Summary: A new study explores how the brain quickly learns and remembers important locations by focusing not on excitatory neurons, but on inhibitory ones called parvalbumin interneurons (PVs). These PVs act like circuit breakers, briefly reducing their activity to allow learning-related neurons to strengthen connections.
Using optogenetics and virtual reality mazes in mice, researchers found that learning was blocked when PV inhibition didn’t decrease at the right time. The findings challenge the idea that more brain activity always equals more learning and could reshape approaches to Alzheimer’s and memory enhancement.
Key Facts:
Dynamic Inhibition: Parvalbumin interneurons reduce activity just before learning moments, allowing memory-related circuits to strengthen.
Predictive Signal: The decrease in inhibition predicted a reward before it occurred, revealing how the brain primes itself for learning.
Clinical Implications: Improper timing of inhibition may explain memory impairments in Alzheimer’s and learning disorders. Source: Georgia Institute of Technology
Summary: New research reveals that nostalgic memories don’t remain emotionally static, they evolve over time. While these memories are typically rich in positive feelings at the time they occur, those feelings tend to fade, making space for rising negative emotions like regret and loneliness.
This bittersweet shift distinguishes nostalgic memories from ordinary ones, which tend to fade more evenly and less emotionally. Despite the emotional complexity, nostalgic memories still evoke more overall positivity than neutral or mundane memories when recalled.
Key Facts:
Emotional Shift: Nostalgic memories become less positive and more negative over time, often intensifying emotions like regret and loneliness.
Psychological Benefits: Despite the bittersweet transformation, nostalgia still promotes self-esteem, social connection, and a sense of meaning.
Unique Trajectory: Unlike neutral or ordinary memories, nostalgic ones do not follow the typical fading affect pattern—they grow more emotionally complex with time.
Source: Neuroscience News
Nostalgia has long been described as “a joy tinged with sadness,” but why do cherished memories sometimes bring tears along with warmth?
A new study explores how the emotional tone of nostalgic memories evolves over time, revealing that the very memories that make us feel most connected can also become more emotionally complex, sometimes bittersweet, as they age.
Researchers from the University of Southampton conducted two experiments to trace how our feelings toward nostalgic memories change from the time an event occurs to when it’s later recalled.
Summary: Mindfulness training can lead to altered states of consciousness, such as disembodiment and unity. Researchers found that participants were twice as likely to experience these states compared to a control group.
While these experiences can be positive, they may also be startling or unpleasant. Mindfulness teachers and students should discuss these potential side effects.
Key Facts:
alltered States: Mindfulness can cause experiences like disembodiment and unity.
Increased Likelihood: Participants were twice as likely to experience these states.
Awareness Needed: Teachers and students should discuss these potential effects.
Source: University of Cambridge
Mindfulness training may lead participants to experience disembodiment and unity – so-called altered states of consciousness – according to a new study from researchers at the University of Cambridge.
The team say that while these experiences can be very positive, that is not always the case. Mindfulness teachers and students need to be aware that they can be a side-effect of training, and students should feel empowered to share their experiences with their teacher or doctor if they have any concerns.
Mindfulness-based programmes have become very popular in recent years. According to recent surveys, 15% of adults in the UK have learnt some form of mindfulness. They are often practised as a way of reducing stress or coping with depression and anxiety.
There is anecdotal evidence that practicing mindfulness can lead to alterations of the senses, self, and body boundaries, some even similar to those induced by psychotropic drugs. READ MORE...
Social Purpose: Consciousness evolved to facilitate social interactions and communication.
Intuition’s Role: Intuitive beliefs shape our understanding of consciousness, often complicating scientific explanations.
Species Benefit: Subjective awareness helps broadcast ideas and emotions, benefiting species survival and wellbeing.
Source:The Conversation
Why did the experience of consciousness evolve from our underlying brain physiology? Despite being a vibrant area of neuroscience, current research on consciousness is characterised by disagreement and controversy – with several rival theories in contention.
A recent scoping review of over 1,000 articles identified over 20 different theoretical accounts. Philosophers like David Chalmers argue that no single scientific theory can truly explain consciousness.
We define consciousness as embodied subjective awareness, including self awareness. In a recent article published in Interalia (which is not peer reviewed), we argue that one reason for this predicament is the powerful role played by intuition.
