for planning and control send specialized signals that either boost or quiet ...

Why Some Memories Last a Lifetime While Others Fade Fast

Nov. 30, 2025 Scientists have uncovered a stepwise system that guides how the brain sorts and stabilizes lasting memories. By tracking brain activity during virtual reality learning tasks, researchers identified ...

Scientists Uncover the Brain’s Hidden Learning Blocks

Nov. 28, 2025 Princeton researchers found that the brain excels at learning because it reuses modular “cognitive blocks” across many tasks. Monkeys switching between visual categorization challenges revealed ...

Science Says We’ve Been Nurturing “gifted” Kids All Wrong

Dec. 21, 2025 A major international review has upended long-held ideas about how top performers are made. By analyzing nearly 35,000 elite achievers across science, music, chess, and sports, researchers found that ...

A Common Nutrient Deficiency May Be Silently Harming Young Brains

Nov. 27, 2025 Scientists studying young adults with obesity discovered early indicators of brain stress that resemble patterns seen in cognitive impairment. The group showed higher inflammation, signs of liver ...

The Body Trait That Helps Keep Your Brain Young

Nov. 25, 2025 Scientists discovered that more muscle and less hidden abdominal fat are linked to a younger biological brain age. Deep visceral fat appeared to accelerate brain aging, while muscle mass offered a ...

Your Body May Already Have a Molecule That Helps Fight Alzheimer’s

Nov. 27, 2025 Spermine, a small but powerful molecule in the body, helps neutralize harmful protein accumulations linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. It encourages these misfolded proteins to gather into ...

New Nasal Nanodrops Wipe out Brain Tumors in Mice

Nov. 22, 2025 A new nasal-delivered nanotherapy shows promise against aggressive glioblastoma tumors. By activating the STING immune pathway using gold-core spherical nucleic acids, researchers were able to reach ...

A Tiny Enzyme May Hold the Key to Safer Pain Relief

Nov. 23, 2025 Researchers have uncovered a surprising way the brain switches pain on, revealing that neurons can release an enzyme outside the cell that activates pain signals without disrupting normal movement or ...

How to Keep Ozempic/Wegovy Weight Loss Without the Nausea

Nov. 18, 2025 Scientists are uncovering how GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy act on brain regions that control hunger, nausea, pleasure-based eating, and thirst. These discoveries may help create treatments ...

Supercomputer Creates the Most Realistic Virtual Brain Ever

Nov. 18, 2025 Researchers have created one of the most detailed virtual mouse cortex simulations ever achieved by combining massive biological datasets with the extraordinary power of Japan’s Fugaku ...

Scientists Reveal a Hidden Hormone Switch for Learning

Nov. 21, 2025 Researchers uncovered how estrogen subtly reshapes learning by strengthening dopamine reward signals in the brain. Rats learned faster when estrogen levels were high and struggled when the ...

What Brain Scans Reveal About Soccer Fans’ Passion and Rage

Nov. 11, 2025 Researchers scanning soccer fans’ brains found that wins trigger bursts of reward activity while losses dampen control signals. The results show how loyalty and rivalry can override logic, turning ...

A Surprising CBD Advance Calms Pain Without Side Effects

Nov. 18, 2025 Researchers developed a new nano-micelle formulation, CBD-IN, that finally gets CBD into the brain effectively. In mice, it relieved neuropathic pain quickly and didn’t cause the usual movement or ...

A 500-Million-Year-Old Brain "radar" Still Shapes How You See

Nov. 8, 2025 New research shows that the superior colliculus, a primitive brain region, can independently interpret visual information. This challenges long-held beliefs that only the cortex handles such complex ...

MIT Scientists Discover How the Brain Spins Back Into Focus

Nov. 4, 2025 Researchers at MIT’s Picower Institute found that rotating waves of brain activity help restore focus after distractions. In animal tests, these rotations predicted performance: full rotations ...

A Breakthrough Map Reveals How the Brain Really Works

Nov. 5, 2025 Scientists have shown that brain connectivity patterns can predict mental functions across the entire brain. Each region has a unique “connectivity fingerprint” tied to its role in cognition, ...

Alzheimer’s Might Be Powered by a Broken Sleep-Wake Cycle

Nov. 3, 2025 Disrupted sleep patterns in Alzheimer’s disease may be more than a symptom—they could be a driving force. Researchers at Washington University found that the brain’s circadian rhythms are ...

Gum Disease May Quietly Damage the Brain, Scientists Warn

Oct. 29, 2025 People with gum disease may have higher levels of brain white matter damage, a new study finds. Researchers observed that participants with gum disease had significantly more white matter ...

Daily Music Listening Linked to Big Drop in Dementia Risk

Nov. 17, 2025 Older adults who regularly listen to or play music appear to have significantly lower risks of dementia and cognitive decline. The data suggests that musical engagement could be a powerful, enjoyable ...

Humans Evolved Faster Than Any Other Ape

Oct. 29, 2025 UCL scientists found that human skulls evolved much faster than those of other apes, reflecting the powerful forces driving our brain growth and facial flattening. By comparing 3D models of ape ...

Running Fixes What Junk Food Breaks in the Brain

Oct. 21, 2025 New research reveals that exercise counteracts the mood-damaging effects of a Western-style diet through specific gut and hormonal mechanisms. Running restored metabolites tied to mental well-being ...

Brain Fog During Menopause? Here’s What’s Really Going on

Oct. 21, 2025 Menopause brings profound shifts not just in hormones but in the very structure of the brain. Scientists have found that gray matter in regions tied to memory and thinking can shrink, while white ...