We are not alone. Social scientist Jacy Reese Anthis writes “much of the debate on the fundamental nature of consciousness takes the form of intuition jousting, in which the different parties each report their own strong intuitions and joust them against each other”. READ MORE...
Summary: A new study finds that altered states of consciousness (ASCs), like those experienced during meditation, are more common than previously thought. 45% of respondents reported experiencing ASCs at least once, often leading to positive outcomes.
However, a significant minority also reported negative or even life-threatening suffering, highlighting the need for better support and understanding of these experiences.
Key Facts:
45% of respondents reported experiencing non-pharmacologically induced ASCs.
ASCs are associated with both positive and negative well-being outcomes.
Many who experience negative outcomes do not seek help.
Yoga, mindfulness, meditation, breathwork, and other practices are gaining in popularity due to their potential to improve health and well-being. The effects of these practices are mostly positive and occasionally transformational, yet they are known to sometimes be associated with challenging altered states of consciousness.
New research by a team including investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, reveals that altered states of consciousness associated with meditation practice are far more common than expected. READ MORE...
A study reveals that experienced meditators are able to voluntarily modulate their state of consciousness during meditation. In other words, they have the unusual ability, without the use of drugs, to induce a momentary void of consciousness during cessations through large-scale modulation of brain activity.
In what situations can a human being lose consciousness? An anesthetization, brain concussion, intoxication, epilepsy, seizure, or other fainting/syncopal episode caused by a lack of blood flow to the brain can cause total loss of consciousness. But can unconsciousness be induced without the use of drugs? READ MORE...
Summary: Appreciating the beauty in the smaller things in everyday life can contribute to a more meaningful existence, a new study reports.
Source: Texas A&M
Appreciating the intrinsic beauty in life’s everyday moments can contribute to a more meaningful existence, according to new research.
In a paper recently published in Nature Human Behavior, Joshua Hicks, a professor in the Texas A&M University Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, says this may be a previously unaccounted for factor tied to perceptions of meaning.
“It might not relate to whether you matter in the grand scheme of things, but we’ve shown people who value the little things, like your cup of coffee in the morning or being mindful in conversations with others, tend to have a high sense of meaning in life,” he said.
Hicks studies existential psychology. Put simply, he aims to understand the “big questions” in life. He describes his main focus as the experience of life—studying people’s subjective feeling that their life has meaning.
Scholars like Hicks generally agree there are three main sources of a subjectively meaningful existence: coherence, or the feeling that one’s life “makes sense”; the possession of clear, long-term goals and sense of purpose; and existential mattering. This last factor, he says, is the belief that one’s actions matter to others.
What Hicks and his co-authors argue in their latest research is that appreciating and finding value in experiences, referred to as experiential appreciation, is a fourth fundamental pathway toward finding meaning in life.
Researchers measured this factor by asking study participants how strongly they identified with statements linked to finding beauty in life and appreciating a wide variety of experiences.
They were also asked to recall the most meaningful event of the past month, among other questions, with the goal of measuring experiential appreciation. Hicks described this series of experiments in a recent article he co-authored for Scientific American.
In each case, the results confirmed the original theory that appreciating small moments can make for a more meaningful life. READ MORE...
A research group from the University of Bologna discovered the first causal evidence of the double dissociation between what we see and what we believe we see: these two different mechanisms derive from the frequency and amplitude of alpha oscillations.
“If I don’t see it, I don’t believe it”, people say when they want to be certain of something. But are what we see and what we believe we see the same thing?
A new study published in the journal Current Biology shows that this is not the case: despite their usual strong correlation, the perceptual accuracy of visual information and its subjective interpretation use separate neural mechanisms that can be manipulated independently of each other.
The study—led by researchers from the University of Bologna together with Bologna AUSL (Local Health Authority) and the University of Glasgow (UK) – showed for the first time that the two mechanisms involved are related on the one hand to the frequency of alpha oscillations and, on the other hand, to their amplitude.
Alpha oscillations are pervasive neural oscillations in the posterior visual cortex linked to attention and concentration. This is the first causal evidence of the double dissociation between what we see and what we believe we see. These findings may prove useful to develop new treatments for the neurological and psychiatric populations with altered cognitive experiences. READ MORE...
